CDLA · Module 5 — Interaction design for transfer
Transfer is mostly decided after the course. Implementation intentions, manager conversations, job aids in the workflow and spaced follow-up, designed as part of the program.
About 22 min
Practice in the lesson player
Sorting, matching, quizzes, and the module gate stay behind a free account so scored answers are not public. The teaching notes below are the same cited curriculum.
01
A supervisor completes an excellent branching course on handling underperformance. On Monday she has 47 emails, a late shipment and an absent team member. The difficult conversation she rehearsed is postponed, then forgotten. The course did its job. Nothing was designed for Monday.
02
Work environment: Supervisor and peer support are consistently related to transfer (Blume and colleagues, 2010).
Opportunity to perform: People cannot transfer what they have no chance to do soon after training.
Learner intention: Specific plans made before returning to work improve follow-through.
Design: Practice that resembles the job and varied cases support transfer (Grossman and Salas, 2011).
03
Gollwitzer's research on implementation intentions shows that "if-then" plans ("If situation X arises, I will do Y") make it more likely people act on a goal than the goal alone. In a course, replace "What will you do differently?" with a prompt that forces specifics: "Which team member, which day, and what will you say in the first sentence?" Save the answer and send it back to the learner on that day.
04
When | What | Owner
Before the course | Manager brief: the action, what good looks like, two questions to ask | L&D
End of course | If-then plan for the first real case, saved | Learner
Day 2 | Manager asks the two questions | Manager
Day 7 | The learner's own plan sent back with a two-minute scenario | L&D (automated)
Day 21 | Manager observes or reviews one real case with the checklist | Manager
Day 30 | Short success-case survey to find stories and blockers | L&D
05
Most transfer plans fail at the manager, not the learner. Managers will not read a course summary. They will read half a page that tells them what their team member practised, what good looks like on the floor, and two questions to ask this week. Send it before the course starts, from the manager's own leader if possible. In MENA organisations where hierarchy matters, a note from the director asking managers to hold the day-2 conversation does more than any reminder from L&D.
06
Fill the 30-day transfer plan for your program, and write the manager brief in no more than 150 words. Add both to your branch map. Your Module 5 artifact is complete.