{"id":346,"date":"2024-08-11T16:41:51","date_gmt":"2024-08-11T23:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/?p=346"},"modified":"2024-08-26T10:48:52","modified_gmt":"2024-08-26T17:48:52","slug":"using-empathy-to-influence-learning-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/using-empathy-to-influence-learning-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Empathy to Influence Learning Design"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A note to my classmates:<\/strong> My apologies for being less present during this last course. I’ve unfortunately been balancing school with some additional responsibilites at work and in my personal life. As such I haven’t been able to respond as timely to your blog posts. I am hopeful that changes with our next course (our last together!). <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image attributed to Articulate Content Library<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been working in the Instructional Design field for about eight years now, but being mostly self-taught and mentored by peers I\u2019ll be the first to admit that I\u2019ve picked up some bad habits. For example, it took me a long time to learn that my stakeholders and learners weren\u2019t interested in academic theory; They were more interested in what they needed to learn to achieve their academic goals. It also took me some time to learn that in corporate learning stakeholders are often willing to forego an ideal learning situation if it means a project can be done quickly. It\u2019s also taken me until just this course to reflect on my needs analysis style and realize that I had a lot to learn about the power of empathizing with the learners and the stakeholders.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I started to develop my problem of practice in the first two weeks of this course, I already had in mind a project I could apply it to at my workplace, and – if I\u2019m being honest – I had a solution in mind as well. To leverage the words of Steven Covey in his Book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People <\/em>(Covey, 1989, as cited in Habit 2<\/em>, n.d.) I was practicing the second habit which is to \u201cbegin with the end in mind\u201d, with that end being the problem that I assumed was causing the lack of engagement with the knowledge base system at my work (and which was at the centre of my problem of practice). To kick-off this project I conducted an interview with the Knowledge Management team and their Manager, and both of us were surprised that the root-cause of our problems was not a lack of understanding with the corporate system in question, but rather a lack of engagement by middle-management. This revelation only came about because I used a Design Thinking approach to my needs analysis interview, attempted to put myself in the end-learners\u2019 shoes, and took time to build trust with the subject matter experts I was meeting with. Looking back on this experience I\u2019m certain I would not have gained the insight I did (or build what I believe will be an effective digital learning artifact) had I not mindfully set aside my unconscious biases to gain an unbiased perspective (Design Thinking: Empathize<\/em>, 2018) and and focused foremost on the needs of the the learners.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end I think I\u2019ve achieved a digital learning solution which will be more effective at meeting the needs of both the learners and the business. By approaching this learning problem from an empathy perspective by means of the design thinking tools I was unable to unlock needs which neither the department\u2019s manager nor myself knew existed, that being leadership motivation to use the new tool rather than a knowledge gap. As Li, Liu and Xu explain in their article, \u201cmotivation is fostered when individuals\u2019 voices are heard and choices are respected. Accordingly, a humanized environment should be one that provides choices to students as well as opportunities to reflect on their own learning.\u201d (Li, Liu, and Xu, 2022, p. 2). Since the hidden truth I had uncovered through the design thinking process was that we needed to re-motivate and re-engage these leaders with the recently-launched knowledge base system, I decided to build a virtually-facilitated workshop which would solicit the feedback of participants, respect their feelings about the knowledge management system, and include a personalized activity where they could find ways \u2013 big or small – to use the new system to help them address their team\u2019s personal goals. As I\u2019ve been on vacation I haven\u2019t had a chance to get feedback from my stakeholders yet, but I very much look forward to making some adjustments based on that when I return home in a week\u2019s time, and hopefully facilitate this session before the end of August. Wish me luck!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind<\/em>. (n.d.). Franklin Covey. Retrieved August 11, 2024, from https:\/\/www.franklincovey.com\/the-7-habits\/habit-2\/<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Design Thinking: Empathize<\/em>. (2018, June 9). Mindful Marks. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=q654-kmF3Pc&feature=youtu.be&themeRefresh=1<\/a>\u00a0

Li, Q., Ba\u00f1uelos, M., Liu, Y., & Xu, D. (2022). Online instruction for a humanized learning experience: Techniques used by college instructors. Computers & Education<\/em>, 189<\/em>, 1\u201312. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.compedu.2022.104595<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A note to my classmates: My apologies for being less present during this last course. I’ve unfortunately been balancing school with some additional responsibilites at work and in my personal life. As such I haven’t been able to respond as timely to your blog posts. I am hopeful that changes with our next course (our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt527"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions\/348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}