Working with Course Structure and Sequencing
This is where the Learning Design Tool translates your terminal and enabling learning objectives and learner achievement activities into a course outline.
You will populate this page in your Design Document with an outline of your course that will be based on your terminal and enabling learning objectives.
Begin by clicking Course Structure on the LDT ribbon.
After you click Course Structure
You will move through two forms to:
edit the Module and Lesson names that will be add to your course outline, and to
adjust the sequence of the content to be added.
And then the Tool will generate your course outline
About our Terminology
Modules are instructional content topics that are tied to your terminal learning objectives.
Lessons are subtopics that are tied to your enabling objectives
Lessons are contained with the Module associated with their terminal objective.
How to Use the Course Structure function
1. Click Course Structure on the Learning Design Tool ribbon.
2. You will see the Update Module and Lesson Names form that you can use to rename your modules and lessons, if desired.
Renaming your Modules ad Lessons at this moment is optional. You can edit the Module and Lesson names the Tool has automatically set up to make them more descriptive and meaningful right now, or you can click Continue and alter the names later, once your course design is built.
How to use the Update Module and Lesson Names form
The current Module and Lesson names are displayed in the left side of the form.
To change a name, select it and it will populate the text box where you can edit it. Click the Update button to apply your change.
This area lists your terminal and enabling learning objective reference numbers, as a reminder.
This area lists your terminal and enabling learning objectives, as a reminder.
Click CONTINUE to move on to the Sequence Content form.
How to re-sequence the Learning Objectives
Use the Sequence Content form to re-sequence the learning objectives into an order that provides the best learning environment, if needed.
If you need to think about this or discuss the teaching sequence with others before proceeding, click Close/Quit to exit the form for now.
To return to the form, click the Course Structure button on the Learning Design Tool ribbon and then simply click Continue on the Update Module and Lesson Names form to return to this sequencing form.
In the left side of the form, select an item to move. If you select something by accident, click Unselect.
Multiple items can be moved at the same time by selecting them while holding down the Shift Key for contiguous selections or the Control Key for non-contiguous selections.
Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to adjust the final sequencing.
Learner Achievement Activity lessons have been automatically created for each instructional objective and they appear as the last lesson in the Module/Lesson hierarchy.
Since Module (terminal objective) completion is dependent on the completion of all enabling objective (Lessons) for a specific terminal objective, the Learner Achievement Activity for a module is likewise dependent on the completion of all its enabling objective lessons.
If you elect to move an enabling objective lesson to a later module in your instructional sequence, you will likewise have to move the parent module's Learner Achievement Activity to a place in the instructional hierarchy that is after that final enabling objective is taught.
There is an optional checkbox that you can mark that will move all Learner Achievement Activity lessons to a new final module in the instructional hierarchy.
Mark this checkbox and you will see the Learner Achievement Activity lessons automatically readjust themselves in the sequence listings above.
Unmark the checkbox and they return to their original place in the hierarchy.
All modules must have at least one lesson and every lesson must be attached to a module.
To ensure that your final instructional sequence is valid, click Validate to check the list against all objective dependencies.
When done, click Continue to generate your initial course outline.
Use the Close/Quit button to exit the form without applying any changes and without generating a course outline.
About your initial Course Outline
Your initial Course Outline is built only with the Modules and Lessons that align with your terminal and enabling objectives.
Modules are topics that align with your terminal objectives.
Lessons are sub-topics within your Modules.
Lessons align with the enabling objectives associated with a Module’s terminal objective.
If you like to start your facilitator guides with a standard introduction and end with a standard closing, don’t worry!
Those extra two Modules, a generic program Introduction and a generic program Summary, are added by the Tool once you Extract your outline.
Extracting is the last step you will take, after you add detail to your course outline while still using the Learning Design Tool.
About Working in your Course Outline
Here is an example of a course outline with only one Module and one Lesson.
Your outline is placed into a table that contains a combination of
placeholders for you to enter content into, and
automated Instruction Type selection forms.
Adding details to your Course Outline
How to work in the Module area
Don't worry about the Time to Complete or Number of Lessons right now.
This information will populate automatically after you complete the rest of your outline.
You will simply click the Update All Fields button the the Learning Design Tool ribbon.
Type in a brief Overview of what occurs in the module.
List the required references, resources and materials.
How to Work in the Lesson area
Edit the Lesson Name if desired.
Enter the time to complete, replacing the blue pound signs with your estimated time in minutes only. Delete any extra pound signs.
The Lesson’s Enabling Objective has been entered automatically.
Type in a brief overview of what occurs in the lesson.
Click "Select type of instruction" and select from the drop down list you will see.
Type in a brief description of the instructional content - specifically what you expect to be addressed and taught.
Type in any information you need to share about the data and resources your course developers should use.
Type in the Learner Achievement activity information.
How to Add More Instructional Content
Each Lesson is automatically built with one Instructional Content placeholder, but you will likely want to add more.
To add another Instructional Content placeholder
Put your cursor in an existing Instructional content block and click Add Content Block on the Learning Design Tool ribbon.
You can also Import data into the Data and Resources are instead of typing it in.
Click Import Data on the Learning Design Tool ribbon.
Click Open on the form you will see
Navigate to the source document that contains the information you want to import.
Select the data from the source document and click Import.
Your selection from the source document must be contiguous.
In other words, if there are two paragraphs of text you want to import, those paragraphs must be together in the source document.
If they are not together in the source document, select the first paragraph and click the Import button. Then select the second paragraph and click the Import Button. Both paragraphs will now be in your Learning Design Document.
This function only inserts text into cell 3 of an Instructional Content block of the Lesson table.
When you are done, click Done in the form.