Contents
The ask
What we did
“Your first writing assignment involves transforming dry, boring, or unengaging content into a compelling, lean and impactful learning solution.”
Learning topic:
Active listening by skillsyouneed.com
Approach:
- Desktop research for persona development where I discovered that Dr. Frankenstein may have bipolar disorder
- Draft content using an outline
- Final ruthless edit and styling
The challenge:
The greatest challenge of getting started with the first assignment was deciding between the optional learning topics. I selected active listening because I wanted to select something that I knew would benefit a wide range of people. I identified two different persona types who might benefit from the topic of active listening. At first I thought the personas might be children and maniacal business executives and then reframed the persona scope to make them more broad archetypes.
- Learners who need mental health support to use active listening in everyday life
- Learners who are seeking self help guidance to use active listening in their work
The outcomes
What we learned
I used storytelling while building a persona and made the content more inclusive by considering more than one persona archetypes. This week's biggest surprise was how effective creative persona writing can help establish concrete learning goals. I knew I needed a creative persona to motivate myself to marinade a great piece of writing. Since it is spooky season, and I wanted to find the ultimate role model for poor active listening, Dr. Frankenstein was an easy creative choice. Had he been effectively applying active listening, his experiments would likely have had greatly improved outcomes. Getting weird helps us narrow in on the heart of our core learning goal and objectives. It motivated me to get all of my ideas out on the page with no limits.
Above: Dr. Frankenstein persona by Jenna Lawrence
Due to Dr. Frankenstein's current low scoring report card with his current ability to apply active learning, I decided that if I could get my learner to apply active listening in one scenario, we could consider the learning piece an earth shattering success. To do this I employed scaffolding for the learner to practice their knowledge with connecting new learning to an experience they had in the past. We did a simplified 'even better if' exercise and then followed up with a real world scenario where the learner could easily practise low-stakes active listening.
Above: An exercise in de-escalating conflict with active listening by Jenna Lawrence
The example from a previous student who had created a presentation with visuals was an insightful easter egg in recent learning modules. It helped solidify the direction I wanted to take my assignment. In my edit I thought a lot about the delivery method of the writing so I was better able to axe content that wasn't adding value. It was suprising that editing can be compelling. The assignment outcome became ruthlessly lean because the extra weird narrative in my writing was easy to axe.
Above: Mini-writing assignment 1 by Nada Savicevic
Assignment outcomes
The art of active listening by Jenna Lawrence
Image source: The art of active listening by Jenna Lawrence
Next steps
What's next?
We can take these next steps to create compelling, engaging, and leaner content:
- Engaging and compelling learners with storytelling, delight, and a great edit because it gamifies, rewards and visualizes memorable experiences
- Employing linking or connecting to a learner's existing knowledge, then scaffolding their needs from this foundational knowledge toward greater understanding
- Making adaptable content that appeals to a diverse group of learners and prepares them for baked-in learning evaluation
- Practising outlining, chunking and self editing regularly to make well structured, leaner content
- Capturing the attention of your audience and efficiently transfer knowledge with ruthless editing
Reanimating dry, boring, and unengaging content can be creative and ruthlessly compelling. You might catch on in a flash while doing the graveyard smash. Be brave, get weird, and axe anything that doesn't reinforce your learning goals.