Glossary
Select a letter to see the Glossary.
Accessibility
Accessibility ensures that learners with disabilities can access the same e-learning content as their peers.
Accessible design also makes e-Learning more user-friendly and easier to navigate for everyone.
It's also a legal requirement in many countries, including the European Union (European Accessibility Act), the United States (US Rehabilitation Act (1973) Section 508), Canada (Accessibility Canada Act), and more.
Accessibility legislation often upgrades the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) into legal requirements.
Active learning
Active learning is a learner-centred approach that requires participants to actively engage their brains with the content, and sometimes, each other. It's not just more clicking! Interactive components are not the same as active learning!
Active learning makes people do things, and think about what they're doing. In e-learning, active learning means formative assessment questions and other activities, such as online discussions, collaborative documents, and problem-solving exercises.
ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation)
ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation) is a framework of generic processes instructional designers and training developers use to create courses.
- Analysis is the input;
- Design, Development, and Evaluation are processes;
- Implementation is the output.
Andragogy
Andragogy is the art or science of facilitating learning for adults. American educator Malcolm Knowles made 5 key assumptions about adult learners:
- We prefer to direct our own learning.
- Our current knowledge and experience influence how we learn new things.
- We're more likely to embrace learning that's directly related to something important to us, such as our work or personal life.
- We're increasingly problem-focused, not topic-focused - we want to apply our new knowledge as soon as possible.
- We're increasingly intrinsically (internally) motivated.
So, andragogy is about self-directed learning: the content may be pre-defined, but the learner takes ownership of learning that content. The next step is self-determined learning: taking greater responsibility for identifying learning needs, setting goals, and implementing strategies - also known as heutagogy.
Assessment
Assessment focuses on what people know and can do, to identify strengths and weaknesses of individuals or groups.
Assessments could be:
- pass/fail tests, or Summative Assessment
- questions to help the learning process, or Formative Assessment
In both cases, an assessment needs to be:
- reliable
- valid
Writing questions is easy; constructing an effective assessment is a far greater challenge.
See also: Needs Assessment - an early stage course development process to identify action points.
Accessibility
Accessibility ensures that learners with disabilities can access the same e-learning content as their peers.
Accessible design also makes e-Learning more user-friendly and easier to navigate for everyone.
It's also a legal requirement in many countries, including the European Union (European Accessibility Act), the United States (US Rehabilitation Act (1973) Section 508), Canada (Accessibility Canada Act), and more.
Accessibility legislation often upgrades the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) into legal requirements.
Active learning
Active learning is a learner-centred approach that requires participants to actively engage their brains with the content, and sometimes, each other. It's not just more clicking! Interactive components are not the same as active learning!
Active learning makes people do things, and think about what they're doing. In e-learning, active learning means formative assessment questions and other activities, such as online discussions, collaborative documents, and problem-solving exercises.
ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation)
ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation) is a framework of generic processes instructional designers and training developers use to create courses.
- Analysis is the input;
- Design, Development, and Evaluation are processes;
- Implementation is the output.
Andragogy
Andragogy is the art or science of facilitating learning for adults. American educator Malcolm Knowles made 5 key assumptions about adult learners:
- We prefer to direct our own learning.
- Our current knowledge and experience influence how we learn new things.
- We're more likely to embrace learning that's directly related to something important to us, such as our work or personal life.
- We're increasingly problem-focused, not topic-focused - we want to apply our new knowledge as soon as possible.
- We're increasingly intrinsically (internally) motivated.
So, andragogy is about self-directed learning: the content may be pre-defined, but the learner takes ownership of learning that content. The next step is self-determined learning: taking greater responsibility for identifying learning needs, setting goals, and implementing strategies - also known as heutagogy.
Assessment
Assessment focuses on what people know and can do, to identify strengths and weaknesses of individuals or groups.
Assessments could be:
- pass/fail tests, or Summative Assessment
- questions to help the learning process, or Formative Assessment
In both cases, an assessment needs to be:
- reliable
- valid
Writing questions is easy; constructing an effective assessment is a far greater challenge.
See also: Needs Assessment - an early stage course development process to identify action points.
Blended learning
Blended learning, or hybrid learning, combines e-learning with face-to-face classroom instruction; it's a 'best of both' approach to enhancing the learning experience and knowledge retention.
Definitions vary, but generally, the online portion replaces, rather than supplements, some of the face-to-face contact time. An extension of this idea is the flipped classroom, where participants learn information before applying it in face-to-face sessions.
We can help you create great blended learning!
Cognitive Load Theory (CLT)
Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), pioneered by John Sweller, explains how three parts of our memory process three types of information (cognitive loads) to enable us to learn.
The foundations of CLT are two widely accepted ideas about our brains' processing power:
- our processing power for new information is very limited
- our processing power for stored information has no known limits.
Learning requires us to transfer new information into our long-term memory by organising it into frameworks, or schemas.
However, before we get to the long-term memory, there's:
Sensory memory
Our sensory memory filters out most of what's happening around us, so you can concentrate, and passes limited, (hopefully useful) information on to our working memory.
Working memory
Our working memory enables us to actively use a limited amount of information, for a short period, and connect it with other information to make schemas.
Long-term memory
Our long-term memory is our huge, semi-permanent store of knowledge. CLT assumes that we organise the information in our long-term memory in 'frameworks', called "schemas", according to how we'll use it.
To optimise learning, we need to consider 3 kinds of cognitive load:
- minimise unnecessary information, or extraneous load
- manage the inherent difficulty of the material itself, intrinsic load
- maximise the processing that builds schemas, germane load.
For a deep dive into CLT, check out our CLT Resource.
Construct validity
Construct validity is how well an assessment measures the concept (or 'construct') that it's supposed to measure.
Desirable difficulty
Desirable difficulty is about short-term effort for long-term gains. The term was introduced by American psychologist Robert Bjork, in 1994. The fundamental principle is that learning activities which are challenging, but achievable, result in better long-term outcomes. Easy isn't effective.
However, not all difficulty is desirable.
- Desirable difficulty is about repeated interaction with and processing of information through exposure to the concept.
- It's not about over-practicing or making tasks unnecessarily long.
Construct validity
Construct validity is how well an assessment measures the concept (or 'construct') that it's supposed to measure.
Evaluation
Evaluation determines the overall effectiveness and quality of a program or intervention. Evaluation is a wider concept than Assessment - although people often confuse the two: assessment data is part of, but not all of, evaluation conversations.
A well-known model for e-learning evaluation is Kirkpatrick's Four Levels of Training Evaluation.
Face validity
Face validity is the extent to which a course, or assessment, meets the expectations of the people who use it.
For example, an assessment has face validity if test-takers believe that it measures what it's supposed to measure (even if that belief isn't really accurate!).
Fairness
Fairness in an <a href="#assessment"></a> assessment is the absence of bias; the assessment used and the interpretation of results doesn't disadvantage particular groups.
See also Reliability, Validity.
Flipped classroom
Imagine doing the homework before, not after, the lesson.
A flipped classroom works on the idea that the best use of face-to-face learning time is active learning, such as collaborative activities, problem-solving, and deeper engagement with core concepts, under an instructor's guidance.
It takes direct instruction, like lectures, out of the classroom, and presents the information people will need to apply as self-study materials, before the class. This format enables people to learn new content at their own pace, before class, and apply that knowledge in class.
Combining online and face-to-face learning makes a flipped classroom is a type of blended learning. In class, the instructor acts as a facilitator and mentor, guiding participants through complex applications and providing personalised support. However, the front-end workload of creating the self-study materials requires careful thought and planning.
We can help create flipped classroom training for your organisation.
Formative assessment
Formative assessment is an ongoing, informal measure of learning that happens during the learning process. Formative assessment provides immediate feedback, that enables learners to identify and address gaps in their understanding before higher-stakes, pass/fail summative assessments.
Formative assessments also help create a more active learning process, by adding practice (germane load).