Have you ever participated in a training where you went into the training with a mind set of "have to" instead of "get to"? Was the information being presented relevant to you and your needs? Perhaps if the training had been more tailored to you as audience member then you would have found it more engaging and worthwhile? We've all participated in professional engagements we were less than thrilled about, however, do you want participants to feel that way about YOUR training/course? I am pretty confident the answer to that question is NO. As an instructional designer you want to create an effective training/course that will be relevant, motivating and interesting to all of your participants.
When creating content no matter your professional field, whether it's marketing, entertainment, education, etc understanding your audience is the first step to making your content relatable and successful. WHY and HOW you do this effectively is critical.
You want your WHY to be simple...engagement and retention! Hamilton College addresses that a presenter should want the audience to feel that the presentation is personalized just for them. You want your training to match the participants' interests and needs (Wrench, Goding, Johnson, & Attias, 2017). You should draw your audience into your presentation! The end goal of completing your training is to have your audience grow in their knowledge of what you presented and be able to apply it in real life applications.
Check out the short video below to get an idea of WHY understanding your audience is a critical first step in course design.
Knowing Your Audience on Biteable. Created by C Daugherty for EDU 654
Having trouble viewing the video above please visit: Knowing Your Audience
Now, lets look at HOW we understand our audience when designing content. The video above briefly mentions "getting to know" your participants. But how can you do this? To make your training more effective one strategy is conducting a learning analysis of your audience. This may take some time to complete. The Compass for SBC suggests conducting an audience analysis 3-4 weeks before you create/present content to allow enough responses to be collected.
The article below looks at how to do this in the e-learning community and has some great strategies for implementing this first step in content design.
HOW TO DO AN E-LEARNING AUDIENCE ANALYSIS
One strategy I use whenever I am getting to know a new cohort of teachers is an introduction Padlet similar to the one below. Each Training Teacher is asked to complete this upon starting the training. Now, keep in mind this step is completed after the course design so although the training is already being implemented I am able to tailor my feedback, communication etc based on some of the answers I receive on the introduction Padlet.
Created by C Daugherty as an example for "Knowing your Audience" https://padlet.com/coston_daughert/mly9qzba6fqfdj20
For additional ways on how to effectively navigate the "understanding your audience" step in training/course design check out the links below. I believe you may find some helpful tips and strategies for tackling this step.
How To Create An Effective Training Program: 8 Steps To Success
References:
Wrench, J. S., Goding, A., Johnson, D. I., & Attias, B. (2017). Stand up, speak out: the practice and ethics of public speaking. Boston, MA: FlatWorld.
How to Engage Your Audience and Keep Them with You. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/centers/oralcommunication/guides/how-to-engage-your-audience-and-keep-them-with-you
How to Do an Audience Analysis. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.thecompassforsbc.org/how-to-guides/how-do-audience-analysis
