The Learning Designer Playbook

Is anybody else tired of courses being the answer to get rich quick AND the focus being on selling first? I’ve done some venting on this before, but let me be clear: selling a course is not the same as building a course and I need all ya’ll to please stop lumping them together.  Marketing research typically comes from a place of understanding what will make someone buy. Knowing if someone is willing to buy what you’re laying down is totally necessary. However, if you don’t want your course business to fizzle out and die (as many get rich quick schemes do), then focusing on learning is going to be critical. Learning research comes from a place of understanding potential learners needs and experiences so you can help them succeed. That can then be used to sell, but the other way around isn’t true. Knowing what they’re willing to buy isn’t enough to help you understand them as learners.  Why is this important? It changes the questions. And the questions determine the answers. You...

A learning arc (also called a course arc) is the journey you’re bringing your learner on. It’s how one step leads to another, builds on the previous step, and helps them get to point B. It’s both the larger picture and the connections between the pieces. It’s the forest and the trees.  It’s a story.  In quite a few of my 16 years as a writing teacher, I saw many a literacy narrative (this is an assignment sometimes assigned in a first year writing class that is a story about becoming literate in the very broad sense of the term). One of my most frequent pieces of feedback was: “Don’t forget to bring your reader along for the ride.”  This means don’t forget to thread the ideas together so we know how we’re getting from the last scene or sentence to the next. Don’t leave me guessing. It’s both purposeful and transparent. This applies to learning experiences as well.  Remember your learner doesn’t know how step 1 and step 2 are connected. They’re coming to you to learn ...