Nov 20, 2013

Welcome to Training Materials Development

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this lesson, participants will be able to:

– Create consistent, professional looking educational materials – Identify common document elements and best practices for

Section 508 & Accessibility– Identify next steps to create style guide templates for

creating learning objects – Use configuration management to uniquely identify and

manage versions of training materials

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How We’ll Do This Session

• Part I: Review ADDIE Model• Part II: Organization of Material• Part III: Writing Guidelines• Part IV: Section 508 & Accessibility• Part V: Document Control

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Part I – Recall the ADDIE Model

IMPLEMENT

ANALYSIS

DESIGN

DEVELOP

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ANALYSIS

THIS PHASE INVOLVES:• Assessing training goals• Conducting a needs analysis• Identifying the knowledge gap• Conducting an audience analysis• Developing learning objectives

KEY DELIVERABLES:• Training plan• Training needs analysis

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DESIGN

THIS PHASE INVOLVES:• Identifying design strategy• Selecting appropriate delivery method• Outline structure & duration• Establishing evaluation method• Establishing storyboard concept

KEY DELIVERABLES:• High level design document• Storyboards

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DEVELOP

THIS PHASE INVOLVES:• Creating the prototype• Developing training materials• Completing a tabletop review• Running a training pilot

KEY DELIVERABLES:• Course materials• Guides/Job aids• Assessment instruments• Course schedule

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IMPLEMENT

THIS PHASE INVOLVES:• Printing & preparing training material• Trainer preparation• Notifying & register students• Launching the course

KEY DELIVERABLES:• Participant assessments• Feedback forms• Attendance forms

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EVALUATE

THIS PHASE INVOLVES:• Collect training evaluation data• Reviewing training effectiveness• Assessing overall performance• Reporting performance results

KEY DELIVERABLES:• Training evaluation report• Program evaluation report

Evaluation should be an ongoing process throughout all the phases of the ADDIE model.

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Design(Materials)

Implement(Materials)

Develop(Materials)

Analysis(Materials)

Evaluation

Lesson plansLesson guidesPowerPoints

Student guides

Lesson plans *Adapt contentfor prototype

DevelopprototypeCounselor manual

Facilitator guide

Motivational interviewing

Createprototype

Develop Graphic approach

PowerPoints

Create/Develop Graphics

- Text content- Narrative content- Graphics - Exercises- Videos- Activities

Why Use Style Guidelines?

• Provides uniformity across course materials• Applies lessons learned and best practices

across different mediums• Increases course development efficiency

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Part II – Organization of Material

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Objectives Drive the Content

• Objectives are the foundation for the structure of training materials– Outline your materials– Separate course content into logical teaching units

(major categories of information)– Material should cover learning objectives

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Use Templates to Provide Consistent Structure• Clear, concise and measurable learning objectives for the

course and for each module • Relevant content, visuals and practice exercises • A course introduction that lets the learner know, “What’s in it

for me?”• Two or three modules, each with an introduction and summary • Practice questions or activities within each module • A summative assessment to gauge comprehension of every

learning objective • A logical sequence of modules that builds on existing

knowledge or content introduced in the course

Lesson Plans

• Lessons cover specific topics• Learning objectives identified for each topic • Identify graphics, exercises, assessments• Order of topics should flow logically • Chunk material into manageable portions• Visual display of information is important

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Example Lesson Plan Template

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Suggested Training Material Structure• Introduce topic and learning objectives• Present content• Summarize content• Review content with questions or activities• Test learner’s understanding with assessment

or knowledge check

Example Course Content Outline

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Instructor Guide Components

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Participant Guide Components

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Training Style Guide

• Be sure to add your corporate logo to help establish your brand

• Consistent headings and subheadings• Same colors, fonts, and spacing throughout• Paragraphs not more than 3 to 5 sentences long• Support elements– Graphics, exercises, activities, assessments, user

instructions, etc.– Adequate white space on page – don’t crowd

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Colors

• Keep colors to 2 or 3 and keep them complimentary

• Don’t let color distract the learner from message

• Use colors for headings as a visual cue for learner … but don’t forget about Section 508 & Accessibility (more to come later)

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Visual Aids

• Use when a visual explanation gets the point across more effectively than text

• Use to reinforce message, clarify points, etc.• Add impact and interest to a presentation• May increase retention level for visual learners • Use charts and graphs to support the

presentation of numerical information

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Part III - Writing GuidelinesRemember these?

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“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”

– William Strunk Jr., Elements of Style

General Guidelines for Training Materials

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• Use active voice– Donna is throwing the ball at Tony now.

(good example) – The ball was thrown by Donna at Tony.

(bad example)• Use familiar words, avoid jargon and

contractions

General Guidelines for Training Materials (continued)

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• Make it relevant• Use a sans serif font, size no smaller than 12• Avoid ALL CAPS (learners perceive this as you

screaming at them)• Use appropriate spacing• Include page numbers

Reading Level in Word documents

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Language that is appropriate to audience skill and knowledge level, Word, Use – file -> options

Acronyms and Abbreviations

• Acronyms– when introduced for the first time, write out full name of

the entity, followed by acronym in parentheses– do not include spaces or periods

• Abbreviations – when using titles before and after names (e.g., Mr., Mrs.,

Ph D)– when acronym for a corporation, institution or country is

more familiar than the full name (e.g., USA, IBM, FBI) – for mathematical measurements (e.g., lb., kg.)

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Bulleted and Numbered Lists• Arrange lists and tasks that are easy to scan and

understand• Provide an introductory heading to start each bulleted list• Be consistent with punctuation• Use numbered bullets where sequence is important• Capitalize first letter of first word of a list item, a list box

item, check box labels, and radio button labels• Maintain parallel construction in a bullet list (e.g., start all

bulleted items with a verb)• There must be a least two items to make a bullet list

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Numbers, Dates, Time

• Use figures to express numbers 10 and above, all numbers in mathematical functions, dates, ages, time, money, and numbers as part of a series

• Spell out numbers nine and below unless they represent a precise measurement (e.g., 8.2578)

• Spell out any number that begins a sentence, title, or heading

• Write out dates in full (e.g., July 4, 1776) • Use colon to separate hours and minutes (e.g., 9:00

a.m.)

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PART IV: Section 508 & Accessibility

• Section 508 (http://www.section508.gov/)– 508 compliance is the law that provides minimum

standards• Accessibility– Accessible documents are structured documents– Logically organized– Can be read and navigated by Assistive Technology– Exported to other applications with minimal

adjustment to maintain accessibility

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Common Elements

• Be mindful of color contrast• No Flashing/flickering or animated elements• Images and/or non-text elements have

alternative text descriptions• Charts and graphs have either an alternative text

description or provide a description in the text immediately adjacent to the chart/graph

• Hyperlinks are active and use the fully qualified URL (e.g., http://www.nlm.nih.gov)

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Word

• Recall the font size (not smaller than 12 pt)• Document structure– Table of Contents

• Topics, Subtopics, Page Numbers– Format and styling

• Use styles (Heading 1, 2, 3, Normal, etc.) and formatting toolbar

• Descriptive alternative text for images and graphics• Tables created using the Insert Table tool• Do not use text boxes

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Excel

• Data tables identify row and column headers• Data cells in tables are associated with row

and column headers• No merged or split cells in tables• All tables read from left to right and top to

bottom• Ensure tables spanning multiple pages have

headings that repeat on each page

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PowerPoint

• PowerPoint file can be made 508 compliant by saving it as a Word document

• Select the Outline Only option to save only the text from the slides

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PDFs

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• Document should be properly tagged, language specified, have a logical reading order, and Table of Contents/bookmarks functioning correctly

• Comment and Markup items removed & Accessibility Tags applied

• Full Accessibility report run• Use Acrobat Reader “Read Out Loud” function

Part V: Document Control

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Suggested Guidelines

• Shared document repository (e.g., SharePoint)• Version control – assign a version number for

each revision to training materials• During training material development, include

the word “Draft”; once finalized, remove “Draft”

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Suggested Guidelines (continued)

• Revision history – include revision number, date, change request, author, reviewer, description of change

• Consistent header and footer– Elements should identify document (e.g., date,

filename, revision number)• Document file name generally limited to 20-30

characters

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Review

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• Part I: Review ADDIE Model• Part II: Organization of Material• Part III: Writing Guidelines• Part IV: Section 508 & Accessibility• Part V: Document Control

What’s Next

• Review existing NLM materials?• Review FEMA Style Guide or other examples –

is something like this needed for NLM?

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FEMA Style Guide

Next Session

• Dec 4 – 10:30-12:00– Lesson 7

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