Sometimes it seems the acronym Ph.D. which people jokingly refer to as standing for Piled Higher and Deeper may be closer to the truth than you think. Academically, a earning program breaks programs down into individual units of competency and provides a detailed plan for learners to achieve the specified training outcomes.
The English translation: a learning program is just a well thought out way to teach learners how to acquire new skills.
That said, a learning program can be as simple or as sophisticated as the trainer or the course designer desires it to be.
Let’s take an example, which in this case would be Search Engine Optimization. Search Engine Optimization can be extremely important for a business, large or small because the first three search engine results on a site like Google get 75 percent of the clicks for people to take action.
But how does an SEO learning program break-down all the steps necessary to functionally learn the skills of SEO? And more importantly, what are the end results after one has mastered the material. If it’s to understand more about how your SEO Optimization company approaches their job, that’s one thing. On the other hand, if it’s to teach you, a small business owner, how to improve your SEO optimization yourself, that’s an entirely different thing.
So the point is, that while a learning program does have to be specific and lead toward the mastery of certain skills, the overall objective, what does the learning program propose to teach and how deeply it goes into detail, is critical.
Therefore, when approaching any learning program, whether public or private, whether it is free, or costs a $1,000 or more, it’s vital to assess what are the actual goals of the program before signing up.
Perhaps in the case of mathematics learning programs for example, the math is simply too difficult for you to grasp, or on the other hand, the program may be too simple.
That’s a reason why you should always read a prospectus on a learning program carefully, Immerse Education is here to help, and perhaps take a few sample quizzes to learn if the program will be valuable to you.
Another thing to keep in mind, is the language of the program. Is it filled with terms that you are unfamiliar with? Then there is a good chance it’s simply too advanced for you. And bear in mind, that some academics like to purposefully fill in any type of course with big words, and undefined terms to make themselves look smart.
Some programs, designed for 6th graders through high school are terrific guides for what a learning program can be. They start out slow, introduce 2 or 3 principles at a time, and make it easy to follow along. While others, notably learning programs for professionals, come at you full bore, and it’s either sink or swim, learn or give up.
Perhaps a few grade school teachers ought to get together and create a learning program on how to develop a learning program. Grade school teachers are continually faced with pacing themselves with students, sometimes backtracking to ensure earlier concepts are mastered, sometimes, giving advanced students individual lessons while overall sticking to goal objectives.
Learning programs and objectives are only as good as the instructor/designer makes it.
Another detail is practical skills. You could study flying until you are filled to the brim with the knowledge of how to maneuver a 747 in a landing, but if you’ve never been up in the air with an instructor in a small Cessna, all that knowledge is pretty much theoretical. So look for experience-based goals, rather than just sheer knowledge.
