Instructional Design for Effective Learning

In this course, learn how to design and develop an amazing learning program that your students will love!

Instructional design is the practice of designing engaging and effective learning experiences for students. This course - taught by OpenLearning's Chief Learning Officer Brooke Hahn - explores the principles of effective instructional design; relevant to face-to-face teaching as well as online and blended.

We will delve into the Constructivist theory of education and use it to inform our instructional design thinking, before applying the instructional design process to designing and developing a learning program.

Throughout the course, you will build your own Instructional Design Project, ideally for you to use in your real-world teaching. In this project, you will design and develop a high-level learning program plan for 6 sessions; with 1 of these sessions planned out with engaging learning experiences.

Module 1: How people learn best

We will explore how people learn best, delving into pedagogy, motivation and how to facilitate deep learning. This will form the solid foundations needed to design an effective learning program and set everything else in motion!

Module 2: Determine program parameters

This section explores who your learners are, how to motivate them and ask all the right questions before jumping into the design stage.

Module 3: Design the learning program structure

Here we cover the bigger picture of your learning program, deciding on learning outcomes (for the end game), assessment and developing the program's structure and flow.

Module 4: Developing learning program content and activities

This module explores the essence of your learning program: developing the content and resources for your learning program; and ways to create effective and fun activities.

Module 5: The learning program final touches and review

In this section, you will review your learning program for effectiveness, before getting ready to share your completed Design Project!