How to Engage Learners Through A Task Centered Approach

 

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.

Stay Tuned for a New Episode Monday!

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Image

Latest

Radar
Physical Retail’s Next Infrastructure Layer: Item-Level Intelligence with Radar
June 4, 2026

Physical retail is under pressure to become as measurable and responsive as e-commerce. While retailers have spent years optimizing digital channels with real-time data, store teams have often had to make decisions with incomplete inventory visibility and delayed operational signals. That gap matters because stores still account for 80% of U.S. retail sales, making…

Read More
Healthcare in Pakistan
From Institutional Excellence to Population-Level Access: How Pakistan Can Bridge Its Healthcare Divide
June 1, 2026

Healthcare systems are under pressure almost everywhere, but the strain is especially visible in lower-resource settings where demand is rising faster than infrastructure. In Pakistan, that pressure is playing out across a system that has to serve more than 250 million people with limited public investment. Public health spending remains below 1% of GDP,…

Read More
Engineering
Scaling Experiential Learning in the Curriculum: How Iron Range Engineering Transformed Engineering Education
June 1, 2026

Engineering has transformed nearly every part of modern life, from the phones in our pockets to the systems powering global industry. But the way engineers are educated has often moved far more slowly than the profession itself. Employers are asking for graduates who can navigate ambiguity, communicate across teams, and contribute meaningfully from the…

Read More
vascular surgeon
When Geography Meets Purpose: How One Move Reshaped a Vascular Surgeon’s Career
May 28, 2026

Medicine isn’t what it used to be—not for the people practicing it. Independent physicians are becoming the exception, not the norm, as more doctors move into hospital systems, corporate groups, and academic networks. At the same time, the pipeline of specialists isn’t keeping pace with growing patient needs, particularly in complex fields like vascular…

Read More