Analysis of the Learners and Contexts
Instructions
The format of this week’s assignment is a narrated presentation in which you share your analysis of the learners and contexts. The audience for your presentation are stakeholders such as colleagues, clients, district personnel, etc. depending on your particular learning scenario from last week. You will create your narrated presentation using the tool embedded within NCUOne; instructions for using this tool are available in this week’s resources.
You may also find helpful the Spotlight on Skills for presentations, also available in this week’s resources. Slides are visual aids and should not include large amounts of text. Use bullet points with short phrases and relevant graphics. The majority of your words should be in the audio narration and not on the slide itself, except for the Notes section.
Analyze Learners
In the first part of the assignment for this week, you will analyze the target learners of the design project you have been developing. What do you know about the learners? What do you need to know about the learners? How will any of this information influence the design of the instruction or training? Those are the types of questions you will address in your brief analysis. To complete the assignment, you will:
- Review the lists of learner characteristics provided in the week’s introduction.
- Select at least five characteristics that you think would have the most influence on the design of the instructional or training solution in your scenario.
- Offer the information you have about any of those five characteristics of the learners in your scenario.
- Identify what else you need to know about the learners (e.g., information about one or more of the five characteristics identified above).
- Discuss ways you could obtain the additional information you needed, such as professional organizations or characteristics from O*Net powered by the U.S. Department of Labor (see Week 1).
- Suggest how the presence or absence of diversity among the target learners or any ethical, legal, and political considerations might influence the analysis or subsequent design.
Analyze Contexts
Recall that effective design requires analysis of both the learning and performance contexts. In this second part of the assignment, you will analyze both contexts for the same learning scenario.
Be sure to:
- Describe the physical environment in which the learners will participate in training and instruction.
- Will students be learning in a shared space, like a classroom, or remotely, such as in their own homes or libraries?
- What does the physical space look like in terms of walls, windows, furniture, lights?
- What technology is available in terms of computers, projectors, speakers, broadband Internet access?
- Is the space located in an area with frequent distractions such as a window on a busy street, children playing at recess, people walking around, telephones ringing, or lights humming?
- Are there any aspects of the space that might affect accessibility, including considerations beyond physical disabilities (e.g., is the facility located on a public transportation route if learners do not have private transportation)?
- Describe the physical environment in which the learners will use or perform what they have learned. Similar to the learning environment, be sure to note any aspects of the space that might affect accessibility.
- Explain how the descriptions of each context might influence the design of the training or instruction. In other words, what is the implication of the information for the design? Yet another way to think about implication is the “so what?” factor. So, what that the facility is rural? (Potential implication: low-speed internet means video files may take too long to play and impact the learner experience).
Length: 4-6 minutes;
References: Include a minimum of 3 credible resources cited within the presentation and on the reference slide at the end of the presentation. The reference slide does not have to be narrated with audio.
The completed assignment should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts presented in the course by providing new thoughts and insights relating directly to this topic. The content should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards and should adhere to Northcentral University’s Academic Integrity Policy.