The ultimate goal of the organization is not to build a course. Instead, the goal is to satisfy some kind of need for performance. And in this sense, the e-learning course is a solution to achieve the goal.
And this is where e-learning often falls down.
Effective training programs successfully meet learning objectives that are not vague and immeasurable. Moreover, e-learning is usually only part of the overall training program. So that’s not the end goal.
I am often asked how to build better eLearning. From my perspective, many of the courses I see are not very good. There are various reasons for this, but the main reason is that the courses share so much content that they create the illusion that they are complete. But they are usually full of content and not tied to any meaningful goals. Therefore, they usually do not bring any tangible benefit to the organization.
If you haven’t seen it, here’s an interesting article that places much of the blame on training for the organization’s $8 billion loss rate. Is it fair to blame training? I don’t know But the thing to consider for those of us in training is that we need to be aware of perception and ensure that our programs are designed to actually meet the objectives.
When designing eLearning courses, we need to think about the overall goal of the training program and design our courses to meet that goal. Too often I see courses that are nothing more than glorified and interactive PowerPoint slides. These courses may be fine if the only goal is to provide information, but if the goal is actually to change behavior or improve performance, then these types of courses are doomed to failure.
The bottom line is that a course is only as good as the goals for which it was designed. If you’re not sure what the goals of your training program are, you need to go back to the drawing board. But if you have a clear understanding of the goals, then you can design a course that will actually help your organization meet those goals.
And that’s a challenge for many of us who build courses. We build a lot of content that we call e-learning. But does what we build contribute to success? How do you know?
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