Proof There’s Always More Than One Way to Present Course Content

One of the most common questions we hear from e-learning pros is What’s the best way to present my content? The short answer is, it depends! As long as you’re keeping your learners’ needs in mind, there’s no right or wrong way to go about it.

To prove our point, we decided to give the same source content to three different instructional designers (IDs)—our very own Customer Engagement Managers Allison LaMotte, Madison McCartney, and Sarah Hodge—to see what they’d come up with. 

Here’s the source content we gave them:

Then we sent them to work with only one instruction—no peeking at each other’s work! 

Now that we’ve set the scene, let’s look at each designer’s project.

1. Immersive Scenario

Allison took an immersive approach by creating a scenario that closely resembles a real-life situation where learners would  need to prioritize tasks. They’d have to look around their desk to identify and analyze the tasks on their to-do list and determine whether they’re urgent and/or important. From there, learners must decide whether to do each task today, schedule it for later, delegate it, or take it off their to-do list.

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2. Interactive Dials

Madison’s version breaks down the concepts of “important” and “urgent” into more manageable chunks, allowing learners to focus on each concept individually before pulling the entire matrix together. She does this using a series of interactive dials that put learners in the driver’s seat and encourage them to engage with the content.

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3. Personalized Decision Matrix

Sarah’s take on the Eisenhower Decision Matrix gives learners a chance to apply the concepts on the spot by inviting them to fill out the matrix with the tasks on their to-do list. Once they’re done, they can print out their personalized task matrix—thanks to some JavaScript magic—and use it to boost their productivity. So handy!

View Example | Learn More | Download Template

More Resources

So what do you think? Do you see how each approach could benefit different learner needs?

Hopefully these examples free you from the notion that there’s only one “right” way to build a course and empower you to follow your instructional design instincts. 

Looking for more pro tips on designing engaging courses? Dive into these helpful articles:

• 3 Tips for Quickly Converting Instructor-Led Training into E-Learning 
• Ways to Look Like an E-Learning Design Pro (Even When You’re Not!)
• Micro-Learning: How to Keep Your E-Learning Courses Short & Sweet
• 4 Quick Tips to Make Your E-Learning Stick
• Redundancy Principle: Should You Duplicate Narrated Text on Screen?
• What to Include in Your Course Introduction
• Why & How to Tailor Content to Different Audiences

And remember to follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.