ADA Micro-Learning Course

I designed this micro-learning course to teach individuals their rights through the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Audience: General Public (specifically an individual with a disability or one who has a relationship/association with someone who has a disability)

Responsibilities: eLearning development, storyboarding, instructional design document creation

Tools Used: Articulate Rise 360, Google Docs

The Problem

Navigating the world with little to no difficulty is something that those without disabilities take for granted. Imagine this: you have been waiting for months for a movie to come to theaters. When it’s finally out, you can’t fully enjoy it because of your hearing impairment. Not to mention the theater has nothing available to make the movie theater experience accessible for you. This is a very common reality for individuals with physical or mental disabilities.

A micro-lesson like this one is important for anyone directly impacted by a disability or anyone who knows a person with a disability. The more people know about their disability rights, the better informed they are to report a situation in which their rights are infringed upon.

The Solution

After talking with people whom I know have mental and physical disabilities, I learned that there was a lot that even I was unaware of in relation to the disability rights guaranteed to Americans through the ADA. My solution is to give the general public an easy-to-follow overview of the ADA and all of its elements.

My Process

I developed this micro-learning course by utilizing a well-known adult learning theory: andragogy. Andragogy involves tapping into prior experience, so I began by brainstorming real-life experiences that most people have lived through related to disability accessibility. I knew that pairing the real life scenarios with the information would help adult learners to answer the question, “Why should I care?” Then, I created my design plan. After that, I storyboarded the concept and started to experiment different ways to showcase the information. I landed on micro-learning because I knew I could summarize the information into a bite-size lesson. I developed the final iteration of the learning experience in Rise 360.

Design Plan

I created a design plan. In this Google document, I outlined the course purpose, learning and performance objectives, and organized content by lesson titles.

Text-Based Storyboard

I created a storyboard to outline the various sections that I felt were required for understanding the rights guaranteed under the ADA. On this storyboard I included interactive components, images, possible text, graphics and any technical notes.

Takeaways

I shared the final micro-learning experience with a sample size of around 10-12 adults. The feedback I received was promising. The sample group confirmed my hypothesis that adult learners connect slightly better with a list of relatable scenarios related to the topic.

My biggest takeaway from this project is that sometimes having one learning objective is a good thing. It gave me an opportunity to zero in on a specific goal and I found it a lot easier to tackle the information in a short amount of time.

This project was eye-opening for me to research and I found it quite thrilling to make the e-Learning materials for it.