Gabriel’s E-Learning

• Home
• Course Design Assignment

Course Design Assignment

1. Overview:

1.1 Subject:

This E-learning course draws on the ‘Manage Conflict’ competency (Unit #BSBATSIL503A) of the Business Services Training Package (BSB01) from the National Training Information Services (NTIS) (http://www.ntis.gov.au/Default.aspx?/trainingpackage/BSB01/).

The competency aims to give the learners the knowledge and tools to deal with disagreements and contentions in the workplace. The content may be aimed at dealing with conflict between different stakeholders such as management – employee, employee-employee or employee – customer. This E-learning course aims to deal with the latter due to the reasons discussed below.

1.2 Organization Profile:

‘AXA Assistance’ is an international organization that specializes in providing logistical assistance for medical emergency cases anywhere around the world. The company is contracted by many travel insurance companies to assist their customers, who range from backpackers to Chief Executive Officers of multi-national corporations.

1.3 Learners Profile:

Every AXA office employees between 15 to 100 ‘Assistance Coordinators’ (AC) who manage cases in their territory (i.e. the Sydney office manages the cases which occur in the Australasia territory, covering the area from the western boarder of India to Hawaii).

AXA ACs are highly trained and experienced in logistics, medical emergencies, procedures and customer service. They are self-managed, requiring no supervision (although they have access to a 24 hours on-call Team Leader for escalations and doctor for medical advise) and are expected to deal with cases using available resources and their own discretion.

AXA offices are open 24 hours every day which requires AC to work in shifts around the clock. This means that not all the ACs will be present in the office at one time. Furthermore, night shift ACs do long stretches (sometimes a month) of the 10pm to 8am shift alone in the office.

1.4 Purpose:

On a daily basis, ACs deal with customers who are experiencing illness or injury in a foreign country, this is a stressful situation for the customer, his family and the AC who needs to organize the logistics of evacuations and repatriations, sometimes in a matter of hours. It is unsurprising, therefore, that situations of conflict arise and must be dealt with swiftly and appropriately.

Due to this, it is crucial for every AXA AC to be trained in managing and preventing conflict.

E-learning was chosen as the ideal tool to deliver the content due to the wide spread of offices in the world and the logistical issues of training shift workers.

E-learning also allows the learners to explore the material in their own time and pace, returning to previous lessons, practice and receive continuous feedback.

1.5 Learning Outcomes:

On completion of this program the learner should be able:

• Identify and explain the signs and possible causes of conflict.
• Apply the correct communication techniques and…
• Analyze and implement the correct solution to resolve a conflict.

2. Learning Theories

2.1 Summary of key points:

Although unusual for competency based training, the design of this course is based on the cognitive theory of learning.

The cognitive theory:

• Emphases the importance of the ‘thinking and reasoning phase’ between the stimuli and response.
• Learning is achieved by allowing the learner to assimilate the material into his own world view, experience or schema by creating meaning and understanding how the material relates personally to the learner.
• An advanced organizer is used to prepare the learners’ schema for the reception and assimilation of the material by connecting the general concept to past experience and knowledge (Merriam & Caffarella 1999; Rumelhart & Norman 1978).

2.2 Rational:

It is usually recommended to use a behaviorist approach for competency based learning. However, Managing conflict is a generalized concept which requires different application for different problems. This means it must be learned in a way which allows for a wider transfer of learning rather then taught towards specific “ABC” event – response. This rational immediately draws a trainer towards the cognitive approach which will give the learners the ability to discern and apply their understandings appropriately in any context.

Furthermore, the learners’ experience, which is the “richest source for adult learning” (Knowles et.al), gives another base for the cognitive approach to build upon as it allows the material to be applied to an already strong and developed schema.

3. Storyboard:

3.1:

Click to enlarge

3.2 Influences in the design:

- The necessity of shift work means that only a third (and sometimes less) of employees are in the office at any given time. Due to this the modules and assessment were designed be taken at the learners own time, between cases or at home with feedback given asynchronously by the facilitator.

- Due to the cognitive approach, the modules are built mainly with exercises and assessments which promote reflection and connection of the content back to the learners’ relevant experiences. Simple material is presented first and is built upon by successive, more complex, concepts; until eventually revealing a whole.

4. Integration of Technology:

4.1 Blog:

Other then the web-based viewer, the blog is the main e-learning technology used in the design. It was used because of its ability to serve as an open canvas for reflection by giving the learners the opportunity to express their understanding of the content in context; while still allowing for structure (”Write 2 Blog posts”).

A blog is also easily integrated into the web-based environment and is accessible anywhere at anytime (both for the learner and the facilitator).

Furthermore, while a blog is open enough for the cognitive approach, it also allows for specific assessment (a requirement of competency base learning) to be carried out. While the learners writes the way they personally applied their new knowledge and skills to the context, the assessor can still note the specific application of each element, compare it to the recording of the call and assess whether the assessment criteria was fulfilled or not.

4.2 “Second Life” Virtual World:

The ability of the virtual world to immerse the learner in a meaningful experience in invaluable to the cognitive approach. In this case, placing the learner in the shoes of a disabled Avatar while trying to solve a maze with directions in a foreign language will build an experience and create real meaning to the major cause of conflict (the customer’s feeling of frustration and helplessness) and allow the learner to develop empathy which is built upon in the rest of the program.

Click to Enlarge

Example: Integration of ‘Second Life’ – The learner experiences the frustrations of being injured.

References:

Knowles, M.S. Holton, E.F. & Swanson, R.A 2005, The Adult Learner, Elsevier Butterworth Heinemann, London

Merriam, S. & Caffarella, R. 1999, Learning in Adulthood a Comprehensive Guide, Jossey Bass, San Francisco.

Rumelhart, D. & Norman, D. 1978, ‘Accretion, Tuning and Restructuring: Three modes of Learning’ Chap 2 in J. Cotton & R. Klatsky (Eds.) Semantic Factors in Cognition, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.

Theme: Blix by Sebastian Schmieg. Hosted by Edublogs.