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Kirsten AlburgLearning Experience Designer
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Faculty & SME Development

Designing Better Online Learning

Kirsten's signature course for faculty, trainers, and subject matter experts

Format
Scrolling course with design activities
Audience
Faculty, corporate trainers, and subject matter experts
Length
40 minutes
Sections
6

Portfolio demonstration. This course was designed and built by Kirsten Alburg to show instructional design capability. It was not created for a client and is not built in Articulate.

Lesson 1

The expert's problem

A designer reviewing printed storyboards and sticky notes spread across a desk
Most failing courses were built by people who knew the content deeply. That is precisely the problem this lesson addresses.

The most common problem in online course design is not lack of content. It is that expertise is organized in the expert's mind by structure, and in the learner's mind by need.

This course gives you a sequence for converting what you know into what someone else can learn — starting from what they must be able to do.

Learning objectives

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Why it matters
Most online courses fail on alignment, not on production quality. Objectives, practice, and assessment drift apart and learners feel it before anyone can name it.
Where you will use it
Your next course build or redesign, and any review where you need to explain why a change is warranted.

One module, redesigned

The same content on workplace data handling, before and after an alignment pass. Nothing was added — the sequence and the ask changed.

  • Objective: "Understand the importance of data handling." Nothing observable to design toward.
  • Twelve screens of policy text, then a five-question recall quiz.
  • Practice appeared only in the assessment, so the first attempt was also the graded one.
  • Feedback read "Incorrect. The correct answer is B."
  • Accessibility reviewed after production, producing a remediation list nobody funded.

Design insight: The redesign is shorter than the original. Alignment usually removes material — the content that survives is the content someone can act on.

Lesson 2

How adults learn

Learners who understand why a topic matters to their work invest attention differently. Open with the problem the content solves, not with the agenda.

Vocabulary that changes decisions

0/3 flipped

Tap a card to flip it over.

Lesson 3

Objectives you can actually assess

Rewriting weak objectives

'Understand the intake process' cannot be observed. 'Explain each intake step to a new colleague and identify where errors typically occur' can be assessed and taught toward.

Knowledge check

Which objective is written in an assessable form?

Lesson 4

Engagement that isn't decoration

Four interactions that earn their place

Prediction

Ask learners to commit to an answer before revealing the explanation. Commitment produces attention.

Scenario decision

Put the content into a realistic situation with plausible wrong choices.

Self-explanation

Ask learners to state a principle in their own words. It exposes shallow understanding immediately.

Worked example fading

Model it fully, then partially, then not at all across three practice items.

Designing a module in five moves

  1. 1. Name the performance

    What must the learner be able to do afterward, in their real context?

  2. 2. Design the evidence

    What would convince you they can do it? That is your assessment.

  3. 3. Sequence the practice

    Work backward from the assessment to the practice that builds it.

  4. 4. Add only necessary content

    Content exists to make the practice possible, not to demonstrate expertise.

  5. 5. Check alignment and access

    Verify every objective is assessed, and that every learner can reach every element.

Lesson 5

Accessibility from the start

Use real headings in order. Screen reader users navigate by heading, and a visually 'big bold line' is not a heading.

Reflection

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Responses stay in your browser — this is a portfolio demonstration, nothing is submitted.

Wrap up

Summary and resources

The short version

Start from performance, design the evidence next, and let content follow. Interactions should require a decision. Accessibility is a design constraint, not a revision task.

Resources

  • Objective rewriting worksheetVerb bank organized by cognitive level with examples.
  • Alignment checkOne table: objective, evidence, practice, content.
  • Accessibility pre-flight listTwelve checks to run before any course goes live.

Job aid

Course Design Alignment Audit

Run this on any module before production. Anything failing here will not be fixed by better visuals.

Performance support like this is what keeps the behavior alive after the course ends.

Course complete

Course complete. You now have a repeatable sequence for turning subject expertise into online learning that holds up.

Your scorecard

Curious

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XP earned

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Interactions

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Best streak

Badges

First MoveMomentumDeep ExplorerDesign Thinker

Points, streaks, and badges are part of the demonstration — they model how light gamification can keep adult learners moving without turning training into a game show.

Behind the build

Design Decisions

The instructional thinking behind this learning experience. Every interaction has a purpose; every design decision supports a learning objective.

Learning challenge

Most failing online courses are built by people who know the content deeply. The material is organised the way the expert holds it, not the way a learner needs it.

Audience

Primary learners
Faculty, SMEs, and new instructional designers building online courses.
Prior knowledge
Deep content expertise, variable exposure to instructional design theory.
Learning need
A sequence for converting expertise into something a learner can do.
Context of use
Applied while building or revising a real course, usually under deadline.

Learning objectives

  • Write objectives that describe observable learner performance.
  • Align assessment to objectives before creating content.
  • Apply adult learning principles to sequencing decisions.
  • Design for accessibility from the start rather than as remediation.

Design case study

Read the full breakdown

Challenge

Subject matter experts asked to build online courses default to recording lectures and uploading slides. The result is high content volume, low completion, and assessments that measure attendance rather than capability.

Instructional strategy

Backward design taught by backward design. The course models the process it teaches — each lesson opens with the problem, requires a decision, and ends with the learner producing a piece of their own course.

Reflection

This is the course I have delivered informally in hundreds of faculty consultations. Building it as a structured module clarified something: the highest-leverage change is almost never the technology — it is asking the expert what the learner must be able to do.

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