Now that summer is firmly behind us, the leaves are starting to turn and the days of pumpkin spice lattes have rolled around once again. What a perfect time to celebrate National Coffee Day!
We love our coffee here at Cognota, but we all have our own tastes. Some of us like drinks that barely resemble coffee at all, covered in syrup and whipped cream with long winded names. And some of us prefer a simple Americano.
But whatever your coffee preferences, it got us thinking about how these caffeinated beverages are carefully crafted with a delicate balance of flavours and textures to create the perfect sip. Much like your training team, it takes a lot of different elements to create the ideal blend.
1. Start from the “ground” up
The coffee bean is the source of all flavour and your choice of bean will often decide the strength and overall taste of your coffee. It’s kind of like the fundamentals of learning design.
You need the right learning objectives and fundamental instructional design principles to ensure that the flavour of “good training” carries through from the first sip of your course design to the last.
2. To syrup or not to syrup?
The flavour of your coffee needs to be just right. In the same way, the content of your course needs to compliment your learning objectives and the existing proficiency level of your learners.
Don’t forget to take into account the size you’ve ordered, too. You’re not going to cram syrup into a little espresso cup the same way you shouldn’t overload a microlearning course with tons of content and competing
But adding a little syrup to your coffee gives the opportunity to add another layer of flavour. So if you’re planning a big, bold venti sized course for your learners, don’t be afraid to dive in and add some depth to your content.
3. Time to blend
Now that the groundwork is done, it’s time to decide on your delivery plan. Will it be a latte full of rich full-fat milk? Or a splash of almond milk? Or will you leave all those frills behind in favour of a nice plain black coffee?
The way you deliver the course to your learners is the thing to think about here. You could keep it simple, just like your black coffee, with a straightforward elearning course. Or, you could go for the blended learning approach with a series of ILT sessions and online resources.
4. Topping it off
A one-off elearning course is rarely enough to ensure that you’re impacting learner behaviour and performance. It takes a little bit of back-up with mentorship, social learning, and further learning experiences to ensure your learning strategy takes hold in the organization.
When you’re ordering a coffee, you’ve got to decide if you want some extra trimmings like whipped cream, a sprinkling of cinnamon or nutmeg, the list goes on. These elements can help to tie the whole beverage together in the same way on-the-job learning or social learning can help to cement the learner experience and affect real change in organizational performance.
So, there you have it – your training courses if they were coffees! We hope you get a chance to take a sip of your favourite cup of joe on this National Coffee Day and every other day after that.
