One of the main challenges of the teacher is to capture the attention of the students generating valuable learning. How to achieve it from instructional design?
Instructional design is a process whose objective is to create the instruction that will generate the learning experience, guides the resources for the generation of educational content, its corresponding learning and evaluation activities.
Capture the attention of students from the instructional design
Here are some “golden rules” that will contribute to the development of your courses when defining the instructional design, capturing the attention of your students from the beginning:
- Content sequencing:it is a very important part of instructional design. Sequencing organizes the set of concepts and tasks through the hierarchical organization of content.
It establishes “a bridge” between the objectives and the contents to be learned by the student. Consider a striking introduction that provides the value of the course content from the beginning.
Key: The purpose of this action is to select, sequence and organize the topics in a way that facilitates optimal acquisition, retention and transfer of concepts to students.
- Personalization of the course:avoid generic instructional designs, try to create a personalized design for the course, taking into account: learning theories, educational modality, characteristics of the students, etc.
Avoid generalizations, which will prevent the reproduction of instructional designs from one course to another, which hinder student learning and complicate the acquisition of knowledge.
Key: each course is different, make your own “instructional design”.
- Gamification elements:these elements are usually effective when they are framed by an e-Learning activity. Karl Kapp, an important reference in gamification today, highlights that gamification is student-centered because it adjusts to her needs.
To create valuable gamification experiences, I suggest you identify the mechanics of the game to be developed and its structure. This should maximize student motivation without distracting them from the topic.
Key: There must be a challenge, problem, or obstacle that the students overcome in order to get their reward: badges, points, etc. This creates interactivity in content delivery.
- Dynamism in the content:another way to capture the attention of the students is that the content is published using different forms, formats and structures, you can consider:
- Microlearningor microlearning: you can use it for both formal training and performance intervention
- Active learning with guided exploration
- Scenario-based learning – this includes interactive videos and complex branching simulations
- Storytelling: story-based learning
Key : This gives students the flexibility to learn “on the go” using different devices and dynamically acquiring concepts.
- Space for orientation and practice:you can provide orientation guides that help students in the learning process such as:
- hints and hints as they progress through the content
- scenarios to relate to real life situations
- Guide to examples and non-examples of the topic studied
- analogies and metaphors for understanding complex topics
An essential factor in learning is the “internalization” of content and information, you can develop an evaluation strategy that promotes the “implementation” of the skills and knowledge that the student must acquire, from understanding to application.
Key: Feedback and guidance is necessary for students to know where they are and how they can improve their performance.