Personalized learning is a relatively new term in the training and development world. This approach to teaching and learning only became vogue with the advent of e-learning. The theory behind personalization is that students learn better when they are given the ability manage their own experience. Recent research found that students who participated in a personalized learning experience outperformed their counterparts who were only exposed to general instruction. This “outperformance” is due to the more efficient and effective processes that personalized learning creates.
Technology is a major enabler of personalized learning. It clearly impacts the “efficiency” associated with delivering the solution. Without the means to deliver the content and provide students the ability to personalize, there would be no efficient way of enabling personalized learning. Technology is however just one part of the equation. A second consideration is how the content is structured. Designing the content in a way that it is in fact, personal for the user, impacts how “effective” the solution will be. This is where the user story (which is a tool employed in agile methodology) can be helpful.
The User Story in IT
In IT environments, the user story is a sentence (or two) that’s used to capture what a user must do as part of their job function. This sentence must be written in plain English, not IT jargon. In Agile technology environments user stories are the basis for identifying the functionality that a business system must provide. They capture the “who,” the “what,” and the “why” of the requirement in a concise manner. Here’s an example of an IT based user story:
“As a user closing the application, I want to be prompted to save anything that has changed since the last save so that I can preserve useful work and discard erroneous work.”
This user story employs the following template:
“As a <role>, I want <goal/desire> so that <benefit>”
The User Story in Learning
Applying user stories in learning development provide training professionals with an additional tool to help personalize learning experiences. Consider the following T+D User Stories.
The Executive
As the Vice-President responsible for managers that supervise others, I want to coach them so that they are able to coach their employees on attention to detail.
The Manager
As a manager responsible for supervising others, I want to coach my employees so that they are able to show more attention to detail.
As you can see from the examples there are two audiences; executives and managers. Both must address the issue of attention to detail. While both audiences would likely receive value from general instruction that addresses attention to detail, a more personalized intervention would allow them to better address the nuanced differences of their unique situations.
So, Why the User Story?
The user story provides a means to both uncover the nuanced needs of different audiences and to effectively make (design) decisions about the type of solutions that need to be built. The structure of the user story template can help instructional designers uncover the subtle differences that students, who face the similar problems have. Learning professionals that utilize user stories will be better positioned to design personalized learning solutions. So, if you are a training professional and you’re really interested on delivering learning solutions that are as efficient and effective as they can be consider going Agile and adding use stories to your tool kit.
