These are some of the filters we use at Hartke Designs to push our instructional design thinking. This list started as I worked alongside Anna Belyaev at Type A Learning Agency from 2004-2008 and has been honed, shaped, and sharpened by every project since.
The filters
- How can we ask learners to put a stake in the ground? …to find their why?
- Are we making sure no one can miss the main point?
- Does this sound like we are in an actual conversation?
- What do our learners need to unlearn or let go of?
- What stores will bring this content to life? What other perspectives can we weave in?
- Telling ain’t training*… how can we push the experience to include applying, doing, practice?
- Can we have people get real work done?
- What can we cut?
- What can we make visible?
- What rhythms or routines can we put in place?
* Reading Telling Ain’t Training by Harold D. Stolovitch and Erica J. Keeps in graduate school has always stuck with me. It’s worth a read and was updated in 2011.
Questions to consider
- How has one of these filters shown up in your work?
- What filter would you like to “play with” on a current project? How might it make a difference?
- Is there a filter you use to get unstuck or push your thinking?