Backwards Design Expanded: The Online Learning Minute

 

I mentioned last episode that businesses have defined goals and deliverable that need to be addressed and backwards design can help in achieving those goals. Where backwards design fits in is in the order of how the courses are created.

When a business says they want to increase profitability in the sales department, for example, we’d determine the KPIs and assessments first, and then teach to those items. After developing the assessments and curriculum, we’d then examine how much if any improvement was made and make improvements to the content and assessments.

Backwards design isn’t necessarily a complete replacement for current methodologies, just rather focusing the design process to teach for the test. Some people believe that learning should be just for self-improvement, and backwards design leads to just teaching for the test. But when your business has a specific set of skills that need to be learned, backwards design can help to achieve those goals and keep the development focused.

That was your Online Learning Minute at Marketscale. Tune in next episode where we talk about preventing poor online education videos.

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