Emergent Instruction

Integrating design thinking into your instructional design process can increase the effectiveness of training through the creation of meaningful learning experiences for participants. Whether you are designing instruction using a waterfall approach like ADDIE, or an agile approach like SAM, you can use principles of design thinking to improve learning outcomes. One method that you can use is Empathy Mapping. I'll introduce it here, and then in a follow-up post, I'll share the full activity that you can try on your next project. It is an easy way to begin integrating design thinking into your current process. What is Design-thinking? Design Thinking is a human-centered approach to problem-solving for complex problems. There is an emphasis on using empathy to understand the needs of the user and clearly define the problem. Design thinking in practice, much like the scientific method, is a non-linear approach that leads to rapid information-gathering, idea-generation, and hypo...

Oh oh, it's a list! Don't you love when articles are lists? Here are a few little facilitation tricks that I like to employ regularly to maintain participant focus and engagement. Most of these are straight-up classroom management 101. They work in most situations and are worth trying in any situation. Regardless, I'll explain in italics the contexts/settings I find that they may not work. 1. Move Around This one won't work if you are confined to a stage or a podium with a microphone, or in a tight theatre-like setting.  Are you standing in one place, giving a lecture? Are you physically able to move around, amongst those you are instructing? By god, move! When I have to lecture, I always make sure to move around the room, sometimes to an excessive degree. It keeps them awake; they must continually turn to see where I am in the room. It also helps to convey a sense of excitement about what I am saying. They are less likely to check-out.  2. Us...