I loved playing with Lego® as a kid.
There’s two approaches to building with Lego®, of course. You can get a kit with everything you need to build the Mandalorian’s warship with custom pieces. Or you can grab a pile of tiles and create something yourself.
I used to think that the projects people improvised could never equal what came prepared in a box. Then I saw the awesome results some folks had achieved, and had to reconsider.
We had a full box, and everyday we created something new.
Using the Lego® Concept to Create Reusable Learning Experiences
What if our tiles didn’t have eight pegs or four pegs, but contained three key ideas or two activities?
Anyone who works in learning has watched teams build very similar learning deliverables used within different areas, with each one built from the ground up. Learning for one role is very similar to learning for another, but the differences matter. Usually it seems easier to create something new than to adapt a previous project.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
The following six tips will help you create the kind of learning products that can be adapted well into new situations, or dropped into a new format with minimal effort.
Reusable Content Begins with Design
As alway, we begin with the end in mind. The design process requires answering the two perennial questions:
What is the problem we’re trying to solve?
What does success look like?
To these we add a third question, how might we design the experience so that it can be disassembled later for reuse?
If content is made without concern for reuse, then trying to pull it apart will look like pulling on a thread within a tapestry. The whole thing will bunch up into a tangled mess.
Instead, try designing the learning deliverable out of separate components, or “chunks.”
Chunking matters
Creating chunks makes it as easy to change your learning deliverable as it is to swap out one side dish for another on a dinner plate.
Even though not always would be present, we can divide the experience into:
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- Introduction
- Learning content (Info & stories)
- Problems and/or Activities
- Sharing
- Debriefing
- Discussion section
- Reflection (with a call to action)
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While this alone would help with later reuse, one more level of chunking is required. Take each part and consider whether it needs to be split between higher level material which could be used in multiple situations, and more granular material which is specific to a particular role, product, or process.
Later, you may take the more general material and use it without modification while customizing the specifics for a particular audience.
Focus on key ideas and problem solving
For many years, the focus on creating learning experiences was on being a comprehensive as possible, which satisfied stakeholder worries hat something might be left out.
In this century, when everyone keeps a device with infinite resources in their pocket or bag, that approach no longer serves the learner’s interests. Instead, concentrate on what is necessary to understand the situation, including key ideas, and on building the skills necessary to solve the challenge in the course of work.
Provide resources for a deeper dive, but let learners decide whether they need an exhaustive amount of content
Separate the Infrastructure from the Words
If the various chunks are like the foods we might or might not include in a specific instance, then the formatting and learning delivery infrastructure are like the place settings, dishes and utensils we might provide as we serve dinner.
The same content can be plugged into an e-learning module, a job aid, and a visual instructor-led module without revision. When a sufficient need develops, teams can use a content management system (CMS) which will allow for revising multiple deliverables while only changing the content once
Retain the focus
Resist the temptation to create situation-agnostic content. People learn best when what they learn is specific and applies directly to their needs. We create content to improve the learner’s performance, not to make things easy for the learning team.
Real, concrete, and easily-applied examples are a vital part of workplace learning.
Test, iterate, and retest
Originally, this bullet point was going to be: fail early and often.
As appealing as such dramatic language may be, the need to revise or iterate on a project early reflects failure. Real failure is when the learning team leaves out a deliverable which doesn’t accomplish its purpose.
Building reusable content requires new skills. Most projects will require revisions, and time will be required before a team is proficient at breaking content into the right chunks, predicting reuse challenges, and maintaining a focus on meeting the objectives for a specific learning situation.
As is always the case, our learners are our greatest resource. Go to them for suggestions and feedback. When learners are part of the content improvement process, their engagement grows along with the quality of the deliverables.