What Do E-Learning Designers Do?

Learning designers are enterprise training managers who design learning content and learning forms, build learning resources, operate learning projects, promote learning transformation, and market learning value based on corporate strategy and business development needs.

Learning Designer

In today's world, learning has become increasingly important. Whether it is an organization or an individual, learning ability is becoming the key to measuring its core competitiveness. In the era of information explosion, knowledge is constantly accelerating, learning methods are constantly innovating, and learning technologies are changing with each passing day. In the face of complex and ever-changing internal and external environments, purely instilled training has been difficult to achieve the transformation from knowledge to behavior; companies need product managers who can design and operate learning projects based on the needs of corporate development. Raw.

Learning designers are enterprise training managers who design learning content and learning forms, build learning resources, operate learning projects, promote learning transformation, and market learning value based on corporate strategy and business development needs.

Today's training managers are faced with the emergence of learning technology and endless training concepts, and it is easy to follow the trend blindly. However, how to match the needs of enterprise development is often impossible. Many technologies and concepts seem professional but far from the business. If training managers are positioned as learning designers and actively thinking about how corporate training can promote business development like product managers, they will find that many learning projects can be designed and operated to affect business development.

1. No design, no training. Traditional training is often limited to clerical work, and today the transition from training to learning has become inevitable. The root of learning is lasting change in behavior, and change is a very challenging task. Therefore, the focus of training is no longer simply to provide training courses and learning tools, but to find the best learning path for organizations and individuals, and design efficient learning projects. Whether it is the establishment of learning needs, the development of learning content, the choice of learning modes, or the transformation of learning values, it should be carefully designed and planned to promote behavior change and business development to the greatest extent.

2. Not operational and worthless. Learning is a process, not a single event. From experience, about 40% of the learning effect is due to the needs mining and design before training; 30% comes from the implementation in training; 30% comes from the promotion and landing after training. A well-designed learning solution needs continuous operation before the desired learning value can appear. Most training managers focus more on training itself, and less on the work before and after training. The design and operation of learning programs that can truly create value should at least consider the following six factors: the degree of correlation between learning needs and business development, the degree of matching of learning content and learning methods, the support of company executives and related systems, and the fullness of students Participation in input, practical degree of learning effect transformation, and perception of learning experience and value. (Figure: Six Degrees of Learning Design)

3. Without transformation, there are bottlenecks. Training managers who have been in the industry for three or five years can easily fall into professional dilemmas: First, they have no sense of accomplishment . They find teachers every day, look for places, send notices, and move desks. They are regarded as "course traffickers." You ca nt see the results and the value is not recognized; the third is that there is no sense of belonging , the senior executives do nt pay attention, and few people understand the hardship of training, which is becoming more and more marginal in the organization; Space, growth encountered a bottleneck. If career transformation cannot be achieved, training managers will be burned out. Becoming a learning designer with product thinking will definitely bring broader space for training managers' career development.

The concept of learning design originates from instructional design, but it is not limited to the areas of instructional design and curriculum development. First, learning design runs through the entire learning process, including formal and informal learning, while instructional design and curriculum development are more oriented towards formal learning links; secondly, the starting point of learning design is toward corporate strategy and business development needs, while instructional design and curriculum development It is more biased towards work tasks and talent development needs. Finally, the learning design emphasizes the learning ecological operation, and the relationship between all stakeholders in the learning value chain, especially the participation of managers and line managers, needs to be considered, while teaching design and curriculum development Focus more on students and lecturers.

As a practitioner of learning design, how can learning designers effectively promote strategy implementation and business development through learning design and operations? Here are 10 key tasks that learning designers must address:

1. Analyze strategic needs: Understand the company's new strategic environment for development, new areas for strategic transformation, and new business for strategic development, formulate business goals for learning projects, and ensure that learning goals and strategic goals remain consistent.

2. Interview business needs : Interview new measures, new problems, and new challenges in business development, analyze which problems can be solved through learning methods and which cannot be solved through learning methods.

3. Win executive support: Starting from the demands of senior executives, line managers, human resources and other stakeholders, adopt formal and informal interpersonal communication methods to win their support for the project.

4. Design the learning experience: Plan targeted learning content, match the corresponding learning style, design learning activities that let the students be fully engaged, and ignite the passion of learning.

5. Construction of learning resources: take inventory of the courses, teachers, cases and other resources required for the learning project, determine the methods and channels for acquiring, developing, and using learning resources, especially the efficient internal trainer team.

6. Develop a publicity plan: Analyze the selling points of the learning project, design and produce the project publicity copy, use various media to publicize the learning value and learning activities, attract students to actively participate, and expand the influence of the project.

7. Create learning scenarios: Develop a sound and standardized learning management system to create a good learning space and field.

8. Operate online learning: use non-offline means such as formal online learning platforms and WeChat groups to promote students' continuous learning during non-focused learning time.

9. Promote learning transformation: design action goals, obtain managerial support, strengthen post-training coaching and exercises, and promote the transformation and application of learning results in the workplace.

10 Marketing learning value: Use fresh cases and data to prove the value of learning projects, and use various communication channels to market the learning value, shape the learning brand, and create an organizational learning atmosphere.

How can training managers achieve the evolution from training experts to learning designers? First of all, like a product manager, they must have user thinking and customer-oriented consciousness, and then improve the quality of systematically building learning projects. There are three main elements: Resource, Technology, and Capability, which are referred to as RTC models for learning designers (pictured).

1. Be able to integrate and build learning resources

The richness of internal and external resources determines the breadth of learning design support strategy and business. The resources that can be mobilized during training include: course resources, teacher resources, media resources, and network resources.

Curriculum resources: Learning designers need to continuously accumulate a variety of curriculum resources, including internal and external courses, especially the internal curriculum resource library is more practical in responding to business needs.

Teacher resources: To continuously build a teacher resource database, internal teachers need to pass on internal knowledge through the training channel of internal trainers, and external teachers need to have a degree of matching with business needs to identify long-term cooperative relationships.

Media resources : Establish internal and external media communication channels, rely on WeChat, Weibo, video, posters and other media to disseminate the value of learning projects, affecting stakeholders in the learning value chain.

Network resources: Including the relationship maintenance of internal managers and part-time lecturers, and the development of network resources such as external consultants and training peers, it is not only conducive to the operation of the project, but also can get intellectual support.

2. Be able to identify and apply learning techniques

Learning technology is all professional technology and practice methods that can improve the learning effect. The learning designer needs to understand and master the scenarios of various learning technology applications. In designing and operating learning projects, he can integrate and apply various learning technologies. The more you master the learning technology, the better it is to solve the deep-seated problems of talent demand in the strategy and business development process. The specific learning technologies are:

Course development : including face-to-face courseware development, micro-courseware development, or online course development. The core requirements of these technologies are knowledge extraction, framework logic, and learning activity design. At the same time, in a learning project, if you can use curriculum development technology to lead students to share and extract knowledge together, it is also a very good way of learning.

Teaching methods: including case teaching, coaching technology, action learning, online learning, etc. These technologies can be used independently in the entire training project, or they can be combined with other learning methods to solve practical problems together.

Self-learning: Students' reading, sharing, and reviewing are all self-learning methods. This type of learning is often informal learning time and place. It is necessary for the learning designer to fully consider and guide informal learning when project design.

3. Need to experience and improve operational capabilities

Both resources and technology need to become learning designers to solve strategic and business problems through operations. Therefore, the learning ability of learning designers determines the height of their work. This ability can be divided into three types:

Basic abilities : including personal learning ability, business relationship building ability, coordination ability, and influence. Excellent training managers have strong abilities in this area. They can learn quickly and continuously improve their professional quality. It can cross the basic functions of human resources to win the support of internal customers, and it can build a good cooperative relationship with business departments to enhance the influence inside and outside the organization.

Project management ability: can evaluate and analyze project requirements, plan project copy, track project progress, and coordinate project parties to achieve goals according to plan

Marketing ability : Can refine the core value of the learning project and the selling point of the product, formulate a publicity and promotion plan, and plan various activities such as project launch, recruitment promotion, and achievement display.

Resources, technology and ability are the three linked elements of learning designer's literacy. Resources require technical support to function. At the same time, using resources and technology to solve problems has become the core part of the ability. Then, in the process of training the ability, continuously build resources And applying technology. It can be said that resources determine the width of learning design, technology determines the depth of learning design, and ability determines the height of learning design.

In the Internet era, everyone is a product manager. Learning designers are like product managers for corporate training. Every training manager should have the concept and ability to learn design and product development, design and learn like designing products, operate and learn like operating a business, and marketing training like marketing a product. .