Development of L3 GPM-IMERG Product Training Utilizing the ADDIE Model

NASA’s Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center is a NASA-funded project that focuses on the transition of NASA, NOAA, and other-agency research capabilities to operational weather prediction environments (e.g. NOAA’s National Weather Service, or NWS), with an emphasis on improving short-term forecasts on the nowcasting to two-day time frame. Highly technical fields often struggle to bridge the gap between the research being conducted and the operational uses for the research. This gap is often referred to as the “Valley of Death”. Stakeholders in these organizations understand the difficult task of transitioning research into fully operational products, and as such a method for developing targeted trainings intended for end-users was developed. In an effort to improve the overall quality of the trainings, previous trainings were assessed for their effectiveness, clarity, and impact. Furthermore, an instructional unit for the GPM-IMERG (Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for the Global Precipitation Mission) product was created using the ADDIE model (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation), while simultaneously implementing the Guided Experimental Learning instructional strategy. The goal was to create a learner-centered instructional unit which was grounded in research, in order to maximize effectiveness, clarity and impact of the content presented for operational uses. This resulted in a short self-paced interactive training aimed at providing forecasters with just-in-time operational knowledge to interact with the GPM-IMERG satellite data for their hydrological forecasting procedures. In the future, a formative and summative evaluation plan will need to be implemented in order to assess the effectiveness, clarity, and impact of the new training, so that appropriate changes and analysis can be implemented.