Does your educational material work?
Whether you are a teacher or an instructional designer, it is inevitable that at least once, you have created your own activities, lessons or educational resources. But what impact did they have? Did they achieve the expected learning outcomes, or did the learners show indifference? In this article, you will be presented with 9 steps or, better yet, events to help you create high-quality educational material based on Gagne’s 9 events of instruction.
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In case you are looking for the simplified version of the article, you may find it here
Most teachers want to break away from the conventional framework offered by the textbook and go one step further. They use a variety of activities, either to motivate the learners or to provide additional knowledge to them. Due to COVID-19 and the violent conversion of the traditional classroom to digital, dozens of teachers found themselves creating their own educational material and resources. In most cases, based on the various surveys regarding students’ beliefs, the quality of those resources was below average. So, the question arises. How can you improve the quality of your educational material?
Nine Events of Instruction
To develop quality educational material, whether it is an eLearning course or a traditional classroom lesson plan, we will use Robert Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction.
Robert Gagné was a psychologist. He is known for his work “The Conditions of Learning: Training Applications “. Gagné composed a 9-step process known as the Nine Events of Instruction to develop learners’ spiritual skills.
The ultimate goal of the Nine Events of Instruction is to help learners transfer the knowledge or skills they have acquired to the real world.
Let’s see the events one by one.
First Event - Gain attention
In the first step of Gagne, you have to gain the learners’ attention. Consider this: Information can be found everywhere online in a matter of minutes. Therefore, if the learners do not immediately perceive what is presented to them as useful, they will ignore it and look for something more appealing. To counter this you can:
➡️1. Begin with a proverb or a quote from someone important. Using an expert’s words is always an excellent way to hook the learners.
➡️2. Use storytelling. Recite an imaginatively compelling story or narrate a past incident to present your subject.
➡️3. Use thought-provoking phrases, sentences or facts (e.g. statistics) to get students interested in the topic. For example, start with the phrase, “Did you know that in 1896 the first Olympic Games were held in Athens?
➡️4. Start with a disorienting dilemma or question. This aligns with Mezirow’s Transformative learning and essentially challenges the learners’ existing beliefs. For example, start with the question, “What do you think is the percentage of children who experience violence within their family?“. Through the feedback, the learners may realise that the answer they gave is incorrect and that the correct reply can be pretty shocking. Thus, you attract their interest and highlight the importance of your topic.
If you want to learn other writing techniques to catch your learners’ interest, you can watch the video we created on YouTube.
Second Event - Inform learners of objectives
During this event, you need to tell the learners what they should be able to do by the end of the lesson. Present the Learning Objectives in a way that draws their interest, focusing on the real-life outcomes they will acquire because of the training. So:
➡️1. Avoid wooden language. Yeah, of course, you must write the Learning Objectives using Bloom’s Taxonomy, make the S.M.A.R.T, etc. But seriously, don’t list them this way for the learner to see. This is an outdated technique. As a consequence, none reads the Learning Objectives. So instead, tell them what they will be able to do due to the training.
So, instead of saying:
“After completing this module, you should be able to describe the four stages of the ARCS motivation model“,
say this:
“After completing this module, you should be able to design motivational courses“
➡️2. Don’t just make the Learning Objectives measurable. Instead, tell the learners what they must do to complete the training and its objectives successfully. For example, you can mention the minimum completion score required as well as the evaluation methodology and criteria you have set.
Third Event - Stimulate recall of prior learning
The third of Gagne’s Events is stimulating the recall of previous knowledge. It’s hard to store new data in memory unless we connect it with what we already know. Therefore, in this phase, you should relate the new knowledge/skill to the prior knowledge/skill already possessed by the learners.
Recalling one’s previous knowledge helps store new knowledge in one’s long-term memory.
This is because new information is stored in long-term memory when a connection between new data and existing information can be found. To achieve this:
➡️1. Incorporate prior learning into new activities. Do not just randomly restate previous knowledge. Instead, consider what pre-existing knowledge/skills will help the learners make associations with your new content. Use this prior knowledge/skills to ask relevant questions.
➡️2. Use familiar examples. Help the learners identify what they already know by giving them examples they are already familiar with.
Fourth Event - Presenting the content
In this step, the instructional designer must present the content.
It is best to present only what is needed and not to overflow the learner with information.
The content should be illustrated using a variety of techniques. This is crucial since one must differentiate how the content is presented to maintain learners’ attention and increase knowledge acquisition.
Remember that It is important to separate the information logically to avoid overloading the learners’ memory. After all, as the microlearning technique dictates, smaller pieces of information are more easily consumed and are longer retained in learners’ memory. Therefore:
➡️1. Skip any non-essential content. Use only the pieces of knowledge that help the content tie to the Learning Objectives (must-know-content). Avoid adding information that does not supporting achieving the Learning Objectives (nice-to-know-content). Ask yourself this:
What information do learners need to know / what skill to perform to meet the objective?
Only this knowledge should be presented within your training programme.
➡️2. Use markdown format. Lists, bold and highlighted text. Think of the skimmers and help them visualise the text. To do so, use bold text for key points. It breaks up the text, emphasising its most essential parts.
➡️3. Less is more. Create short sentences and paragraphs. Break the content into easily understandable segments. You don’t want the learners to be intimidated due to the size of the text, do you?
➡️4. Use simple and easy-to-understand language. The hard-to-understand language will lead to cognitive overload. Therefore, refer to the learner directly using language that matches the age and educational level of the learners. Avoid using passive voice to make the text more easily readable if possible. To make the text more readable, I run a Flesh Kincaid Test and strive for a Grade level of less than 8 and a Flesch Reading Ease of more than 50%.
➡️5. Enrich the content with images, audio or even video to keep learners interested. Be careful with your images, though. Make sure that the images you have chosen help the learners understand the content and are not there just for the sake of it.
➡️6. Place the references in a separate section away from the main text. In eLearning programs, information has to be presented in a way that prevents cognitive overload. Therefore, if you have to, it’s advisable not to use the APA or MLA styles. Instead, opt for the IEEE style, which uses parentheses and numbers to make quotes.
Fifth Event - Provide Guidance to the learners
This event focuses on assisting the learners to store the information deep in their memory. Therefore, you need to provide guidance and scaffolding as needed to help the learners overcome challenges and grasp complex concepts. After all, people need to remember and be able to recall what they are taught because that’s the foundation of a successful lesson. Therefore, you need to aid them by providing the necessary guidance to achieve this. Guidance can be given by:
➡️1. Letting the learners know how often they should interact with the educational material. This is especially important if you plan to include forum activities. This is because the learners need to know how regularly they have to post to meet the requirements.
➡️2. Including job aids such as step-by-step guides, especially if you want the learners to be able to do something. For example, a step-by-step guide is a great way to help them understand using a specifc software. Other great job aids include infographics, case studies and charts. The reason is these types of graphical representations assist in making visual associations, ultimately helping the learners connect with new concepts.
➡️3. Giving them instructions on how to learn through guided activities or common pitfalls they may fall into. For example, if you ask them to write an essay, it is necessary to provide them with a sample of the perfect essay for the lesson. You can also give them a sample essay that is the exact opposite of what is required by them. Giving an example of what they should not do is a great way to compare and contrast.
➡️4. Offer clear explanations, examples, and demonstrations to ensure that learners understand the content.
➡️5. Suggest to the learners what to do afterwards. For example, you may suggest that they can take another training course or that they can read some additional resources relevant to the topic.
Sixth Event - Elicit Performance
Next, you must give the learners enough time and possibilities to practice to achieve the desired performance. Give them opportunities to apply what they have learnt or what they already know. The combination of repetition and recall is crucial for learning.
To achieve that:
➡️1. Provide them with exercises or group activities that require learners to collaborate with their peers.
➡️2. Incorporate branching scenarios. Both scenarios and stories are great tools to elicit performance. Scenarios enable the learners to use their knowledge and problem-solving skills to deal with real-life situations. These scenarios can easily be transferred to the real world, making them ideal for teaching skills. The learner is presented with a real-life scenario and is asked to make decisions in a series of questions. The learner’s choice does matter because of the feedback they receive. Scenario’s feedback focuses on real-life consequences, essentially what would have happened if the learner had chosen this exact path, either right or wrong, in the real world.
➡️3. Use simulations to help them better understand what they need to do when presenting tools, machinery or software.
Seventh Event - Provide Feedback
The next event is about giving feedback to the learners. This is inextricably linked to the previous phase. Feedback on learners’ choices allows gaps in comprehension to be identified. Feedback isn’t just about confirming correct or incorrect responses. Feedback is about explaining to the learners why their answer is either correct or incorrect, thus helping them understand the course content.
Giving a quiz without the necessary feedback essentially removes the quiz from the main content. After all, we do not teach to assess. We teach to transfer knowledge, which can also be transmitted through feedback and revision of one’s choices. Therefore, “Correct/ Incorrect” feedback is pointless. So you have to:
➡️1. Show, don’t just tell. If you are keen on creating scenarios, make sure your feedback focuses on the consequences of what would have happened in the real world if the learner had chosen the choice.
➡️2. If you aren’t into creating scenarios but regular M/C questions, explain why the learner’s choice is correct or incorrect. Remember, feedback is an excellent way for you to highlight the critical parts of the knowledge/skills you presented earlier.
➡️3. Be positive. Don’t be harsh; use a friendly tone when someone makes a mistake.
➡️4. State what the correct response is. Don’t leave them wondering because if you do so, they’ll probably end up in Google, looking for the correct answer.
Eighth Event - Assess Performance
In this event of Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction, the goal is to check whether the expected learning outcomes have been achieved. The most common way to do so is to give the learners an assessment after they have completed the course of the lesson.
Remember that your assessment items need to be aligned with the learning objectives and provide a fair measure of learners’ knowledge and abilities.
There are various types of assessments:
Pre-test assessment
This type of assessment can help the learners identify what they already know. Thus, they are able to choose whether they want to skip specific sections of the lesson or focus on specific topics, ignoring those that they already know.
Post-test evaluation
This assessment is used to demonstrate whether the learners have understood the content given to them. Post-test evaluation takes place after the completion of the lesson. This way is usually chosen when there is a need to provide a certificate.
Formative assessment
The aim of this assessment is to determine whether the learners have acquired the knowledge presented in a particular unit or module instead.
➡️1. Assign projects that require learners to apply their knowledge and skills in practical scenarios. You can go a step further and ask them to present their projects.
➡️2. Have them engage in role-playing scenarios that assess their ability to apply knowledge in realistic or complex situations, evaluating their decision-making and problem-solving skills.
➡️3. Offer them some good-old multiple-choice quizzes and evaluate them based on their score.
Ninth Event - Enhance retention and transfer
In the final Event, learners are prepared to apply the information they have learnt to real-world situations and environments. This increases the retention of knowledge as learners connect knowledge with their daily lives and the real world. By bridging the gap between the learning environment and real-life situations, learners can transfer their newly acquired knowledge and skills effectively. So, how do you connect knowledge and information with the real world?
➡️1. Include job aids that outline and summarise the key parts of the content. The learners can download these job aids for future reference after completing the course/lesson and use them on the spot when needed.
➡️2. Provide opportunities for the learners to reflect on what they have learnt so far. Encourage them to reflect on how the learnt concepts connect to their experiences and the world around them. Facilitate discussions that explore the real-world implications and applications of the learned material. This can be done through reflection questions or forums.