Online classes can be a great way for busy professionals to pursue their educational goals while balancing a full-time job and other responsibilities. They can also, unfortunately, be a big waste of time and money. Many online classes are little more than a slideshow presentation with a quiz at the end — an uninspiring format that does little to help students learn. In this month’s "Know How Network," we discuss the features that make for high-quality online education programs that intrinsically motivate students to learn and deliver the most value to students.
Over the past 20 years, Cheetah Learning has discovered that for online classes to have lasting impact, they must have cohesive curricula that engage all four levels of learning: awareness, knowledge, skills, and mastery. For people looking to become Certified Project Managers, for example, many online classes will successfully introduce new material to students at the levels of awareness and knowledge. However, online programs need to engage students at the level of skills and mastery to really have an impact on their Project Management abilities, whether their goal is to pass the very difficult Project Management Professional (PMP) exam or to bring out the best in themselves and others by becoming a Cheetah Certified Project Manager (CCPM).
The best online classes will inspire students by increasing their awareness of why they need to master the course material. This creates the intrinsic motivation required for students to achieve mastery of the material, so they can apply it to their daily work in their career. In order to show why skill development and mastery are so important, we first need to define the 4 levels of learning:
Level 1: Awareness
This is the level of learning where you become aware of the range of knowledge possible but have not yet acquired that knowledge. For example, many people think that doing Project Management requires no specialized training or skills. They are not even aware there is a whole body of knowledge relating to efficiently do projects more effectively.
When they start to realize that there are, in fact, numerous skills they could acquire that would help them become more successful with their projects, they have achieved the first level of learning: awareness. The first step in all Cheetah Learning courses (online and classroom) — at this awareness level — is to create intrinsic motivation to learn more about the course’s topic.
Level 2: Knowledge
Once students are aware there is a lot more to learn about the topic of the online class and how the material can help them with their specific learning goals, they then have intrinsic motivation to acquire more knowledge about the course material.
Online classes will often teach its course material by providing examples; online classes in Project Management, for instance, may have students work through scenarios related to government IT projects — regardless of the student’s background or industry.
Learning by example, however, is not the same thing as learning in your own environment. Everything always seems to work out so nicely in the examples, doesn’t it? This is where the limits of "knowledge" are most obvious.
To do the hard work of putting skills into practice in the complicated, messy reality of life, you need to move beyond Knowledge to Skills.
Level 3: Skill
When students develop real skills in an area, they have advanced beyond the level of being able to understand just hypothetical situations. They are now able to identify the most relevant areas of their new knowledge and make them work for their unique career goals.
For instance, in Cheetah Learning’s online Cheetah Certified Project Manager (CCPM) program, students develop strong negotiation skills specific to their personality type by applying what they learn about negotiating in their daily work. Cheetah Certified Project Managers not only know the various negotiation techniques that can throw them off, but they are able to swiftly and appropriately respond to these in the heat of the moment, because they developed the skills to do so in the Cheetah training program.
Level 4: Mastery
Skills are closely tied to mastery. Mastery, however, is reached only when you make consistent deliberate practice with your skills — and it always takes time. For example, you reach mastery with your negotiation skills when you consistently practice negotiating using the processes you have learned.
Mastery is no small achievement — when you reach this level in one or several skill areas, you develop expertise. Online classes very rarely bring students to the level of mastery of the material, let alone give students the basic skills they need to reach mastery on their own.
Online classes can be a key step to advancing your career in any field. To be effective, however, the program must be focused on application of knowledge in the student’s own environment. If the online class revolves around only memorization of information or lectures with no opportunity to apply what is described, then learning takes place only at the lowest level.
When deciding where to go for online education, make sure to invest in a program that moves you beyond awareness and knowledge and into the realms that matter most — skills and mastery.
If you’re looking to move beyond awareness to mastery of Project Management skills in an online class tailored to your own unique strengths, consider taking Cheetah Learning’s Cheetah Certified Project Manager (CCPM) program. This 60-hour online class develops students’ skills in doing projects, negotiating, and adopting accelerated learning techniques by taking them through exercises drawn from their own environment. Read more at www.cheetahlearning.com.
