Take this worksheet and modify it to suit your needs!
Pre-Design Assumptions Worksheet for e-Learning
This worksheet is designed to help you think through issues of audience, objectives
(lines), and design elements (colors). Color within the lines, but use many colors! (i.e.,
down with boring e-learning!)
Answer the following questions to prepare for designing/developing new training:
1. Who’s it for? (Audience)
Things to ponder: language level (i.e., Jargon & acronyms OK? Awareness vs.
knowledgeable or technical? Assumption of existing knowledge), comfort with
technology (i.e., this will affect your design choices – text vs. icons, etc.).
2. What’s its job? (Informal objectives that will be used to write formal learning
objectives). Things to ponder: WHO needs to perform WHAT/HOW under WHICH
circumstances? (this is a formula for a learning objective)
1
Created by Karen Kanne Ngowe, Senior Instructional Technologist, CDC eyf3@cdc.gov
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a
letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.
Take this worksheet and modify it to suit your needs!
Based on these assumptions, begin to develop some formal learning objectives. Here is
a simple formula for formal learning objectives:
WHO should be able to perform WHAT/HOW under WHICH circumstances.
The key is to use active and measurable verbs. This is a challenge for e-learning,
especially for applying learning. Consider using job aids, worksheets, or rubrics to allow
for application verbs.
Avoid the following verbs: Know, Understand, Learn, etc., which are not measurable in a
self-study (asynchronous) e-learning course. Replace with verbs like: Recognize, Identify,
List, etc., which can be measured by a multiple choice interaction type.
To measure learning objectives that go beyond the knowledge or awareness level, you
can create interactivities that may need to be self or learning partner scored, rather
than directly measurable through the e-learning course. These might include asking the
learner to apply knowledge through the creation of a document or segment of a form
that can then be self-measured in comparison to the model or example that you provide
in the course. A rubric (guidelines for evaluation) can be provided to assist a learner in
self-evaluation of a product or performance.
To test the learner’s knowledge and ability to apply or synthesize the learning content,
you can create a series of real-life scenario-based questions. These can be stand-alone
interactions or branching (i.e., reflecting the learner’s previous choice in the resulting
segment of the scenario). Since these can be accomplished through typical multiple
choice and true-false interactions, they can be scored through the e-learning or learning
management system mechanism.
Verb
Level
How Measured?
Identify
Knowledge
Multiple choice or T/F
Create
Application
Template or model for self-evaluation
2
Created by Karen Kanne Ngowe, Senior Instructional Technologist, CDC eyf3@cdc.gov
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a
letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.
Take this worksheet and modify it to suit your needs!
Based on your sound and measurable learning objectives, begin to develop some
creative design concepts (these can be inserted into your training outline or storyboard
later as “content treatment” notes.
REMEMBER: your target audience, content, and objectives should guide your choices!
Learning
Objective:
How
Measured?
Content
Design
Idea(s):
Create sound and measurable learning objectives for various e-learning
formats.
Learners will complete the table to identify verbs and their
measurements (metrics) as well as complete the design ideas table in the
Pre-Design Worksheet. Self-evaluated or partner-evaluated based on this
model.
Downloadable copy of the Pre-Design Worksheet available during the live
webinar via a file pod in Connect and in the HELP CoP Resource folder in
TRAIN. Learners can complete their own copy and have a colleague
review to ensure the learning objective is indeed measurable using the
chosen medium of instruction.
Learning
Objective:
How
Measured?
Content
Design
Idea(s):
3
Created by Karen Kanne Ngowe, Senior Instructional Technologist, CDC eyf3@cdc.gov
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a
letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.
Take this worksheet and modify it to suit your needs!
Learning
Objective:
How
Measured?
Content
Design
Idea(s):
Objective:
How
Measured?
Content
Design
Idea(s):
4
Created by Karen Kanne Ngowe, Senior Instructional Technologist, CDC eyf3@cdc.gov
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a
letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.