LearningDesign:

Clarification of aims
Develop online learning resources to develop skills in assertiveness in a range of specified situations for security communication centre staff. The resources need to be easily accessible and describe situations that have some degree of relevance to the learners.

Ensuring learners drive your design
Who are the learners/users/target audience? The learners work in a security communication centre. The assumption is that they are new to the security industry. More data will need to be gathered in order to gather a more detailed picture of the target group to clarify some of the assumptions about this group of learners so that resources are designed to suit this group. It is unclear as to the range of language literacy and computer literacy skills amongst this group.

What are the particular needs of this group? These learners need to be able to communicate effectively in a range of situations. They will need to be able to empathise with the people they interact with in order to make effective decisions and provide information to people in a range of situations.

How are their needs going to be catered for in the design of your resource? We will need to present the range of communications skills in a way that the learners see as being relevant to their experiences and enable them to practice or demonstrate their competence in the skills delivered through the resources.

''What is the situation in which most learners will use this resource? For example will they have access to computers, the internet, or will they need printed versions of materials?'' The resources will be delivered online with a range of tasks that require learners to demonstrate or provide evidence that they mastered the skill set. Some of the tasks or evidence may be completed as part of the online system however some of the tasks may need to be assessed in a face to face.

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Learning activity
''What are the overall learning goals/objectives for this resource or course? What changes do we want learners to show as a result of using the resource?'' Given a variety of communication situations which may be familiar to the learners eg based around the workplace, family and social situations, enable learners to identify barriers to assertive communication and determine appropriate behaviours to encourage a successful outcome to the situation for those involved. It is unclear at this point as to what time frame the client estimates this training to be delivered under eg, a block of time allocated for the learning or the learning is to be done over a period of time at the learner's own pace.

What types of learning activities are learners going to need to DO to achieve the learning goals? This may be done by using visual media such as images or short video vignettes of various situations and build case study scenarios requiring learner's to describe the activity they are viewing and the techniques, skills, strategies for assertive communication that could be applied to each scenario to bring about a successful outcome for the parties involved in the communication.

The scenarios would involve a range of online tasks that would build the learner's understanding of different cultural and societal situations that impact communications so that they are able to identify verbal and non-verbal cues to assist with gaining a successful outcome.

How are we going to check that learners have achieved what they set out to? Learners would be required to submit responses to tasks online. Depending on literacy levels, assessment activities may be developed using multiple choice type responses or recorded verbal or video responses.

What feedback will learners need to receive to know how they are going? Throughout the activities where appropriate learners will receive ongoing feedback to keep them on track. They should also have the ability to revisit learning objectives where they discover their understanding is not thorough enough.

How are learners going to communicate with each other and ‘teachers’ while they work through the resource? Communication between learners and others will depend on both english literacy and technology literacy levels. A range of technologies and online tools eg, email, online group discussions forums, txt, phone, blogs, wiki or online social networks could be employed.

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Learning resources
What relevant resources and tools already exist that learners can use?

What, if any, new resources need to be created?

How should these resources be used?

What opportunities can we build in to encourage learners to discover and share their own resources?

What support will learners need?

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Teaching and learning approach
What philosophies or approaches underpin what we want to achieve?

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Using the materials
How do we recommend this resource be used?

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Evaluating the materials
What feedback would you like about the resource you have created?

How are you going to get this and when?