Designers of e-learning programs face a number of challenges in designing the closings of courses and units. Like the guidelines for designing openings, some are practical, others are motivational. The following guidelines help instructional designers address these challenges:

• Appropriately summarize the content.

• Appropriately assess the content.

• Build enthusiasm among participants for continued learning.

The following sections describe these guidelines in detail.

Appropriately Summarize the Content

One of the key purposes of the closing of a unit or course is summarizing the content. This summary is the last opportunity that designers have to reinforce key points with learners.

Several different approaches exist to summarizing content, from passive to active. Apassively presented summary is one in which the instructor provides learners with a list of the key points in the lesson and states exactly how learners should remember them. An actively presented summary is one in which learners supply the key points they believe that they should remember.

Some common types of summaries include

• A descriptive summary, which states the topics covered in the learning program or unit as well as points that participants should remember about them. An example is, “This unit described hot and cold fields of opportunities. A hot field of opportunity is in which the industry is growing faster than the economy. A cold field of opportunity is one in which the industry is growing more slowly than the economy.” Notice that, in addition to naming the topics, a descriptive summary also states what learners should remember about the topic.

• A topic summary, which names the topics covered in the course or unit, but gives no details about them. An example is, “This unit described hot and cold fields of opportunity.” Notice that the topic summary does not define hot and cold, as the descriptive summary does.

• A learner-supplied summary, in which learners name the key points that they intend to take away from the unit. In some cases, learners may be prompted to state what they would remember with leading questions, in other cases, learners are asked to supply their own.

The type of summary that you would use depends on the nature of the content and on the learning strategy chosen. For example, for units with highly technical content that learners must apply exactly as presented in the course, designers might choose a passive strategy to reinforce the key points that learners must remember. In contrast, for units teaching principles that have situational application, learners might benefit from supplying their own summaries as a means of helping to verify their own understanding.

Appropriately Assess the Content

One of the purposes of the closing sections of a course or unit is assessing learners’ ability to master the objectives. Units of most e-learning programs include such an assessment. Merely including an assessment, however, does not ensure that it is an appropriate one.

Two issues arise in appropriately assessing content. One is the approach to assessment. Most instructional design is based on the principle of closing courses with criterion- referenced assessments. Criterion-referenced assessments are tests, quizzes, observations, and similar types of activities that emerge directly from the objectives for the course or unit. These objectives are the criterion.

Because the objectives state what learners should learn, a test assesses whether or not the learners can successfully achieve the objectives. Assessment questions should emerge directly from the objectives; in fact, objectives often suggest how the question should be stated. For example, if the objective says, “Describe at least four ways to structure content,” the assessment question should ask learners to “Describe at least four ways to structure content.”

Criterion-referenced testing emerges from the assumption that all learners should be able to master the material and that successful learning only occurs when learners master the objectives. Criterion-referenced testing is favored by corporate training departments.

Norm-referenced testing, favored by the academic system, assesses learners’ abilities in a subject area along a continuum of strongest to weakest. In norm-referenced tests, the test questions should still emerge from the objectives but might include some questions that ask about situations that are dissimilar to the ones presented in the e-learning program. Although the questions still assess students’ abilities to master the objectives, learners must also recognize that the concepts taught in class apply to dissimilar situations. Testing learners about their ability to handle dissimilar situations assesses their ability to transfer concepts broadly and separates those who have merely memorized the content from those who have fully integrated it.

The second challenge of preparing assessments at the ends of units is the type of assessment used. In some instances, formal, scored tests are appropriate. These are useful in instances in which learners receive a grade for the course or are formally passed and failed. For similar reasons, scored tests are also useful in training that leads to certification.

But in many instances, instructional designers do not want to include a test at the end of a course or unit. In some instances, that’s because the course is not graded. In other instances, formal testing creates legal problems. In some countries, employers must be able to demonstrate that tests used to make personnel decisions (such as promotions and new job assignments) are unbiased or face the possibility of a legal challenge. To avoid such legal challenges, many companies simply choose not to use formal tests in training programs.

But even when not formally testing, many instructional designers would like to provide learners with a way of assessing for themselves whether or not they can master the objectives. Rather than provide formal tests, designers create a variety of other types of assessments. These include:

• Quizzes and self-tests, which are like tests. Quiz questions emerge directly from objectives, just as test questions do. The difference is that, although scored, quiz scores either play a minor role in a final grade (as they do in most academic courses) or scores are only reported to learners; they are not recorded or reported to instructors (as is typical of corporate training and continuing education courses).

• Self-assessments, which are “fun” quizzes (like those in Cosmopolitan magazine). Although based on the objectives, the questions and possible responses have a high level of humor. Also, rather than merely provide a score, the system provides learners with an interpretation of the score. In other words, if learners score 80 percent or higher, that means they’re knowledgeable of the subject, but if they score 50 percent or lower, they still have some skill development to do. See “How Close Are You to the Performance Zone?”

Build Enthusiasm Among Participants for Continued Learning

The last key purpose of the closing is encouraging learners to continue studying the topic, if they choose. Learners might continue studying a topic for several reasons:

• They don’t feel they have mastered the topic and want to continue practicing it. This is called remediation. In some instances, the learner initiates remediation but, more commonly, the instructor (or system) recommends it.

• They would like to better understand how the content of the unit or course applies to their unique situation. For example, the basic skills of presentation graphics programs like PowerPoint® apply in a wide variety of situations. People who prepare business presentations and training programs might like to learn about specific features of PowerPoint that can enhance their work, but the features that they would use differ.

• They would like to learn about the topic more in-depth. In some instances, learners are fascinated by a topic and one experience with it motivates interest in more experiences. This is called enrichment. For enrichment, learners might not only be interested in additional formal courses, but in other sources of information about the topic such as other websites, seminal works of literature, and associations that support it.