Redundancy bites.

In his article in this week's The eLearning Developers' Journal, Michael Allen observes, "It's important for learners to know that their task isn't to wade through all the media and all the redundancies you can provide. Their task is to reach performance proficiency. Redundancy isn't there to slow their trek toward mastery. It's actually there to shorten it."

As I read this, it struck me how often instructional designers, intent on applying a particular learning model through a particular ID template, assume that every learner must go through every element provided in the design. How often do we forget that the learner's task is to reach performance proficiency. The learners know that. Any wonder that they don't "finish" our e-learning products (if by "finish" is meant "jump through all the hoops")?

A learning sequence is there to facilitate mastery, not to enforce the sequence. Give the user of the learning sequence a way to demonstrate mastery, and make that demonstration easily available at any time. The criterion test should be as easily accessed as the redundant content.

11:24:50 AM