Impactful online academies

How to built an impactful online academy? That’s a question we receive regularly, recently from PaymentGenes. As a recruitment and consultancy company, PaymentGenes has extensive knowledge of the payment industry. To keep this high-quality standard, their new hires are trained via (online) classroom programs. Now they wanted to take the next step to provide a total online learning experience.

How do you avoid the pitfall of just upgrading your PowerPoint slides? Where do you even start? Well… we know, because that’s what we do at Parcours Learning. In only three collaborative sessions, PaymentGenes and Parcours Learning designed their Onboarding program. Furthermore, PaymentGenes knows what they will encounter in the development phase, and which choices they have to make. Now they are well-equipped to climb the development mountain themselves. We know that it’s hard work, but the view will be beautiful.

How did we get there

In three interactive workshops we worked together on the Learning Model Canvas (LMC), the learning goals and the visualization of the learning journey. What do we do in each session?

Session 1 The Learning Model Canvas

The LMC helps to open-up conversations between experts and to visually present a Big Picture. It is a visual decision-making tool that can increase communication, clarify information and reduce the amount of documentation needed. The LMC is a canvas on which you add your knowledge, questions, ideas, actions and decisions. It is a simple, yet powerful tool.

The nine building blocks are interrelated. It’s a framework that explores the three aspects of creating any type of learning - instructional, technical and managerial information. There is a deliberate left and right split of the canvas. The left blocks deal with managing the project while the right blocks are about designing the learning academy.

Performance Gaps is the focal point from which your learning academy project begins. The reason you want to create learning programs is to close the gap between your people’s current level of performance and the required level of performance. The better we understand and clarify the performance gaps, the better the end product will be. So, this is where we start.

Then you move to the left and right side of the model. The two blocks at the bottom are a bonus and focus on the high-over business perspective.

Session 2 – Learning goals

While filling in the LMC we already touched the learning objectives. But during this session we are going to create learning goals for each of the learning activities discovered during the content analysis. A mind map of all the topics that need to be covered is drawn. Then each topic will get its own learning goals.

Session 3 – Visualization of the learning journey

We are nearly there. The content analysis and learning objectives will then be used as a starting point for creating your learning journey. We actually are going to design together. In the case of PaymentGenes the wish is to evolve into a learning experience. What would this experience look like? A rough story board will be drawn and together we will discuss the different learning formats. The aim is an engaging learning journey in which the participants experience a mixed range of learning activities.

Your online academy

At the end, you will have a draft of an online academy with multiple modules, whose goals, content and frameworks are clear. This design is flexible, so easy to adapt and expand later on. The corresponding deliverables are: the LMC, a journey design spreadsheet and a visualisation of the learning journey.

Also, in the last workshop, an outline of how you can start the development phase and (have) which formats can be developed is already given. Your online academy is ready to be designed.

Client as content expert

You, as the client, are the subject matter expert. We as Parcours are the expert in fully designing and developing learning solutions. We set the framework. But at the end, you as the client owns the design. During the workshops you will feel this ownership growing. That’s also the reason why at the end of each session, you 'walk and talk' through the blocks with the whole team to make sure everyone understands what has been decided and agreed upon.

You are also the main source of all current materials. We will ask you to collect and organize materials, which can help with setting the learning objectives and closing the performance gap.

Looking for experts in the design (and development) of your training program or an online academy? Simply contact us and we look at how we can best support you.

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Rebecca van der Toorn
rebecca@parcourslearning.com

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