Instructor-led courseware development is my bread-and-butter. I thrive on developing interactive experiences that help audiences learn what they need to know to be successful. As an stand-up instructor for many years, I also learned what it takes to support a training program and what can be built into the courseware to meet the instructor’s needs.
In the mid-1980s, I was working in commercial real estate at Lamar Savings and Loan when they brought in the first PCs to the department. Well, someone had to figure out how to use them, and I was elected. Then, someone had to teach everyone else how to use them, and again I was elected. I quickly realized that teaching people about computers was a lot more fun than actually using them. And so, a career was born.
At the S&L, I developed material to use in teaching Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, and how to use the “Network”… these were totally new concepts for these folks. I intuitively knew to make sure the material was hands-on, relevant to their day-to-day work, and with a little bit of humor to engage the learners.
My continued work in this field has included numerous software and computer systems courses, business process training, and topics as diverse as leadership, self-improvement, and emergency vehicle driving. My work is also informed by my study at the graduate level in Curriculum and Instruction at UT Austin.
Student Course Documents
This image is an example of my favorite student manual format for hands-on computer training. The page on the left shows a presentation page, with a screen shot or slide image at the top and explanatory information below. The right hand page shows a sample hands-on exercise.
Sample Course Document Pages
Features of the hands-on exercises include:
- Providing the student with clear objectives, what they will do and what they will learn in the exercise.
- The exercise presents the tasks with two or three levels of instruction.
- There are some students that will only require the top-level of task description (Create an Application Component) and need to see the big-picture goals for the exercise.
- Other students require step-by-step instructions (Step 1. In the Query tab left-pane, click the Create button. Step 2. From the Select Subtype dialog, select Application and then click Create.)
- The use of formatting features such as bolding specific words to match those on the screen help the student move through the task.
- Frequent screen shots help the students verify that they are on the right track.
- Frequent opportunities for the student to stop, reflect, and make note of what they are learning in the exercise. This may be simple questions about what they are seeing on the screen or application questions on how the task relates to their real-world roles.
Instructor Notes & Support
To support the instructor, the instructor version of the manual includes all of the student content, with an overlay of instructor notes, tips, and suggested activities. Recognizing that every class is different, I like to provide several alternates suggestions for the instructor to use depending on the nature of any particular student or class.
Sample Instructor Guide Pages
Other features of the Instructor Guide include:
- Overall goals for the course, key messages to highlight
- Classroom setup notes
- Data sets, scenarios, and examples
- Suggested questions to ask the students as knowledge checks
- Suggested agendas and class timings
- Student Evaluation Criteria
- Quizes or Test banks
Feedback Forms
As feedback is always an important part of the instructional design process, I feel it is important for every student and instructor manual to include a feedback form. These should be simple to use, and have multiple open-ended questions to encourage constructive criticisms.
Sample Feedback Form