When I revised the course, I eliminated nearly all of the abbreviations. But when other developers now review the material, they constantly comment that items could abbreviated. So I have been forced to clarify my method.
- Abbreviations should be avoided in learner material unless it is commonly understood by the entire learner audience. Examples would be ID instead if identification, or IED for improvised explosive device.
- Abbreviations can be used in material that is addressed to the instructor such as laboratory or exercise guides, instructor related activity in the lesson plan, or testing instructions.
- Abbreviations are not used in the portion of the lesson plan that instructor would read, to encourage instructors to not use the abbreviations. Those abbreviations are common in their language as subject matter experts, but too much use simply can leave the learners behind.
- All terms with abbreviations or acronyms will have the abbreviation or acronym introduced when the term is introduced, and it will be included in the glossary.
- Defining abbreviations is not a valid test question because we do not use level 1 (knowledge) questions. The abbreviation may be used in a higher level question as long as the use of the abbreviation is consistent with it's use in operational situations such as scenario questions.
Abbreviations can be a real problem. When I worked in the hospital, there was a push to do away with them to prevent medical errors. When I moved into education, it was like learning a new language. FERPA, IEP, LEA LD, NCLB, ADD, ODD, ADHD, SLD and on and on. Even in our readings for this course, I would sometimes get frustrated when an acronym was used and I had to go back to the beginning of the article to define it. I appreciate your method.
ReplyDeleteThe benefits of abbreviations are simply to save time, right? I definitely agree that testing someone on abbreviations fails to test their knowledge, but I do see some value in being able to use them in conversation. Perhaps slowly interweaving them into the subject matter is a good middle ground? At least at an intermediate level it makes some sense to me to start introducing them. I agree that they aren't that useful for beginners, though.
ReplyDeleteSince my instructors are SMEs, they use the abbreves frequently during instruction so the learners get exposed. This gets them exposed but without burying them.
DeleteI share your concerns for a bit of a different reason. I recently had to train a group of temporary contract staff to do a job for the state. It required them to use a system and interpret state workers' case notes to relay information to our customers. The notes are absolutely littered with abbreviations to the point where anyone who wasn't the original worker could not understand a word of it. I guess an optimist could call that information security.
ReplyDeleteThis is not something limited to just a few people or even localized by region. Through a combination of culture and training, staff were taught to do this! Did it save the worker a few seconds and keystrokes? Sure, but the person who had to come behind them and make sense of what they did probably spent 4 times the length of time they should have had the case notes been in plain language.