Delivery Strategies

The delivery strategy (also known as instructional strategy) is the plan (road map) for how the instruction will be delivered. It is not the content itself, rather it is a plan.

If you imagine you have been asked, as a consultant, to create a training plan for a new product. That training plan doesn’t involve the creation of materials yet – rather it is a road map or proposal for your recommended approach to the instruction.

Delivery strategies contain different levels of detail depending on where in the approval process the training falls. For example, earlier in the design you might propose a strategy for the overall training program or course. Later you might look more deeply and create plans for the lessons.

In this chapter, we explore a few considerations for delivery strategies: delivery system, learning environment, and learner groupings.

Delivery System

Face-to-face vs Online balanced with equal weight
Now that you know the content that you need to teach, and you have a good understanding of your audience, you are in a position to determine the optimal delivery strategy.

In many cases the delivery system is selected for us – in that it is pre-determined whether the course will be offered face-to-face, online, as a webinar, etc. However, in an ideal world, we would like the content and the characteristics of our learners to help decide the delivery system.

No Significant Difference

There is a lot of research out there that says that there is “no significant difference” between delivery systems. The thing that affects instruction is good design for that system. That is, a good face-to-face design is not the same as a good online design. But if you use a good face-to-face design and compare it with a good online design, overall, there will be no significant difference in the effectiveness of the instruction. Every time a new delivery medium is created, there is a flood of research comparing it to previous – and every time the results are the same.

What does this mean? It means design to the medium that you are using – take full advantage of the characteristics of the medium when you are creating your instructional strategy.

Learning Environment

Although our learning environment is often specified for us (e.g. online, face-to-face, self-paced eLearning), this is our chance to make any changes. You now know enough about what training intervention is needed, you can make recommendations for the ideal learning format.

Back in our analysis phase we looked at options for learning environments. Now we need to design our learning environment. What this means is that we need to provide an additional level of detail about what our learning environment will require.

Even if your are constrained to a specific learning environment, you will still need to document any course specific requirements. This is where you describe: any specific tools or software, and classroom specific organization.

Online Learning

For an online course, you would describe the Learning Management System as part of the learning environment. You might also explain any structures that are necessary for learners to enter the course and begin. Your organization might include not only a specific Learning Management System, they might also include a specific template where the course would be implemented. You may need specific software in order to deliver the course.

Face-to-face

For a face-to-face, you need to explain what is needed in the classroom. Is this a course that needs special equipment? Will it need a projector or whiteboard? Do you need the tables/chairs organized in a specific way? Anything that you need in order to successfully deliver the instruction should be included in this section.

Learner Groupings

Learner groupings describes any special ways you wish to have the learners grouped. That is, if the class you are designing is going to be taught 10 times, do you want specific sets of learners to take the course together.

For example, if you are teaching in the corporate sector and you have employees located in 5 locations, you may wish to specify that the learners will be grouped by physical location.

You may also choose to group learners by skill level or by some other demographic, such as age.

In some cases, you may say that you want to have learners with a variety of backgrounds. For example, in the uMass instructional design program we want to have learners who are interested in the corporate sector, higher ed, government, health care, etc all in the same class. We want a diverse grouping of students so that they can bring different perspectives into the classroom.

The question for you to answer in your instructional strategy is, is there a specific way you wish learners to be grouped?

Note that this refers to groups from the perspective of course “section”, not from the perspective of teamwork within courses.

References

Carol A. Mullen (2020) Does modality matter? A comparison of aspiring leaders’ learning online and face-to-face, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 44:5, 670-688, DOI: 10.1080/0309877X.2019.1576859

Stevens, G. J., Bienz, T., Wali, N., Condie, J., & Schismenos, S. (2021). Online university education is the new normal: but is face-to-face better?. Interactive Technology and Smart Education.

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