Learning design
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Retention and completion in online learning: recommended strategies for improvement
Why learner support is the heart of an effective program If you are designing an online or blended program for busy professionals, the single most powerful lever you control is how you support learners. When support is strong, people are more likely to stay in the program, complete activities, and actually change what they do…
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Richard Mayer’s research on multimedia for learning actually proves text works better
Educational technology professionals cite Richard Mayer’s 2008 study more than any other research on multimedia instruction. They are citing the wrong conclusion. Mayer did not prove multimedia enhances learning. He proved multimedia creates cognitive problems requiring ten different workarounds – and accidentally built the case for text-based instruction. What Richard Mayer actually found Through hundreds…
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Taking the pulse: why and how we change everything in response to learner signals
The ability to analyze and respond to learner behavior as it happens is crucial for educators. In complex learning that takes place in digital spaces, task separation between the design of instruction and its delivery does not make sense. Here is the practical approach we use in The Geneva Learning Foundation’s learning-to-action model to implement…
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What is a “rubric” and why use rubrics in global health education?
Rubrics are well-established, evidence-based tools in education, but largely unknown in global health. At the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF), the rubric is a key tool that we use – as part of a comprehensive package of interventions – to transform high-cost, low-volume training dependent on the limited availability of global experts into scalable peer learning to improve access, quality, and outcomes.…
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How we work
We achieve operational excellence to provide a high-quality, personalized and transformative learning experience for each learner – no matter how many are in the cohort. We achieve this by: Building on the best available evidence from research and our own practice in adult learning to address, engage, and retain busy, working professionals; Responding as quickly…
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What lies beyond the event horizon of the ‘webinar’?
It is very hard to convey to learners and newcomers to digital learning alike that asynchronous modes of learning are proven to be far more effective. There is an immediacy to a sage-on-the-stage lecture – whether it is plodding or enthralling – or to being connected simultaneously with others to do group work. Asynchronous goes…
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New learning and leadership for front-line community health workers facing danger
This presentation was prepared for the second global meeting of the Health Care in Danger (HCiD) project in Geneva, Switzerland (17–18 May 2017). In October 2016, over 700 pre-hospital emergency workers from 70 countries signed up for the #Ambulance! initiative to “share experience and document situations of violence”. This initiative was led by Norwegian Red…
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Can analysis and critical thinking be taught online in the humanitarian context?
This is my presentation at the First International Forum on Humanitarian Online Training (IFHOLT) organized by the University of Geneva on 12 June 2015. I describe some early findings from research and practice that aim to go beyond “click-through” e-learning that stops at knowledge transmission. Such transmissive approaches replicate traditional training methods prevalent in the humanitarian context, but are…
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Experience and blended learning: two heads of the humanitarian training chimera
Experience is the best teacher, we say. This is a testament to our lack of applicable quality standards for training and its professionalization, our inability to act on what has consequently become the fairly empty mantra of 70-20-10, and the blinders that keep the economics (low-volume, high-cost face-to-face training with no measurable outcomes pays the…
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