7 Ate 9*: Do We Need More Steps of Design?

The 7 Steps of Design

In my last post I debuted a Instructional Video for the Learning Design Canvas that outlined how I see the 7 Steps of Design fit together. So as you can see, I'm a big fan.  

But since discovering Dialogue Education in 2001, I have used this framework constantly to plan workshops, meetings, conferences,... even my daughter's birth plan (NB: It didn't work. Something about the principles of "Resistance" and being the "Subject of her own learning"). 

This intuitive and elegant approach learning design was developed by Dr. Jane Vella, and popularized by the company she founded, Global Learning Partners.

You can hear more about Jane's take on the Seven Steps of Design via this podcast.

I think it works well because it invites you to name all the key design parameters (Who, Why, When and Where) before making decisions about the remaining elements (What, What For and How).

Too often, facilitators that I coach tend to want to rush to the "HOW": "I've got this great activity..."; but the 7 Steps reminds you to go back to the needs of the learners and to design for congruence between each step.  

I also like how it uses the term "design". In earlier iterations, I believe it was called the "7 Steps of Planning", but Jane and others soon realized that you really can't "plan" dialogic learning, you can only design the conditions and create the space for it to occur.  "Design" also reminds of me of architecture, and the beauty of creating learning events that embody clean lines, leave lots of space to breath, and that include welcome, human-scaled features. 

Is It Time for More Steps?

But as GLP Partner, Jeanette Romkema, commented the other day, it is a helpful to add some additional steps to consider how the learning will make a difference after the workshop. 

Drawing from Vella, Berardinelli & Burow's work on Learning Evaluation, (and also Kirkpatrick and Fitzgerald), I would frame these additional steps as:  

Step 8: SO THAT...Transfer: or how the learners will apply their learning in their life, organization or community. This often describes a change in the learner's behaviour. e.g. John applies his new skills in insulating his home.

Step 9: SO WHAT... Impact, or the difference that applying the learning makes for their life, organization. This usually describes a change in condition.  e.g. John's heating bills go down and his green house gas emissions go down. 

I prefer to think of these as two steps for a few reasons:

1. It ensures congruence with the other great work that Jane and others have done on learning evaluation that speaks of evaluating Learning, Transfer and Impact. It also helps to ensure that your capacity building efforts align with the stages of project planning approaches like Results-Based Management, and Outcome Mapping that distinguish between behaviour change and condition levels of results. 

2. The Transfer describes a change in behaviour that is observable and verifiable in the immediate aftermath of the workshop (vs. "capacity" which is sometimes hard to measure or "impacts" that might take longer to realize). In the example above, the best way to see how well John learned the skills in the workshop is to observe him insulating his house. As well, looking at how he applies these skills can be done soon; but it might take months for John to see a decline in his heating bills. 

3. Thinking about the behaviour change the learners need to make allows you to design backwards to choose what they will need to learn and do in the workshop. For example, I was coaching a colleague who had a lot of great ideas for learning tasks from other events she had done, but they didn't hang together well. But once we focused on what the students really needed to do after the conference, we were able to select the proper ABOs and tasks for the workshop very easily. (It actually makes me wonder if the SO THAT... is really the first step of design....). 

4. Distinguishing between Transfer and Impact is important because a learner may well apply her skills competently after the workshop, but other intervening variables -- weather, the bosses' decision, cutbacks, lack of uptake by family members -- impede impact from happening. Breaking it into two steps provides two points to evaluate and discern where the causal chain broke down and why. 

5. Thinking about Impact separately also helps you to consider the context in which the learner applies her learning. Learning is not a linear process in most cases; it takes place in complex environments.  It is great that she applies her learning on say making healthier meals, but what contextual factors will support or inhibit the change in condition from happening: family preferences, budgets, support from another goverment program, lack of time, cost of ingredients, a financial windfall etc.

If you can think about the SO THAT... and SO WHAT... while designing, you can:

• ensure congruence between the Where of your workshop and Where of the learner's context (e.g. no point teaching a cooking class that requires a full kitchen if your participants live in aparments with hotplates and no fridge)
• invite the participants to name the challenges they will encounter in going back to their family, organization or community, and the additional supports they will need
• put in place additional supports or help to make changes in their context so that the application of their learning affects further change. Training itself is often not sufficient to affect wider change without other interventions. Be sure to think of the next stages of their learning journey. 

Adapting the Learning Design Canvas

Going back to the learning design canvas that I created, here's what it might look like with the two additional steps (click on the picture for a bigger format): 

I've placed the SO THAT.... close to the WHY so that the ABOs are aligned with the Situation that Calls for the learning and the Transfer obectives.

The SO WHAT... hinges on the SO THAT.. and is linked with the WHERE of the workshop as reminder to ensure that your setting is congruent with the learner's context back home or at the office. (It also fits better there!)

Your Comments, please!

But what do you think? Your comments and suggestions for improvement are always welcome. I'll post an updated version of the Video another week, along with some thoughts on the 10th step of design....

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*My kids love this joke: "Why is 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 Ate 9!"

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