Do adults and children learn the same way? As we have seen earlier, Knowles believes not. What motivates adults to learn? Unlike children, who are naturally curious, adults do not enter training programs with a natural desire to learn. They are motivated more by success and personal gain – by the “what’s in it for me” – rather than by wanting to find out more.

Research reports that most training programs fail because the learners are just not interested. This information formed a key input to our design toolkit.

By now, it is a fairly well-established fact that most adults take a corporate training program not because they want to, but because they are obliged to… by a corporate mandate, because it is tied in to a promotion, or because it earns them credit points. In short, the focus is more on “passing the exam and getting that certificate” than on learning.

The challenge for most training departments lies in walking the fine line between stimulating the learner to take a training, which is often a slow process, and clocking the mandated number of training hours. This does not take away from the real need, which is, the training needs to stick. The hard truth is, “passing the exam” is not the same as “knowing the principle concepts” or being able to “recall, and eventually, apply the concepts.”

Unfortunately, in the race to achieve targets, most training organizations lose out on the quality of training… jeopardizing their future efficiency and success.

Now, what’s the required educational level – or the Bloom’s Level – for ITIL Foundation? The ITIL syllabus prescribes Blooms Levels 1 and 2 for Foundation, which means “recall.” The student is expected to recall what she has learned, not “apply” what she has learned to a context or problem at hand. This means that learner involvement needs to be in the realm of recalling what’s learned.
 
Limited attention spans, reluctant learners, and Blooms Levels 1 and 2…. Conventionally, scenario-based learning lends itself best to decision-based learning, which means the learner picks a path, makes a decision, solves a problem… all Blooms Level 3 and above tasks! And that is out of our scope at the Foundation level!

ITpreneurs used the montage technique to overcome this apparent challenge. Originating in film, montage allows the designer to place together overtly unconnected stories, or content, to create new meaning. This technique led to weaving the core content into the narrative and graphic-rich hotel scenarios, allowing us to take great strides in ensuring the retention of learning.

Grab their attention! Then, retain it!!

Easier said than done… we had to crack this. We decided to combine Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction with Keller's ARCS Model The strategy worked with the hotel context… providing enough opportunities to grab the learner’s attention and stimulate his interest, reeling him into the course... topic, after topic, after topic.

ITpreneurs’ commitment to quality is evident in our many products. Quality and innovation are not just “good words” in ITpreneurs’ dictionary; we view them as business imperatives.

Our freedom to play with new media and technologies has been the guiding force behind several of our cutting-edge courses, including highly interactive, multilevel, game-based, and simulations-based courses. Continued investments in and experiments with newer technologies help us consistently raise our quality bar.

… is the Beginning.