LOFT Process Guides: Understand Phase.

Techniques: Identify Problems, Preparation

• Identify problems
  • What problems should the learners be able to solve?
  • Subject matter expert develops list of challenging tasks
  • Steps:
    • Identify challenging tasks
      • Learning environment will help learner do something they couldn’t do before
    • Create problem typology
      • List all the problems learner must be able to tackle
      • Group problems into categories of similar knowledge and skills required
    • Describe the problem
      • Create problem statement
      • Describe how it sits in the typology
      • How is the problem solved
      • What skills does it require
      • Supporting materials

Presentation: Learning Module Design Understand Phase (benchmark tests and cognitive analysis)

• Cognitive task analysis – what  specifically should be learned
• Workflow
  • Identify experts
  • Identify cognitively challenging tasks
  • Gather data on how expert performs task
  • Analyze data
  • Represent it
• Steps
  • What are the project deliverables?
    • Identify what the stakeholders need (including the student of course)
  • What is the task?
    • Create a focus statement
  • What aspects of expertise do you need to know about?
    • How to identify expert performance?
  • Documentation analysis (a.k.a. bootstrapping)
    • Come in with a schema
  • Go or no go?
    • If documents describe it all, no need to do full CTA
  • What situations will tell you the most about the issue?
  • Identify experts
  • Identify problems
  • Choose CTA method
    • Concept mapping
      • Expert + facilitator + mapper
      • Node and link diagram to map out concepts and relationships
    • Verbal Protocol Analysis (VPA) / Talk-aloud problem solving (TAPS)
      • Talk while solving a problem
      • Code expert’s behavior: “verbal protocol”
    • Guided Experiential Learning (GEL) CTA
      • Interview one expert then validate with 2 other experts
    • Critical Decision Method (CDM)
      • Facilitator + note taker
      • Interview in 4 sweeps
        • Identify good incident story
        • Chronology of good decisions
        • Goals, expectations and cues in each decision
        • Errors novices might make
    • Percursor, Action, Result, Interpretation (PARI)
      • Avionics training environments
      • Experts are interview in pairs
        • One tries to solve the problem
        • Other expert runs the simulation
    • Applied Cognitive Task Analysis (ACTA)
      • Expert describes problem in 4-6 steps
      • Describe what is difficult in each task
      • Present expert with simulation and ask about:
        • Actions
        • Assessments
        • Critical cues
        • Erros
  • Write your Preparation Report