Research for Learning
There I said it - learning experiences are incredibly hard to create. Especially ones that are meaningful and engaging.
This is specially true for our world today where attention spans are short and distractions are plenty.
At NextLeap, research is an active part of the course creation process. Here are 2 ways in which we use research:
Building the right course - focused on the what and why
Building the course right - focused on the how
Building the right course
The focus here is on the what and the why. It is to make sure that we’re building a course that solves actual needs.
Before we start designing a course, try to answer the following questions:
What do learners need?
What do organisations need?
What are the other courses that are fulfilling both these needs?
We use the following methods to find answers to these:
Secondary Research - benchmarking other courses in a similar space across different formats - books, MOOCs, CBCs etc
Primary Research - Speaking to people who have taken these other courses. Understanding their experiences with the course, what worked, what didn’t.
Need gap analysis - Taking to our customers and end users. In some cases these are the same person but for a lot of our courses these are actually 2 different people. We speak to organisations, hiring managers (i.e. our customers) and potential learners
This research early on the course design journey, impacts the:
Overall program structure - how we look at synchronous and asynchronous learning for the program
Profile of instructors - and mentors we get on board during the program
Curriculum design - different topics we cover in the course, the depth and sequence in which we cover those topics
Building the course right
The focus here is on the how. It is to make sure that the course we’re building a course solves the needs in the best way possible.
While trying to work on the details, we try to answer the following questions:
Before the course starts
What should the live sessions look like?
What should the asynchronous content look like?
During and after a course:
What is the highlight for them?
What is one thing they’d remove from the course?
What is one thing they’d add to the course?
We use the following methods to find answers to these:
Dog fooding - testing out new formats and structures for live sessions internally with the team
Content research - Building out the content end-to-end for one week and then testing it out with end users
User feedback - Surveys, polls, interviews with learners during and after a course to understand their experience
This research, impacts the:
Overall learner experience - as much as we can during the course, but definitely for the next cohort
Live sessions structure - how we plan and a facilitate live sessions also including feedback we give to our instructors
Content design - how we design our asynchronous content
Research for learning
Often times we mistake learning as a stagnant entity. Books, curriculum that remain the same for years together. But just like the rest of the world, the what, why and how of learning also constantly needs to evolve.