Resources
Guides, frameworks, templates and the Library: practical course design, and the research on how people learn.
Guides
All guides →Practical course design and instructional design, grounded in the evidence.
Course design / Bloom's Taxonomy Examples: Using It to Design an Online Course
Bloom's taxonomy is most useful as a checking tool: plot each objective, activity and quiz on the same grid and the gaps show up. It isn't a ladder learners must climb one rung at a time.
Assessment / Writing Multiple-Choice Questions That Teach as Well as Test
A multiple-choice question can do more than check an answer. With plausible wrong options and feedback that explains, it becomes practice that learners remember. Here's how to write one, step by step.
Instructional design / How to Storyboard an eLearning Module, Screen by Screen
A storyboard is where most of a module's learning design gets decided, one screen at a time. Here's a seven-step way to write one, with the research that should shape each screen and a cheap way to test it.
Course design / How to Create an Online Course That Sells (and Teaches)
Courses keep selling when buyers get the result they paid for. Validate the problem before you build, design the final task first, put practice in every module, and let a paying pilot group show you what to fix.
Course design / How to Write Learning Objectives Learners Can Actually Meet
A good objective names something a learner will do that you could watch and check. Write the assessment alongside it, be sceptical of verb lists, and show it to learners as a question rather than a statement.
Careers / Entry-Level Instructional Design Jobs: What Employers Ask For
An entry-level instructional design job rarely means no experience. Employers want to see design work you've already done. Here's what the job-ad research shows they ask for, and how to build that evidence.
The Library
The full library →One evergreen page per learning principle: what the research says, how to apply it, and how the platforms support it.
Elaboration / What Is Elaborative Interrogation? Getting Learners to Explain Why
Learning styles / Are Learning Styles Debunked? What the Research Actually Shows
Microlearning / Microlearning Defined: What It Is and When Short Lessons Work
Feedback / Characteristics of Effective Feedback: What the Research Says
Dual coding / Dual Coding Theory in Education: Making Visuals and Narration Work
