How to Design a Training Course for a Topic: Simple Interest Loan Calculation
Designing a training course begins by conducting an audience analysis to determine what your students need to know about a topic such as simple interest loan calculation. Then you can define the course learning objectives, resources, format and delivery strategy. Preparing lesson materials according to detailed specifications typically produces the best results.
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Instructions
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Conduct a training needs and audience analysis to appraise your students' current skills. Define learning objectives based on the desired skill attainment. For example, upon course completion, students should be able to define terms like principal, rate and compounding.
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Develop a training specification to describe how you plan to provide instruction. For example, a short lesson with examples followed by practice exercises tends to develop required calculation skills and solidify understanding of the material presented.
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Consider your audience's learning style. Plan to include more pictures and charts if your audience exhibits visual learning tendencies. If your audience needs to utilize the acquired knowledge only on a sporadic basis, you may need to provide ongoing support as needed.
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Plan your training evaluation strategy. Test your students before providing instruction. Then, test them afterward to determine if they can now complete the calculations. Provide remediation if needed.
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Design your lessons. Write your course lesson text to provide simple definitions and examples. For example, simple interest is the amount of money paid on a loan calculated by multiplying the principal (the original amount of the loan) times the rate times the number of time periods. If you borrow $100 at a 5 percent annual rate for one year, the interest is $5. Simple interest loan calculation does not add the interest to the principal (known as compounding.)
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Think about how to add audio, video and other supplementary material to show examples. Use credible experts to serve as reviewers and acting talent. For example, ask a bank manager to describe how to calculate simple interest and record his explanation.
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Conduct your lesson with a few students to try out your course materials. Ask students for feedback and input. Make changes to improve the content. As you continue to offer your course you may learn additional ways to help students to learn how to calculate simple interest for a loan. Positive student feedback validates your course design.
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References
- "Writing Training Materials That Work: How to Train Anyone to Do Anything;" Wellesley R. Foshay, Kenneth H. Silber, and Michael Stelnicki; 2003
- "The Training Design Manual: The Complete Practical Guide to Creating Effective and Successful Training Programmes, Includes a Weblink to Free Training Course Materials;" Tony Bray; 2006
- ASTD.org: Content Site Map
