Assignment 7 - Online Learning

7-1. Develop a lesson incorporating the Internet following the ASSURE model.

Lesson Title

Building an Agreement in the Customer Agreement Management System

Instructional Situation

The organization has made an investment in internally developing a software application that will be used to create and maintain customer purchase agreements. This is a completely new approach to managing customer agreements and the organization's contract sales force needs to become familiar with how to use the new product. Because the sales force is located at numerous locations throughout the country and there are time constraints being enforced by organizational leadership, an Internet-based instructional approach seems to be the ideal approach.

Analyze Learners

• General Characteristics - The learners are:
  • Members of the contract sales force
  • Primarily between the ages of 30 and 60
  • Located near most major U.S. metropolitan areas
  • Skilled at interpersonal relations
  • College graduates (or have had some college)
    
    
• Entry Competencies - The learners:
  • Are familiar with the business and its products and services
  • Have been in their job position at least three months
  • Have created at least five agreements using the organization's current, traditional methods
  • Are comfortable with using the Internet
  • Are experienced with the company's software applications used for internal support
  • Have previously taken instruction via webinar at the organization
    
    
• Learning Style - The learners tend to:
  • Process information in a concrete sequential manner, thus preferring hands-on experiences in logical order
  • Think interpersonally, as they regularly interact with customers through direct and indirect channels

State Standards & Objectives

Instructional Objective - Given a prospective customer and the Customer Agreement Management System (CAMS), contract sales reps will build a new customer agreement that completely aligns with the following criteria established by the organization:

• All required fields must be completed accurately
• All required documents must be attached

Quality Standards - In addition to the criteria specified in the instructional objective, the sales reps will be held accountable for the organization's general Quality Standards. These standards are posted on the organization's intranet and are already widely known across the organization.

Select Strategies, Technology, Media, & Materials

Strategies - Because the content needs to be consistent for all learners, archived for later retrieval, and suitable for the learners, the following strategies have been selected:

• Presentation - this small component will include:
  • A brief overview of the new system
  • An explanation of the company's rationale for moving to the new system
  • Definitions of key terminology, including agreements
  • A comparison of the old and new systems and why the new system makes life easier
• Demonstration - the core of the lesson will be a live demonstration of a real-world scenario.
  • The presenter will use the webinar software to walk through the creation of a customer agreement in CAMS.
  • The demonstration will be somewhat "hybrid" in the sense that the webinar software will allow the learners to participate by taking control of the screen, entering questions, and responding to questions from the instructor.

Technology - Because the sales force is dispersed throughout the company and time and financial resources are limited, the Internet seems to be the best approach for this instruction. Specifically, this will involve the use of a Web-based seminar, or webinar, in which the facilitator will use a microphone to speak to the participants. Both the facilitator and the participants can enter text in the "live chat" area at the bottom of the webinar screen, enabling interaction among all participants and the instructor. As such, the technology will involve the following:

• A computer with
  • Internet connectivity
  • Webinar software
  • Microphone
  • CAMS software
• The Internet
• A computer with Internet access for each participant (the learners will use their own business laptops)

Media & Materials - The internal software development team has already created user documentation for CAMS. A softcopy, PDF version of the documentation will be provided to the learners as a job aid for assistance on the job. Additionally, the user documentation will be used to ensure the procedure is demonstrated with complete accuracy during the webinar. Finally, a process flow document is available for double-checking accuracy of the webinar scenario and for the learners to use as a job aid in the workplace.

The only material that will need to be created is a list of the specific details that will be used for the customer scenario in the webinar. This will be a relatively simple document containing only the details that the instructor will need to enter as she/he facilitates the session.

Utilize Technology, Media, & Materials

• Preview the Technology/Media/Materials - Before the lesson, the facilitator will review the user documentation and process flow document to ensure she/he can create an agreement in CAMS. The facilitator will also preview both the live CAMS environment and the webinar software that will be used to deliver the instruction via the Internet.
• Prepare the Technology/Media/Materials - Setup the webinar meeting and upload the user documentation and process flow document into the meeting space for the learners to download during the lesson.
• Prepare the Environment - For this lesson, the environment is both physical and virtual. For the physical environment, use a conference room or small training room with little background interference to ensure a quality session for the learners. For the virtual environment, set the webinar software to share the CAMS environment with the participants via the Internet and ensure the control passing option is enabled so that learners can interact with the live CAMS system.
• Prepare the Learners - Send appointments to the learners so that they know well in advance the timing of the lesson, the instructional topic, the importance of attending, the relevance of the material to their everyday work, and access information for the webinar. Include a link in case the learners need to download any plug-ins.
• Provide the Learning Experience - Present the webinar using the selected strategies, media, materials, and technology.

Require Learner Participation

While much of the lesson will involve a live demonstration, the webinar allows learners to take control of the presentation to perform functions in the same CAMS environment being used by the facilitator. As such, the following events will occur throughout the lesson, requiring learners to participate:

• Ask the learners questions to ensure comprehension. The learners will be able to enter their responses in the small chat window provided at the bottom of the webinar screen. Provide immediate feedback.
• Ask the learners to enter specific pieces of information into the system or to make changes or corrections. To do so, call on a particular user just as would be done in a live classroom, click the option to provide that user with control of CAMS in the webinar, and have the participant perform the action. Provide immediate feedback.
• Ask the learners if they have any questions, comments, or concerns and facilitate discussion among the group as they chat.

Finally, after the lesson has completed, have the learners create a new agreement on their own in the CAMS test environment to ensure they have mastered the objective.

Evaluate & Revise

As the lesson progresses, evaluate learner comprehension by asking questions and having the learners perform specific tasks. Use these questions as opportunities to provide immediate feedback and remediation, if necessary, and to spawn discussions with the entire group. After the course has completed and the learners create a new agreement in the CAMS test environment, the training system will automatically email the webinar facilitator with the results. Review the results to ensure each learner completed the agreement successfully and provide feedback as necessary.

If any particular learner seems to struggle with the lesson, work with the individual as much as possible in the webinar. To prevent interruptions to the other learners, move such conversations to one-on-one meetings after the session if necessary.

If several learners are struggling with a particular aspect of the lesson or a significant number of learners have not mastered the objective, review the materials and instructional approach to ensure they clearly support the instructional objective. Identify and remove any potential barriers to learner success.

Provide the learners with an online survey that they can use to evaluate the webinar, materials, CAMS, the facilitator, and the overall experience. If negative comments or scores are received, revisit the lesson strategy, structure, and technology and revise as needed.