At its core, the 4Door™ approach is an efficient and effective instructional-design model. Here are brief explanations of what we do in this approach and why we do it.

A complete training package

Research on instructional design identifies four critical components for all training materials and methods: objectives, tests, content, and activities. In the 4Door™ approach,

The Assessment Center integrates the objectives and tests. The deliverables are performance test items that directly measure the training objectives.
The Library contains content resources in different formats delivered through different media.
The Playground and Café incorporate training activities. The Playground uses closed questions to increase the mastery and fluent application of basic facts, concepts, and terminology. The Café uses open questions to ensure high-level cognitive processing of the content. Taken together, the playground and cafe engage both the left brain and right brain of all participants.

Alignment of the training components

An important prescription from instructional design research is that the four training components should be directly aligned to each other. We operationalize this prescription by making sure that the Assessment Center requires deliverables that are directly based on the training objectives. All the content included in the Library are necessary and sufficient to complete the deliverables for the Assessment Center. The Playground and the Café responses are directly related to the content resources in the Library. Therefore, every training component is correlated with every other component, and all the components are ultimately aligned to business results.

Avoiding intruding questions

Research studies in learning theory have raised critical doubts about the effectiveness of frequent insertions of questions during eLearning content materials. These questions have shown to distract the learners and misdirect their attention away from the big picture toward trivial facts highlighted in short-answer and multiple-choice items. In the 4Door™ approach, we separate the questions (and use a variety of them) away from the content resources. We encourage the participants to study the content without disruption, chunking the materials to suit their personal preference before demonstrating their mastery by answering questions in the Playground and Café or completing the activities in the Assessment Center.

Different sensory modes

We cannot predict and cater for the presentation mode that each individual learner prefers at any given time during instruction. In the 4Door™ approach, we accommodate the diverse requirements of the participants by making the training content available in a variety of sensory modes through text, audio recordings, and video recordings. In addition, we encourage the learners to create their deliverables in the Assessment Center in written, graphic, and video formats (for example, by using the apps on their smart phones).

Transfer and application

The ultimate objective for all training is not the recall of facts and concepts. Instead, it should call for the real-world application of all newly-learned principles and procedures. We implement this guideline by ensuring that the deliverables in the Assessment Center are in the form of performance test items that require the participants to create an authentic product or perform an activity. We ensure that these deliverable products and performances are objectively evaluated through an assessment checklist which is shared and discussed with the participants.

Personalized approach

One of the best ways to engage the participants is to personalize the training content and activities. In the 4Door™ approach we ensure this by sharing authentic examples with the participants. We also require them to create deliverables in the Assessment Center that could be immediately used in their real-world workplace

In addition, the open questions in the Café elicit personal opinions and perceptions from the participants and require them to review similar items from their fellow learners. All of these efforts at personalization make it easy for the participants to efficiently transfer and apply their new knowledge, skills, and attitude to their workplace.

Continuous improvement

The content resources in a 4Door™ eLearning course keep growing in a dynamic fashion through the addition of participant-generated materials. We accomplish this by continuously archiving responses from the participants to the open questions in the Café area. We also showcase sample products delivered at the Assessment Center so the participants can benefit from reviewing authentic examples from their colleagues. We frequently review the Café responses to discover patterns of errors and misconceptions embedded in them. Working with subject-matter experts, we use these data to appropriately add and adapt the content resources in the Library.