Team 2016
The Course Design Canvas
A Business-Model-Canvas-style one-pager for a training course's learners and outcomes before any slide gets built.
What it is
Seven cells: learner profile, course objectives written as observable behaviors, content chunks sequenced in blocks under 20 minutes, an opening hook, an activity per chunk, a closing, and an assessment tied back to the objectives. Built to stop courses from being designed slide-deck-first.
Reach for it when
- A course redesign that has become slide-heavy and lecture-only
- A new certification program with no agreed learner outcomes yet
- A trainer who can list topics to cover but not what learners will be able to do afterward
Running it
- Start with Learner Profile and Course Objectives — do not skip ahead to content.
- Brainstorm every possible content chunk, then cut to only what serves the objectives, in blocks no longer than 20 minutes each.
- Design the Opening and Closing before filling in the middle activities, and pick a delivery method other than lecture for each chunk.
- Run it with the course designer plus subject-matter experts (1-4 people, 60-180 minutes), then sanity-check the total time against the actual session length.
Watch out: Objectives get written as 'understand X' instead of an observable action, and content chunks get filled in before objectives are set — so the course ends up topic-driven instead of outcome-driven.
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Comments & Discussion
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Recent Comments (3)
This workshop was incredibly effective for our remote team! We adapted it slightly for a virtual setting and it worked wonderfully. The key was breaking into smaller breakout rooms.
Great resource! One tip: prepare all materials the day before to avoid any last-minute rushes.
Used this for our quarterly planning session. The structured approach really helped us stay on track!