How to Engage Learners Through A Task Centered Approached

When it comes to the art of instructional education, Merrill’s first principles are the golden rules for success. They’re a sort of set of instructions for instructors, in a way. To discuss these principles, we were joined by Max Cropper, a true Merrill scholar and CEO of Five Star Performance Solutions. JW and Max walked through each of the 5 principles in depth, unearthing a common theme that pits demonstration and application versus the common instructional practice of just throwing information at a group of learners and hoping they pick it up. For instance, Max noted how it’s pretty typical for an instructor to take a topic-centered approach, providing an abundance of references and information with very little actual demonstration or application for the learners. Merrill’s principles are designed specifically to combat that sort of teaching. Max talked about his philosophy of placing tasks over performance. “The key is helping stakeholders, helping managers understand, and helping instructional designers understand, that we not only need to move to performance and to experiential activities, we need to move towards teaching with real world tasks,” he said. Five Star Performance Solutions is built around those principles in their devotion towards providing the most efficient and effective instruction to increase employee learning and performance.