Neil Lasher, managing director of Trainer1 - one of the UK’s independent e-learning consultancy and development specialists - has published ’The four ’A’s of Learning’, a new model of instructional design (ID). In this model, Lasher has encapsulated the lessons of 20 years of designing e-learning and related materials to produce a model for ID specifically relating to task-based and workflow e-learning.
Lasher commented: In 2005, Birskin reported that the biggest priority for learning was to align with business strategy. To reach this goal, a shift is required in the approach we take to ’train’ staff.
This shift involves predicting learners’ needs, selecting the most useful content and delivering this as informal and workflow learning, he continued. Yet, until now, a valid ID model for informal and workflow e-learning did not exist.
Lasher’s Learning Model comprises four key areas.
Attraction: to draw the user in, engage them and leave them satisfied. It also ensures the user will want to use this learning intervention instead of another.
Attention: Previous models have focused on how to get the user’s attention. This model shifts the focus to the content.
Availability: ensures the content is up-to-date and always retrievable. As Albert Einstein once said: It’s not what you know, but knowing where to find it.
Application: drives the motivation to use the new information. The most important stage of the learning intervention design is to entice the user to apply what they have gained in knowledge to a real life situation.
Based on this model, Lasher is running a two-day course - at venues in the UK and the USA - called ’More than Instructional Design’. For dates and times of these courses, visit www.trainer1.com/trainer1_training_instructional_design_course.html or contact Trainer1 on 00 44 (0) 20 7264 4844.
Neil Lasher publishes new instructional design model
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