(Train-the-Trainer Series)

Every good trainer knows that a single good training game can  salvage the most boring of training programs. However, what irks a trainer most is that it’s next to impossible to find a game that can boast of a holistic relevance to the training program. The absolutely right fit – the game of a trainer’s dreams is never there,  ready and ripe for the picking.  A game that fits everything – the audience profile, the content, the training format, and even the trainer’s personality is never available off the shelf; it has to be designed.

“Designing Training Games – The Challenges and the Rewards” helps you understand what a game, especially a training game, is.  It also helps you differentiate a training game from the other types of training activities and enables you to identify the two core dimensions of a game – amusement and learning, and helps you orient your design capabilities towards the creation of a training game.

(This is the first article in this series. Others will follow.)

Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Howard Gardner reviewed the existing definition of intelligence and broadened it to explain intelligence as “a set of abilities” used to resolve problems within a given cultural context. Thus, he moved away from the viewpoint that intelligence is general and universal.

Gardner listed the following 7 intelligences.

1. Musical Intelligence
2. Kinesthetic Intelligence
3. Mathematical/Logical Intelligence
4. Spatial Intelligence
5. Linguistic Intelligence
6. Intrapersonal Intelligence
7. Interpersonal Intelligence

As you can see, Gardner named the intelligences really well and they readily explain themselves. You can also see how his 7 intelligences enable us to look beyond the IQ model of intelligence. There are many of Gardner’s intelligences that cannot be tested in the usual IQ test. Thus, a person of average IQ (85-115) could become a best of singers, or even a great cricketer; and another person with an IQ greater than 130, could grow up tone-deaf.

Gardner’s intelligences relate well to Prodigies (Kaifi Azmi wrote his first ghazal at the age of 11,) and Savants (Cityscape artist Stephen Wiltshire was diagnosed as Autistic at the age of 3, he can remember and create drawings with incredibly accurate details). A prodigy’s exceptional ability (talent) in one specific area as compared to his moderate abilities in all other areas could be explained by the multiple intelligences theory.  Similarly a savant who has his/her other intelligences underdeveloped may display exceptional talent in a specific area, can also have his intelligence explained through this theory.

The biggest limitation of Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences is the lack of measurability (which isn’t the case with IQ or Intelligence Quotient.)

Read the short story “Octavian’s Fury” and try to answer the questions given at the end of the story.  You’ll notice that Octavian makes a strong case for the theory of multiple intelligences.

And now, over to Coffeebeans the Pup

(Yes, I borrowed the cartoon from Octavian’s story. I hope he won’t mind.)

Reflection Activity:

1. Which of the 7 intelligences listed by Howard Gardner could be of help to an instructional designer?
2. Which of the above 7 intelligences dominate your personality?

Also read about the role of an instructional designer who develops e-learning content. If you read both these articles, you will have a clear understanding of what the role requires.

I would like to thank all the participants for taking out time to send me their thoughts and their experiences with the course they took with me. Having spent two months together, learning to make learning fun, and having fun while doing so – brings us all closer -knitting us into a cognitive fellowship. I am happy that you all decided to take my courses, thus creating this opportunity for all of us to come together, interact, and learn from one-another. I know that every one of my audience will blend their knowledge and skill of instructional design with their own methods of imparting learning to create courses and conduct training programs that will wow their respective audiences

I wish you all the best for your future, and thanks once again.

- Shafali

The Six Levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy classifies cognitive learning into six ascending levels.

• Level 1: Knowledge
• Level 2: Comprehension
• Level 3: Application
• Level 4: Analysis
• Level 5: Synthesis
• Level 6: Evaluation

As the levels move up, the mental processing required for achieving these levels of learning too increases.

Here’s a quick look at each of these levels.

Please note that the posts in the IDEAL section of this eZine attempt to address the instructional concepts at Knowledge/Comprehension levels (refer to BL1/BL2 above), so I am going to stop short of illustrating the use of Bloom’s taxonomy in content creation. However, a quick explanation of each of the six levels is in order, so here I go.

BL1 – Knowledge Level

This level is associated with pure recall of information. Whatever goes in, comes out – is the core principle that governs learning at this level.

BL2 – Comprehension Level

Comprehension level learning is characterized by a change in the form of information/knowledge. Thus, at this level the learner is able to (understand and hence,) explain his learning in his/her own words.

BL3 – Application Level

This is that level of learning at which the learner can use his/her learning to accomplish a given task. Note that at BL3, whatever is learned is applied to arrive at an expected/predefined outcome.

BL4 – Analysis Level

At this level, the learner goes beyond mere application, and acquires the capability to break an issue into its components and study the relationships between different the different components.

BL5 – Synthesis Level

At Synthesis level, the learner becomes capable of modifying the knowledge (for instance, a process) to arrive at a solution. Thus, all kinds of decision-making, creation, innovation, invention, etc. require Synthesis level learning.  (Do you see how Synthesis level is different from Application level?)

BL6 – Evaluation Level

At this level the learner acquires the ability to judge qualitatively. Thus, while a learner at BL5 acquires the capability of making a decision, at BL6 he becomes capable to evaluating the effectiveness of such decisions.

Reflection Activity:

Dig out any old course/training that you had either designed, conducted, or participated in. Review the Bloom’s Levels of its Training Goal and Objectives, and then review the design of the training.

1. Did the training help the learners reach the promised Bloom’s level (of the Training Goal)? If not, why?
2. Where did the problem lie?  Did it lie in writing the objectives or in the design of the training program?

His bed was set against the window. The caretaker had laughed when he said that he liked to look outside his window the first thing in the morning. “You don’t know what’s outside that window or you won’t be so sure,” the grizzly old man had said in a voice that shook with age, and with mirth. Vineet hadn’t understood him then as it was dark outside, but the next morning he did. Outside his window, across the road, was the municipal garbage dump. Fortunately, it wasn’t spilling over…and it wasn’t…well, it wasn’t all that near for the stench to float in. Vineet knew that he was rationalizing but he had other things to worry about – for instance, his new job.

That was last week. In a week his worries had changed form.

Today was Sunday, and Vineet had spent almost the whole day in bed. In the evening, he had somehow managed to inspire himself enough to read a novel. It was an earlier work of Ken Follett called “The Hammer of Eden.” He had just begun to lose himself in the novel when Raju, the boy who worked in the chummery’s kitchen came in with the evening tea, and brought Vineet back into the cruel real world.  He smiled at the boy, took the tea and put the book face down upon his table.

The concept in the novel intrigued him. The book with the story of a Hippie commune’s struggle to keep their way of life, which was being threaten by the construction of a new dam. A way of life that Vineet couldn’t understand, but he believed that those Hippies had the right to live, as they wanted to. They had the right to choose – quite the way Vineet to had the right to choose. Yet, despite having been given the right to live the way he wanted to, there were things…little things that you couldn’t explain, but that left a bitter after-taste that would take days to go away.

You couldn’t put your finger on these things. You couldn’t complaint to anyone about these things, but they happened all the time. Last Saturday, the group of women that stood near the vending machine giggling, fell silent when they saw him. Then they began to talk in hushed voices. And then yesterday, when everyone was leaving for the project party, it happened again. He and four others were supposed to leave in Prashant’s car, which meant three people had to ride in the rear seat. Anirudh had got in first, followed by Vineet. This obviously meant that Raj had to sit next to Vineet. He paused, looked at Vineet, and then said, “I’ll ask Jacob to lend me his bike – we’ll all be uncomfortable otherwise,” and he slammed the door shut. Everyone sort of understood – nobody said a word.

Vineet took the last sip from his cup and picked up the novel again. He wanted to trade his real world with the fictitious world of the Hippie commune – at least they could share their troubles with one another. He wanted to escape this unfeeling but meddling real world where a person couldn’t choose to be what he wanted to be! But Vineet couldn’t concentrate on the book; and he was beginning to get a headache. He let the book fall from his hands and began to rub his temples. Sometimes a tiny mistake can continue to hound you for a long time – it doesn’t allow you peace or rest – it nibbles away at your energy…and it corrodes your happiness. Vineet knew that he too did a mistake, and unfortunately there was no way that he could set it right.

One of the reasons why he had joined this organization was their anti-discrimination policy, which meant that he couldn’t be discriminated against because he was gay. In fact, they had these workshops for the new recruits where they emphasized that any kind of discrimination had to be reported. Unfortunately, there was no way you could pin down such incidents on anyone – could you?

When Vineet had first told his parents and his sister that he was gay, he had expected an outburst. In fact, he was pleasantly surprised to see that they had expected it quite calmly. The storm that he had expected never came. Even his childhood friend Reema, who he knew was sweet on him, had held his hand and said, “I had expected this all along. I am happy that you have the courage to talk about it. It doesn’t change anything for me. You will always remain my best friend.

Perhaps, his family’s and Reema’s unconditional acceptance had made Vineet over-confident. Perhaps that was the reason why he openly spoke about his being gay, to his other male colleagues, when they were summing up the assets of one of their women colleagues, and when they asked him why he was such a prude.

Perhaps, Vineet thought, it isn’t easy to change an established mindset. They had all attended the training together, and he remembered that most of them had said that a person’s sexual orientation wouldn’t bother them at all. Yet, they were the same people who said and did things that made him feel like an outcast. He’d be a lot happier if they were indifferent to him – he preferred indifference to the veiled hostility that made him want to disappear!

Questions that you may want to ponder upon:

• Which incidents illustrate discrimination?
• Why were Vineet’s parents, sister, and friend, more accepting than his colleagues?
• Why didn’t the anti-discrimination awareness training leave any impression on the employees of Vineet’s company?

Trainings that promise to help people give up their bad habits aren’t all that easy on the trainer, as Froth discovers during and Anger Management training program.

Click to view larger image.

What’s your take?

According to the Webster’s dictionary that sits on my desk, Aleatoric means, “characterized by chance of indeterminate elements.”

Aleatoric Creativity:

Aleatoric creativity thus, must mean something that’s the complete antithesis of the kind of creativity required for instructional design, which has to adhere to the instructional framework in order to generate value.

According to this Wikipedia entry on Aleatoricism, the term’s roots can be traced to the latin word “alea”, which means the roll of a dice. Thus, all aleatoric techniques employ the principle of randomness or chance. The Aleatoric methods (where the direction of the creative thought is determined by chance,) are best suited for art, music, and poetry; where creativity doesn’t have to obtain a pre-determined goal by reaching different objectives that have been distilled from the goal.

Let us see how Coffeebeans illustrates Aleatoric Creativity

Aleatoric vs. Stochastic:

While these two term may appear similar in meaning, they actually are different. While Aleatoric work is “based on the roll of dice/pure chance” stochastic work has a logical basis, but may sometimes have a random/unpredictable outcome. A good example of a stochastic process is the practice of medicine. Different patients may react differently to the same medicine. By the same argument, instructional design processes too can be called stochastic processes, where the eventual learning outcome may depend upon how the audience may react to the content.

This oft-repeated question requires a detailed answer. Whether you are a technical writer, an elearning content developer, or a trainer;  you need to understand how the knowledge and application of instructional design could strengthen your skill-base and help you establish yourself as true content professional.

It’s easy to see the connection if we understand what these terms mean and how they relate to learning. The article, “eLearning, Instructional Design, Technical Writing, And Training – The Maze of Hidden Relationships“, attempts to explain elearning, technical writing, and training and explores their relationship with instructional design.

I hope you will find this article useful

Previous Posts in this series:

• The Anatomy of an eLearning Course
• The Creators of an eLearning Course
• An Enigma called the eLearning Project Manager
• The Mysterious Subject Matter Expert
• The Apparently Omnipotent Instructional Designer
• Instructional Design Reviewer – The Unsung Hero of eLearning Development

The Language Editor – The Perfectionist

Most eLearning organizations employ full-time language editors whose job is to ensure that the language used in a course remains grammatically correct, culturally appropriate, and that it follows the language standards prescribed by the client.

Why We need Editors?

Most Indians study English as a second language. Our mother tongue, which is usually the regional language of the area that we come from, is what we use in our every day communication. However, most of our official communication is done in English. This means that while the content developers are fairly proficient in the use of English and can write reasonably well, their language has traces of what has come to be known as Indianisms. Since we develop a lot of content for American and British clients, it’s important that before the content is developed into an eLearning course and delivered to the client, these Indianisms are removed and the content is checked for other Grammar/language usage issues.

I believe that an editor’s selection should be based on the following parameters.

1. Experience in editing content, and the language focus ( for instance, American English vs. British English)
2. Attention to Detail (and hence the capability to also detect typos and other such slips.)
3. Ability to correct the language without changing the flow of the content and its meaning.
4. Knowledge of the way language is written and spoken by the audience of the content.
5. Mentoring Attitude (quite like the ID Reviewer, an editor too should have the willingness to provide constructive criticism and guidance to the instructional designer whose work she reviews.)

What should an editor correct?

Following are the essential focus areas for any language editor.

• Grammar
• Spelling (American vs. British)
• Writing Style (includes sentence construction, flow of language, use of similes and metaphors etc.)
• Conformance to the language standard prescribed by the client (for example, many clients prescribe the Chicago Manual of Style as the standard to be adhered to for language.)
• Cultural nuances (idioms, sayings, popular phrases etc.)

Thus, while an instructional designer/content writer’s primary focus is on instructional effectiveness, the editor’s focus is on the language. In other words, while the Instructional Designer’s job is to mine the diamonds, the editor is the one who polishes them