Course 2 of TURN THE WHEEL’s Online Learning for Businesses (OLB) program, Designing online learning experiences, describes in detail the role of the instructional designer (ID) and walks through major instructional design decisions and deliverables throughout each step of the course development process: plan, develop, build, and run.

Throughout this course, participants will learn to:

  • Set themselves and their team up for success by ensuring they have the resources and team environment to create a high-quality course
  • Make learning design decisions that will build the desired skills and knowledge
  • Produce high-quality deliverables needed to push the project toward completion
  • Collaborate and align with stakeholders (particularly subject-matter experts) at key points using effective documentation materials

This course is most useful for IDs, but course owners and project managers can use the knowledge of what goes into the instructional design of a learning experience to inform the project’s timeline (and therefore budget), stakeholder input, and working procedures.


Lesson 1: What is an ID?

  • Hear what an ID’s responsibilities are in the process of creating an online course
  • Explore the skills and qualities that IDs need to create a high-quality course
  • Hear about the ideal working environment for an ID to be successful

Lesson 2: Plan

  • Define the course’s overall objectives
  • Choose a logical course structure based on overall objectives
  • Define lesson-level objectives
  • Create a curriculum outline with the key points students must understand in order to meet the course objectives

Lesson 3: Develop

  • Explore common digital learning elements and when and how to use them
  • Create a delivery outline that shows how various digital learning elements will be used to deliver the content in the curriculum outline
  • Write a course script that will map the course to the online learning platform

Lesson 4: Build

  • Make the instructional design decisions necessary to develop high-quality course collateral, including videos and graphics
  • Ensure the course is properly built into the learning platform

Lesson 5: Run

  • Maintain engagement throughout the course
  • Measure course impact: mindset shifts and/or knowledge attainment
  • Gather feedback to inform course improvements

Coming soon! Subscribe below to be notified when Course 2 launches.