The strategic value of learning design

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• Reducing cognitive load
• Designing metacognition into learning experiences
• Onboarding and learning design – Ellie Soccorsy podcast

In this episode, my guest is Ellie Soccorsy, who is a Learning and Development Adviser at Edyn, a hotel, travel and hospitality business. Ellie develops and facilitates learning experiences for teams across Edyn’s business, and works on multiple sites across Europe. A key aspect of her role is onboarding different business areas into learning and training to produce a consistent experience.

When we’re designing learning, we often focus on the learning experience but overlook the bit that comes before – in other words, how we ‘onboard’ learners into an experience. So in this episode, Ellie explains how she approaches and onboards different business areas in order to produce meaningful learning and training.

Here is a summary of the advice Ellie provides during the podcast:

How to make onboarding effective

• • Personalise the onboarding experience as much as possible
  • Take time to give learners a meaningful experience
  • Help them see the ‘bigger picture’
  • Inspire them at the start

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• Inclusive learning design strategies – Heather McClean podcast
• Practical advice for designing effective online learning environments – Tom Whitford podcast

In this episode of the Ding-O-Meter, our guest is Amy Whitehead – Director of Red Stag Recruitment. Amy is a learning design recruitment specialist, which means she helps businesses find quality learning designers for learning design jobs and roles. She works with businesses of all sizes from startups to edtech giants such as apprenticeships provider Multiverse, and has a wealth of experience at placing candidates in suitable learning-related roles.

I wanted to find out what Amy looks for when she’s recruiting for learning designers. So in this episode, Amy shares her advice on what hiring managers want from learning designers, the differences between HE and more commercial learning design roles, the core skills that learning designers need, and why the ability to work with and manage stakeholders is a core skill.

Here is a summary of the advice Amy provides during the podcast:

Core skills that Learning Designers need

• • Manage the end-to-end curriculum design process
  • Use a range of learning design methods and frameworks
  • Manage and work effectively with a range of stakeholders
  • Have a curious mindset, be inquisitive
  • Confidence in using a range of digital technologies

You might also like:

• Inclusive learning design strategies – Heather McClean podcast
• Practical advice for designing effective online learning environments – Tom Whitford podcast

In this episode of the Ding-O-Meter, we’re joined by Heather Maclean. Heather is an Education and Recognition adviser at Queen Mary university, London, an all round teaching and learning superstar. Heather is a specialist in Inclusive learning design strategies, and has extensive experience in working with both tutors and students to identify and remove barriers to learning.

Inclusivity is a core topic in learning design, and during the podcast Heather provides valuable advice to help learning designers navigate issues including language, accents, vocabulary, cultural difference, digital literacy AI and assessment. You’ll find it hard to leave this episode without at least one new idea you can use to design more inclusive learning experiences.

Here is a summary of the advice Heather provides during the podcast:

Language fluency

• • Do you have to use a particular text, or can you use one that is easier to read?
  • Check the readability in a readability checker to produce graded reader e.g. using the Fleisch Kincade readability index.
  • Scaffold a text: make sure it’s signposted with paragraph headings that relate to the body text, make the text easy to navigate, insert spaces between paragraphs, provide a glossary of key terms, use footnotes.

Accents

• • Be aware of your own accent, listen to yourself, slow down, articulate clearly, running words together, putting pauses after sentences, channel Barack Obama,
  • When providing a recorded lecture, check it has captions and subtitles, and button to enable viewers to slow down the delivery.

Speed

• • Empower the audience by asking them to ask you to slow down if you’re talking too quickly
  • Limit the number of slides you use

Vocabulary

• • Make it as clear and concise as possible
  • Ensure briefs are consistent in presentation and language
  • Question the purpose of each paragraph – what is the purpose of each sentence/paragraph?

Cultural differences

• • Know your audience if possible
  • Check text for cultural bias, examples of othering
  • Check anecdotes and examples that can make a nationality look bad

Digital literacy

• • Don’t assume students can use a laptop, check mobile usability.
  • Use signposting, put in more links than you would expect – even on the same page
  • Make important information clear, e.g. by using bigger fonts
  • Teach students how to use cut and paste

AI

• • Assessments will have to change to place more emphasis on the students’ voice, opinion and reflection
  • Consider asking students to synthesise summaries from AI tools

Provide choice in assessment

• • Use presentations
  • Create multi-part assessments: produce an analysis and a marketing plan, present slides, evidence, research, research notes.
  • Ask students to watch other students’ presentations and give them constructive feedback. Then ask the presenting students to write a reflective summary using the feedback they received.
  • Use panel discussions, interviews and vivas as assessment to demonstrate synthesis

Enjoy the podcast!

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• Reducing cognitive load
• Supporting dyspraxic students with learning design 

What is a design sprint, and how does it relate to learning design? 

In this episode, we talk with Rob Hamblen, founder of the LEAP design agency where he helps companies build better digital products and experiences. Rob has worked with big names including American Express, Adidas, HSBC and McKinsey to develop innovative solutions to their digital challenges. He’s also a former Creative Director at IBM, and has been working at the forefront of design and innovation for over 15 years. 

When we met Rob, we were struck by his passion and enthusiasm for great design. Our conversation led to the factors that produce great user experiences, and we were keen to learn more about his Design Sprint methodology and its potential relevance to learning design. So we were super excited when he agreed to be a guest on the Ding-O-Meter! 

During the podcast, Rob provides an insight into the relationship between UX design and learning design, and explains how design sprints can guide the learning design process. He also shares his views about the value of learning designers working alongside other design disciplines in organisations. 

Enjoy the podcast!

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• Geraldine Murphy: Andragogy, motivation, and how learning designers add value to business

Geraldine Murphy was a learning designer before learning design was invented. After completing her teacher training back in 2009, Geraldine has applied her knowledge of learning and technology in schools, colleges, universities, and commercial organisations. and is currently Director of Content Solutions and Services at LearningMate.

Her depth of experience gives her a highly informed perspective to talk about the emerging field of learning design, and this is why we were so excited to have the opportunity to talk with her. In this episode, Geraldine explains how using principles of andragogy can help learning designers harness intrinsic motivation in learners, and shares her views on how learning designers can work alongside UX and UI specialists to add value to businesses.

Geraldine also shares her views on the factors that make a great learning experience which include language, writing and connection, and the important role of narrative in guiding learners through a learning experience.

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Lightbulb moments

• Differentiating between andragogy and pedagogy is important when designing learning experiences for adult learners
• Effective adult learning is dependent on harnessing intrinsic motivation;
• Learning Designers need strong skills in writing and narrative development;
• Videos will only get you so far – engaging in real time is required for deeper learning.

Enjoy the podcast!

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• Agnese Spona: Exploring the intersection of customer experinece, service and learning design
• Producing attentiveness and accountability in learning design

What is service design? How does it relate to learning design, user experience (UX) and customer experience (CX) design? And what can service design teach learning designers about great experiences?

Fortunately, Phil and I had the opportunity to put these questions to Agnese Spona, founder of Women in CX, MD of Made for CX, and an advocate for tackling the growing skills gap in businesses. Agnese helps market-leading organisations improve how they provide customer and user experiences by transforming their understanding of experience design. 

In this episode of the Ding-O-Meter, Agnese helps us explore the intersection of UX, CX, service and learning design to consider how each discipline can benefit from the others.

Lightbulb moments

• How service design can help learning designers clarify the start point of an experience
• How learning designers can help employees learn more about how people learn in order to predict behaviour more effectively
• Why differentiating an experience based on the customer / user / learner’s needs is so important
• How design can break down the unhelpful silos between customer, user and learning experience

Enjoy the podcast!

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• Alice Brazil-Burns: How human-centred storytelling can lead to better experience design

Storytelling may sound like something more suited to children, and human-centred storytelling may make you raise your eyebrows. But it’s increasingly recognised as a valuable counterpart to the huge amounts of data that organisations use to inform experience design.

Alice Brazil-Burns is an award-winning producer, human-centred storyteller and researcher in user experience design. She uses the knowledge and skills from her theatrical training to help learning designers and user experience designers pay more attention to the value of storytelling when designing experiences. 

How human-centred storytelling can guide experience design

In this episode of the Ding-O-Meter, Alice explains how effective storytelling can guide experience design. Some of the key lightbulb moments that emerged from the conversation include: 

• How storytelling reveals the shades of grey in experience design;
• How incorporating storytelling into experience design enables us to respond more effectively to the complex needs of customers, learners, users and employees;
• That if organisations don’t pay attention to storytelling they fail to make use of the rich feedback that their customers and employees can provide, and
• How the ability to develop a culture of storytelling in an organisation is dependent on the extent to which its leaders value stories alongside data.

Enjoy the podcast!

You might also like these podcasts:

• Agnese Spona: Exploring the links between customer experience, service and learning design
• Amy Whitehead: Recruiting learning designers
• Helen Curston: The need for social rituals in online learning
• Tom Whitford: Practical advice for designing online learning environments