Strengthening Learning Design Practices for Large, Fortune 500 US Client
The client is a large US energy company that sought to improve their technical training approach and methods. The Director of Training hired Sarah Scala Consulting to build a workshop to strengthen instructional design skills for the Trainers, who had never had formal training in this area.
The Objectives of the Project:
- Develop skills in instructional design to support the creation of engaging in-person learning experiences to strengthen skills, competencies, and behaviors of engineers, supervisors, and employees.
- Build comfort in requesting and receiving feedback.
Questions Guiding this Project:
“Sarah did an excellent job of teaching my training team about learning objectives, ADDIE, feedback and other tools. The team especially liked the student handbook that she designed for them. They already are making plans to include it in their next courses they develop.”
- What is the current state and approach to training? What is working well? What is not working well?
- What instructional design tools are available? What tools are the Trainers currently using?
- What is the feedback from participants? How are the courses being measured?
- How willing are the Trainers to learn new ways to teach?
Services Provided:
- Survey and assessment
- Designed and facilitated an Instructional Design workshop
- Designed post-program follow-up resources
Process:
1. Met with Director of Training to discuss specific needs and objectives for the workshop
2. Custom designed content for workshop, including workbook, facilitator guide, and experiential activities
3. Facilitated 1-day learning workshop for 8 trainers
4. E-mailed follow-up resources, once per week for 6 weeks after completion of the program to support learning transfer
5. Designed and administered post-program survey to gain feedback on the program. Shared results with Director of Training. These results included participants’ desired next steps for their learning development.
Results:
- Trainers have designed or revised their courses using best practice approaches, including professionally designed PowerPoint presentations, creation of facilitator guides, feedback tools, and inclusion of experiential activities to support learning.
- Trainers continue to build comfort requesting feedback from participants and stakeholders in addition to designing and using course evaluations.