Reflection

Laura Williams
June 22, 2016
Nicholle Stone

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Reflection
First, let me begin by saying how rewarding this course has been. Although I have years
of experience in training development, I have never received formal training in it. I began my
exposure to formal training while in the Marine Corps. Between boot camp and my three
Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) schools, I had a solid year of formalized training. Once I
had graduated from MOS school, I was put in charge of my platoons training program, which
included assigning classes and verifying that the products produced met the standards we had
been given. This was where I really learned what a lesson plan was all about, at least the Marine
Corps version of one. As a contractor, I was part of team that developed New Equipment
Training for the Marine Corps. This was an excellent way to get my feet wet as the training was
formal enough to require adherence to training standards, but informal enough that my lack of
foundational knowledge was easily overcome. Over the years, I have always felt that training
development involves mainly a lot of logic. I put myself in the place of the trainee to help me
make decisions about how to present the content. This has worked well for me for many years
now. However, with that said, having a true foundational knowledge of training development will
give me a bigger arsenal from which to pull ideas and strategies that will benefit both me and
those who are affected by the quality of my training.
This project was different than any other development task I have been given. I have
never been involved from the absolute beginning before. Although I have previously had my
hand in the analysis phase, for this I started with nothing at all. I saw a deficiency that I thought
was knowledge of company website navigation. However, upon further analysis, I realized that
the problem was with the orientation training my company gave. I ended up rewriting my Course

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Design Document (CDD) to reflect the new reality. As a matter of fact, over the course of the
project, I rewrote previous portions of the CDD several times.
Determining what needed to be learned during orientation took some research. I had to
ask myself: what does someone need to know to conduct average business with the company? In
this situation, I was able to act in the role of a subject matter expert (SME). However, I also
questioned coworkers to ensure I included those tasks that were 1) needed and 2) appropriate for
entry-level training. Again, this process involved several rewrites.
The learning theory I personally subscribe to is contained within Carl Rogers
Experiential Learning. Whenever possible, have someone do something. For the orientation
training, rather than just dictate to the attendees what the sites are and where they are located, I
felt it was better to set up computers and allow them to actually navigate the sites. In this way,
the attendees would be able to ensure they arent having any issues with the basics. But, even
beyond that, attendees would be able to explore with the benefit of having someone there with
them to answer questions or help them if they get stuck. For me personally, unless a website or
piece of software is absolutely not intuitive, I learn best by exploring.
For the design portion that was actually done this semester, I chose a job aid. I knew as
soon as I began this project that a job aid would be useful. Not only does it list the mostly
commonly used sites, but it also reminds the user where to go for certain less-used tasks. An
example of this is Trakstar, which is used for evaluations. For many employees, conducting any
business in Trakstar is done around once a year. Its possible to even forget the name of the
evaluation site (Ive personally done it).

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Neither the Implementation nor Evaluation portions of the Instructional Design Model
have been attempted as of yet. Obviously a lot more design would have to be achieved before
implementation could take place.
When contemplating motivational theories, I first had to learn what motivates people.
Through research, I found out about two types of people: those who are intrinsically motivated
and those who are extrinsically motivated. In the simplest sense, those who are intrinsically
motivated are driven by internal rewards while those who are extrinsically motivated are driven
by external rewards. Using this information, I determined that, for the intrinsically motivated
employee, focusing on the topics that are directly relatable to the employees should work. In
addition, the fact that the course will be structured to allow employees to navigate to those sites
they individually deem are important should appeal to the intrinsically motivated employee. For
the extrinsically motivated employee, I felt the way to appeal to them would be to let them know
up front the benefits they should reap from the training, which is to take advantage of benefits
available to them and to ensure that their paychecks arrive for the right amount and at the right
time. That seems to be motivation enough for anyone!
For this project, the task analysis affected the learning theory I employed more so than
the learner characteristic. This is because the target audience is new employees, which means we
will only know very basic characteristics about them, such as a general interest in learning about
company-related perks that will benefit them. However, the task analysis showed what
employees need to do to actually take advantage of these benefits. This led me to Experiential
Learning and letting new employees have as much hands-on experience as possible during the
training.

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I have always enjoyed logic and a linear progression. These are the main reasons math
was always my favorite subject. If you follow the steps, youll get to the right answer.
Thankfully, I had a great English teacher in high school (the wonderful Mrs. Brock), who taught
me to love the fluidity of English and, more specifically, writing. I feel that my love of both of
these areas helps me tremendously when it comes to Instructional Design (ID), especially as a
systematic process. In one way, ID is very logical and linear. You follow the process and you will
come up with a right answer. However, just like writing, the ID process allows (nay, demands) a
level of fluidity. And following the process could lead you to multiple right answers. Its very
challenging and incredibly rewarding.
So, through my years of experience, Ive learned a great deal. Now, Im learning even
more. Perhaps Ill have a greater appreciation for those who came before me in a project as I can
see even in my simple, scaled-back orientation training redesign how easy it is to go down one
path and find you have to back up and start down another. Except with big projects costing a lot
of money and utilizing a lot of manpower, that reverse is not so easily done, if done at all. I can
often see, from my after-the-fact perspective, where things went wrong (or at least where they
went less ideally); others probably could see it even earlier, but there was no going back.