How To Use Learning Sequencing To Plan Your Lessons

What exactly is Sequential Learning mean?

Since you are an expert on your subject matter for the course(s) you plan to instruct, you've got an extensive 360-degree overview of your course material. You've spent many years, maybe a lifetime, mastering your subject matter. Now you're ready to share your expertise with your chosen target audience. It is your goal to offer a lot of value. Therefore, it's a good idea to impart everything you've learned. You've learned over a lifetime. All at once.

The problem is that because of the extremely tight limits of working memory (the portion of our mind that we use to process and store information), people can only take in, absorb, and process only a tiny amount of information at a time.

A subject matter expert didn't acquire their 360-degree view of their subject all in one go, and students cannot either. The only way to absorb, process and process information is by taking one (SMALL) move one at a time, and using a sequential approach.

An effective metaphor to understand how we take in and process large amount of information, step by step, is to imagine as a mosaic. Mosaics can be very large... they typically take up the whole flooring, walls or ceiling of a structure. However, each tile of the mosaic is tiny. Put the tiny tiles together in the proper order and they form a gorgeous complete picture... But the picture has to be built one small step one at a time.

The reason why the order of learning so important?

In continuation of the metaphor of mosaics You might be asking: why can't the small parts in the (mental) mosaics can be laid out randomly in any order we want? What is the reason we need to learn each small piece in a particular order, in addition to doing one thing at a at a time?

The reason is that the stages of the learning process build upon each other. Complex skills (like learning to master artisanal baking) depend on the prior acquisition of basic skills (like correctly combining wet and dry ingredients, or executing smooth wrist movements to mix air into batter).

If you've experienced it's like being instructed on how to accomplish something once, by an expert, and being asked to execute that same skill or activity yourself, right away, you've experienced the "deer at the end of the tunnel" sensation that being required to perform a skill without adequate preparation and direction, can cause.

The online learning experience must be developed

The more likely an online course can be described as "evergreen", the more carefully it has to be planned to produce real learning. This is because, if the instructor is not actually present in real-time (either live or online) the course ITSELF has to stand in for the instructor in being able to anticipate and respond to the learner's needs.

Instructional design is about anticipating and planning for the requirements of students as they move through an experience of learning through the steps. Learning is properly sequenced provides a smooth, incrementally progressing learning experience where every little step helps the student to achieve success in a continuous way.

Learners experience a feeling of self-efficacy (being competent to take actions on their own behalf) and satisfaction, as each part of the learning process builds on the previous step and prepares for the next one. Gagne identified self-efficacy and accomplishmentas crucial motivators to help keep learners going forward and actively participating to the process of learning. [2]

Experts often try to fit everything they know into a single online course and then discover that there is too much for students to take in simultaneously.

In addition is the pre-requisites that students need to acquire before they are able to achieve their end-of-course goal ("Point B") to complete a course or course or.

The students may need certain abilities, behaviours and mindsets in place before being ready to begin your course or program (at "Point A", the starting the course).

Instructional designers utilize a method that is known as a task analysis to dissect learning into target learning objectives and decide on the required learning objectives needed to achieve the learning objective. There are two types of learning objectives that are pre-requisite:

• Enabling Objectives (which are essential in order to ENABLE learners eventually to attain the desired goal)
• Supportive objectives (which are useful and useful, however, they're not required for learners to reach the goal). [3]

When you're training someone how to decorate a cake the goal for them to learn is to "learn how to bake or make a cake". It is crucial since students can't make the cake if they do not have one to work with.

A supportive objective could be "Learn how to make your own cake icing colors". That objective is supportive because being able to mix their own colors would greatly increase the enjoyment of decorating. It's not a requirement, however learners will also be able to successfully achieve the target objective of learning decorate cakes using the pre-mixed colors of icing.

The process of sequencing learning goals can be complex , and it requires a significant level of learning design skill. If you'd prefer to read about it in detail these sources provide a thorough explanation:

How can you achieve excellent results from the online class, and without having to go to college to get a degree in instruction design?

What are the best ways to determine the scope, scale and the sequence of lessons you'd like to impart?

Take a look at the process that course designers go through then reverse engineer the procedure to simplify and streamline how you determine the necessary skills that students will require throughout your online program.

The following is a list of what creators of courses go through:

Then they sit down and create a plan that will teach students the skills needed to master.

Once they've begun writing down the steps required for carrying out the technique and begin to write down the steps involved, they experience the "aha" moment. They realise that, before the students are able to begin performing the task, they'll need change their mental outlook on the task. In the event that they fail, they'll not consider it.

There are a myriad of issues which could hinder learners from trying this skill. What mindset issues do they even HAVE? Do YOU know? Are they aware? Find out how to discover?

Another idea is to create an online quiz that helps people figure out the root of their biggest issue or discomfort can hinder them to executing the skill. This way, you can email them a follow-up or set up a group specifically for their needs (or maybe a course that is pre-requisite) for them to develop the mindset required to master the skill.

And THEN you can start training them in the art of teaching.

This means that, before you even START to teach anything to anyone, you have to understand the entire SEQUENCE of education required to move from where your course participants begin from, and until where they wish to finish.

Your course is the way learners will get from Point A to Point B. So the first step is to determine the purpose of Point A for them.

But wait...what do we mean by "THEM"? Who is your target audience to take the course that you're developing? What prior experience do they have on this subject? What (if something) are you going to have to teach them before they're prepared for the major topics you're hoping for to teach them?

There are a lot of essential capabilitiesthat you, as the course designer, must to use, prior to deciding on the details of your course. These pre-requisite skills include:

• Having a well-defined learning goal in your course in general (Point B. Your student's future goals)
• Having a    clearly defined starting place for your journey   (Point A: Your student's current reality today)
• Be aware of who your audience is
• Knowing what your audience already has (what abilities and habits they have) relative to what you're about to teach them

This is before you start designing your course. It's a daunting task, but having a clearly defined plan of action can help in creating a learning plan which you can then use to develop not only a particular class, but also your whole online school.

One of the very first ideas to understand (and at times, it only becomes evident after having thought about your ideas for teaching in a long time) The first one is:

What is the SCALE of your education you're seeking to create?

In a way, being clear about the dimensions of the program you are building helps the essential steps that are required in every stage of your program, get in place. We'll look into this matter of scale, and how you can establish your program both quickly and easily.

Your whole online academy or school

On the biggest scale, you could try to build an entire online ACADEMY with one learning objective. Examples of an academy learning objective could be:

• Become a master of the culinary art
• Create strong relationships with your kids as they develop
• Improve your skills in studying to be prepared for your graduate school

It is clear that these are large, complete goal-setting goals for learners. Each requires a variety of smaller goals for learning, which course participants need to learn to accomplish before they reach the goal of a comprehensive, global learning. In a fitting way, Gagne and Merrill (2005) describe this kind of vast, comprehensive aim in the context of being an "enterprise". [4]

Many course creators start out believing that they are able to impart all the knowledge needed to reach their ultimate educational goal (their whole enterprise), all in one class. It soon becomes intimidating to the course's creator, and far more so to any prospective learners.

Instead of one course, breaking down the top-level goals into multiple prerequisite objectives for learning makes it an easier task.

Each smaller learning goal becomes the "Point B" of its individual course. It is possible to set an academy as an entire school or the membership website, which contains multiple classes.

A variety of classes in the school you attend

The next level down in order is the Bundle stage.

Let's see how this works for "Become an expert in the culinary art of cooking".

Backwards working using a method of reverse design, if we analyze the "enterprise level" learning goal of "becoming an expert in cooking" we will see that there are a variety of questions we need to consider:

• What is the concept behind culinary arts?
• What are the steps to be able to master these?
• (Let's say you determine that you need to become a master baker and a Master Chef).
• What are the skills a master baker need?
• What kind of skills do master chef need?
• Are baking and chef skills build on each other, or are these two different paths?
• What other skills would someone already possess for the ability to master cooking and baking?
• How can learners obtain those earlier skills?
• Do you wish to share these skills prior to them, or set them as prerequisites for someone who is who is enrolled in your online course will already possess?
• If you're looking to train the techniques, how can you go about doing that?

Let's say that you want to learn the techniques yourself, and you determine that the essential skills needed required to be a successful baker are:

• Find out how to locate ingredients
• Learn artisanal baking techniques
• Learn artistic decorating secrets

Each one of them can become the learning goal for its own course.

The bundles of courses you can take at your school

When you begin making your way through the course on ingredients, you realize that there's a lot to it. It is your responsibility the ability to assist students comprehend how to supply chains, sustainable farming as well as weather patterns, pricing problems, food sensitivities of customers as well as other concerns.

Each of those topics could become a whole course in the course... in which case you could turn "How to find ingredients" into a bundle of subjects . Then, each one of them can be the goal of learning in a certain CHAPTER in a course that is integrated.

The scale you are going to employ will be a design choice which you, as an instructor have to take.

We'll say that you select the CHAPTER option because while sourcing ingredients is important but it's not the primary focus: baking's the main focus... it's your main focus, and you want to get to that as soon as possible.

offers you a lot of flexibility in how to structure your program, depending on the decisions regarding learning design that you take. Let's say that you choose to have your learners to take ONE course about sourcing ingredients, instead of going for a more granular approach in this area by creating a whole bundle of courses (which could take your learners more time to go through).

Courses that are part of bundles at your school

The CHAPTER niveau

So you're going to create an entire course that teaches you finding ingredients needed for the best baking. In that course you will have an entire chapter on sourcing ingredients that are based on food sensitivities.

If you continue to go backwards you'd think about what your course participants should know regarding the present landscape of customer food sensitivities and the impact that this has on ingredient selection to master bakers. Within that chapter you might contain a LESSON about gluten-free baking products and where to source for them, a tutorial on bulk sourcing for alternative flours, an instruction on seasonal availability of alternative products, and so on.

Lessons within chapters within courses in bundles that you have at your school

The LESSON LEVEL

Each lesson will have one or more MEDIA ITEM.

Media items are the most granular degree of digital media available for online learning. If we were building using Legos the media items are the particular Lego blocks.

One document, video, or Word doc is an item of media. The lesson could comprise the use of a single media item or might have more than one.

For the purpose of arranging the course of learning, it's important to always start from the level above what you're creating and ask what the learners need to do to get there.

Therefore, if your lesson's goal is "understand the importance of bulk sourcing to find alternative flours", you might need information on the different kinds of flours that are available (which might be a PDF as an example) as well as a video explaining of the best bulk sourcing practices, and the list of bulk sourcing suppliers that offer alternative flours. Thus, one class would contain three media items.

Media materials within lesson chapters within courses within bundles in your school

Media Item Level MEDIA ITEM LEVEL

There are many important principles to be aware of in relation to media products. One of them is making them RE-USABLE. In the case of, for instance, you create a video about methods for bulk sourcing and then create your master chef's program alongside your baking master program, you might be able to re-use the exact same video so long as it explains bulk sourcing practices in a way that applies to baking as well as cooking generally. The video library makes it simple and quick to upload and store videos in ways that permit the reuse of them across different classes.

Another important idea relating to media items is to make them accessible, so that everybody can benefit from them. The addition of close captions on videos allows your video to be accessible to people who are unable to hear, and also enhances the usability of your videos for those with limited hearing or watching videos in a setting that requires audio to be kept off. The library of videos makes it fast and easy to add captions to your videos.

Using learning sequences to set up your entire online school

Let's recap:

If the purpose of your entire academy is to teach people to master the culinary arts You could have:

• A bundle of instruction on how to become an expert baker
• a    Course   How to find baking supplies
• A      chapter     on how to find baking materials for choices in food,
• a video regarding the practices of bulk sourcing
• A bundle of training courses to learn how to be an expert chef
• A      course     for how to locate cooking ingredients
• A        Chapter       about how to source ingredients for cooking to suit your preference,
• a videoabout bulk sourcing practices

The best part is that you don't need to make a new wheel. It's quick and simple for you to:

• Re-use your videos from your library to teach multiple lessons or courses
• Copy lessons and concepts from one course to another
• Copy course materials
• copy bundles

We've created a handy chart for you to plot out your entire academy.

Before you start, think about the learning sequence you want to incorporate into every level of your online program.

• ACADEMY LEVEL: The overall, highest level, learning objective of the whole enterprise
• BUNDLES: The most important paths or learning courses you wish to offer
• COURSES: Specific behaviors behavior, techniques that are being taught by every learning track
• CHAPTERS: Big chunks that will cover major topics within each class
• LESSONS: Small chunks covering the specific aspects of each major topic
• Media Items: Large media artifacts in each lesson that provide the actual instruction

Examples of learning sequences and templates

  The Imaginary Academy: Masterful School Of Culinary Arts  

Use a diagram like the one below to design the sequence of learning to your entire academy. Use this template to create your own!

If you comprehend the size of what you're creating and you follow a method of reverse development starting from the broadest skill to the most granular, you'll be using the structural features built into for a quick task analysis that you have created on your own.

While working backwards toward the highest learning level consider what skills are the most important to learners acquire to become ready for this?

Keep going all the way all the way down to the most complete entire academy to the most granular media item to the most granular media item.

When you've designed and planned your program backwards, you can then build it forward... beginning with the creation of digital media from the most granular media items such as individual videos, before moving up to courses, lessons and bundles as you create your online school. This method of operation will ensure a smooth, designed learning experience for your students and a streamlined course design process for you.

Summary and Summary and

We'll return to the metaphor of a mosaic briefly: when developing the order of instruction in your online course begin by stepping behind to see the perspective of the picture. What is the ultimate learning goal you want for your participants in your program?

Then break that large enterprise learning goal down into components becoming more granular as you work backwards from the level of bundles or tracks in the overall plan, down into individual classes within bundles.

Each course should begin with your learning objective that the course will accomplish overall. Then use a learning design method (such like the Course Design Formula(r), which helps you structure the course and lessons with research-based best practices) to organize the sections of your course, as well as the lessons that you will be teaching within the chapters as well as the media elements within each lesson.

Taking this enterprise/academy-wide view will enable you to see where some of your media items can be re-used for various courses, which will simplify and streamline your work once it comes to actually creating your digital media. In addition, you'll be able to see how every part of your online application will seamlessly integrate with the other components to provide an efficient, clear, and fun learning experience for your course participants to help them meet the learning goals you set for them, each step of the way.

Sources  
 1 Gagne & Driscoll, 1988, p.v.

[22 Gagne & Driscoll, 1988, pp.64-66.

[3] Gagne, Wager, Golas, & Keller, 2005, p. 151

[4]Gagne, R.M., Merrill, M.D. Integrative goals for instructional design. ETR&D 38, 23-30 (1990).

Gagne, Wager, Golas, & Keller, 2005, p. 151.