With the advancement of technology, there are many different methodologies and models available to develop training materials in the e-learning world. But ADDIE is undoubtedly the most popular among all. If you are new to the industry, I will introduce you to streamlining ADDIE and the necessary steps to build effective training programs through my blog.
ADDIE is an instructional design methodology that offers a step-by-step framework to assess training as well as educational materials. It was the first instructional design model to be developed, and is still used globally to teach instructional design. The ADDIE model involves five phases: -Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. The designer can evaluate and modify at any point during the process while working to obtain the best results.
Let’s discuss the five steps of the ADDIE process.
Analysis
Here you need to examine the present conditions concerning training, resources, skills gaps, and other elements. After analyzing, you then need to discover the desired goal. In this phase, there should be a proper audit of an audience, business goals, media types, training resources, and so on. Once this is completed, you can create a training plan that deals with the - What, Where, Who, When, How, and Why. Your training plan will seek ways to attain your business goals during training.
Design
In this step, you will begin to set learning objectives, design systems, course plans, durations, feedback, and resources. Take a logical approach with a review system and editing process so that courses fit your business goals. You can make a prototype or blueprint so that you can easily communicate with your partners for discussions.
Development
Now you will start creating the courses with the guidance of your prototype or blueprints. Each aspect should be developed based on the design stage. Here you need web developers, graphic designers, and programmers to choose colors, fonts, and graphics to present courses in a style that will resonate with viewers. You must check that there are no basic errors in spelling, grammar, syntax, and navigation after the completion of course. Testing, of course, does not mean simple copy editing; it means to check the accuracy of content as well as the utility of navigation in a systematic way.
Implementation
After completing and testing, it’s time to share your course with a learner. Here you will have a chance to see how learners respond; observe their inspections, issues, and any notes to see where a focus is required. In most cases, the courses are uploaded to the Learning Management System (LMS) and all delivery options such as the collection of feedback, time, and passing marks for assessment are automatically saved within the platform.
Evaluation
So how do your courses fare? You would not be able to know that without this step. Use cumulative assessment to evaluate how learners perform based on the trainer and final evaluation to understand what learners truly think. This should be given to the instructional designers who can think about comments and make any required changes.
Once you understand every step included in streamlining ADDIE, you will able to organize your content and streamline production of your course content.
If you are an eLearning designer, you should consider using agile instructional design for your learning initiatives. Unlike the traditional methods of course creation, the agile method offers some significant benefits that will ensure that your results are outstanding yet also efficient. Below, we look at some of the top benefits of the agile design method.
Highly Interactive
Agile instructional design is heavily focused on the learners and how they will interact with the course material. At every step of course development, the needs of the learner and the manner in which they will participate and engage with the course will be taken into consideration. As a result, course developers are able to develop training materials in exactly the way a learner would find it easy to understand. This is one of the reasons why many instructional designers are switching over to agile design. After all, if you can produce high-quality, engaging content using agile, why bother wasting time on other, inefficient instructional design methods?
Rapidly Produce Content
A big challenge faced by most course developers is the time required for developing training material. This is mostly because developers usually tend to focus on creating the entire content of the course all at once. Obviously, this is normally a massive undertaking fraught with so many issues that the project will end up taking a lot of time. But with agile design processes, designers can now develop courses faster, using less time and fewer resources. This is because agile methods look at the course development process as consisting of little chunks of content that need to be developed sequentially. Only when one section is finished can the development team move on to the next section. This process of course development ensures that the training material is created within a short period of time.
Better Collaboration
A huge benefit of the agile design process is that it facilitates easier collaboration among multiple individuals. Everyone involved in the course, right from the organization that invested in its development to the actual learners, can collaborate with each other and offer suggestions to improve the course. As a course developer, this gives you the chance to hear the feedback and understand which aspect of the course needs to be developed and what new, potential features should be implemented. This can go a long way in helping you fine-tune your next course.
No Last Moment Revisions Necessary
In the traditional course development scenario, developers often tend to make numerous changes and revisions to the content. This mostly happens because the course is developed all at once, and then largely revised later on at the end of development. As a consequence, designers often need to correct a lot of errors to ensure that the training material complies with expectations. However, since agile development involves completing the course in portions, all errors and changes are addressed along the way. As such, last-minute, large-scale revisions become unnecessary.