Course Highlights
This in-person instructional design course will:
- Help designers determine whether training is the right solution for a performance, knowledge, or behavior gap.
- Introduce the Training Wheel and learning ecosystem so designers can see what training owns, what leaders own, and what requires shared follow-through.
- Teach the GRADE process for moving from needs analysis to design, delivery, evaluation, and adjustment.
- Compare common instructional design models so participants can select an appropriate framework for their projects.
- Strengthen objective writing by connecting adult learning principles, performance needs, observable behavior, and measurable verbs.
- Introduce the Training Sandwich as a practical way to increase buy-in, application, and post-session support.
- Help participants build program maps that organize content, activities, practice, support materials, and assessment.
- Show how to choose activities that match the desired level of learning, from recall and understanding to application, analysis, evaluation, and creation.
- Help designers choose appropriate assessments, job aids, workbooks, leader guides, slides, and other support materials.
- Prepare participants to evaluate pilots and adjust programs before a larger rollout.
Course Overview
Training design often starts in the wrong place. Someone asks for a class, a deck, or a course, and the designer begins building before the real problem is clear. Sometimes training is the right answer. Sometimes the issue is unclear expectations, weak feedback, poor tools, missing reinforcement, a broken process, low motivation, or a job fit problem. Good instructional design starts by asking what is actually getting in the way.
“Designing for Action: Developing Dynamic Training Programs” gives participants a practical process for building training that supports workplace performance. The course begins with the Training Wheel and the learning ecosystem, helping designers see where training fits and where it does not. From there, participants work with GRADE, design models, adult learning principles, objectives, activities, support materials, assessments, and pilot evaluation.
The program is built for people who need to create or improve workshops, courses, and learning programs. Participants learn how to connect training to organizational needs, write objectives tied to observable behavior, select activities that match the learning goal, build program maps, and create support materials that help learners use the content after the session ends.
The following outline highlights some of the course’s key learning points. As part of your training program, we will modify content as needed to meet your business objectives. Upon request, we will provide you with a copy of the participant materials prior to the session(s).
Program Objectives
After this training session, participants should be able to:
- Explain the Training Wheel model and the learning ecosystem.
- Determine whether training is the best solution for transferring knowledge, affecting behavioral change, or achieving some other organizational objective.
- Describe the GRADE process for moving from needs analysis to evaluation.
- Select an appropriate design framework for their projects.
- Craft training objectives that align with adult learning principles and organizational goals.
- Leverage the Training Sandwich model to increase learner buy-in and content stickiness.
- Design activities that are in alignment with best practices in adult learning.
- Create a range of experiential learning activities.
- Build a program map.
- Develop appropriate training support materials.
- Incorporate assessments into their work.
- Evaluate pilot programs and make appropriate adjustments based on that feedback.
Workshop Modules
Why Are We Making This?: Determining If Training Is the Correct Solution
The course opens with a question many design projects skip: Is training really the answer? Participants will review the Training Wheel and the broader learning ecosystem so they can distinguish issues training can reasonably address from those better handled through management action, systems, tools, consequences, expectations, feedback, job fit, or work processes. They will use performance questions and alternatives to determine whether a gap comes from missing skill or knowledge, unclear standards, poor reinforcement, weak resources, inefficient processes, motivation, or another cause. The module also introduces eight questions for holistic training design, including organizational need, desired performance, current knowledge, performance gaps, learner benefits, consequences, and post-training support.
Following a Pattern: The Training Model
This module gives participants a structured path for moving from problem to program. They will work with GRADE: Goal Definition, Research and Data Gathering, Analyze and Synthesize Information, Develop the Training Plan, and Execute and Evaluate. The group will also review several design models and frameworks, including ADDIE, SAM, Action Mapping, Merrill’s Principles of Instruction, Dick and Carey, Kemp, Bloom’s Taxonomy, ARCS, Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction, and Kirkpatrick. The focus is not memorizing models. The focus is choosing a pattern suited to the project, timeline, audience, content, and evaluation need.
Finding Inspiration: Researching and Developing Content
This module focuses on gathering useful source material before building the course. Participants will consider how to confirm training as a solution, identify performance or knowledge gaps, and gather evidence through surveys, interviews, focus groups, observations, performance reviews, business metrics, and stakeholder conversations. They will organize findings so the content supports business goals rather than becoming a collection of interesting but unfocused information. The section also helps participants use existing knowledge, outside research, subject-matter expertise, and related fields as sources of practical design ideas.
Different Shapes and Sizes: Understanding Objectives and Adult Learners
This module strengthens objective writing and connects it to adult learning. Participants will review several guiding ideas: not everything needs to be learned at the same level, some content is need-to-know while other content is nice-to-know, repetition without variation becomes boring, and learners need to see relevance. The group will connect objectives to adult learning principles such as self-direction, experience, readiness, problem-centered learning, internal motivation, and respect. Participants will then practice writing objectives using condition, audience, behavior, and standard while replacing vague verbs such as know, learn, understand, improve, and appreciate with measurable verbs tied to the required level of learning.
Choosing the Fabric: Putting a Program’s Bones in Place
This module turns needs, objectives, and content into a program structure. Participants will build a program map showing how the parts fit together: opening, connection to need, objectives, content blocks, activities, practice, application, support, assessment, and follow-through. The section also introduces the Training Sandwich as a way to prevent common failures outside the content, such as sending the wrong people to training, competing priorities, unclear purpose, weak manager modeling, and lack of follow-up. Participants will consider what should happen before, during, and after training so the course has a better chance of changing behavior.
Working with Buttons, Zippers, and Ribbons: Choosing Activities
This module helps participants choose activities suited to the learning goal. They will connect activity types to levels of learning, including remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. The group will review options such as lecture, video, examples, demonstrations, discussion, mind maps, problem-solving exercises, simulations, role plays, labs, case studies, debates, flowcharts, peer review, scenario analysis, decision simulations, projects, storytelling, model building, and design challenges. Participants will also consider design constraints, including short development time, limited instructional time, budget limits, varied learner needs, technology constraints, and resistance to change.
Tailoring Tools: Using Training Instruments and Assessments
This module treats assessment as part of the design, not an afterthought. Participants will compare formal assessments, such as pre- and post-tests, simulations, graded assignments, final exams, and certifications, with informal assessments, such as feedback forms, group discussion, observation, peer feedback, reflective journals, and trainer notes. They will consider what each assessment can and cannot show, how much pressure it creates, and how it supports feedback, evaluation, and improvement. The goal is to choose assessment methods matched to the objective, audience, risk, and evidence the organization needs.
Choosing Accessories: Creating Supporting Materials
This module helps participants choose materials that support learning during and after the course. They will review the purpose, value, and limits of handouts, workbooks, leader guides, slides, job aids, checklists, flowcharts, videos, templates, and other resources. The discussion emphasizes fit: what learners need in the room, what facilitators need for consistent delivery, and what employees need later on the job. Participants will consider how support materials can reduce memory burden, reinforce steps, improve consistency, and help people use the training after the formal session ends.
Managing Reviews: Evaluating Pilots
The course closes with pilot evaluation and revision. Participants will learn how to test a program before full rollout by setting pilot objectives, choosing a representative group, documenting the process, limiting pilot size, using experienced facilitators, collecting feedback through multiple channels, testing logistics, inviting honest feedback, and including stakeholder observers when appropriate. They will consider how to measure the pilot against the objectives, analyze what they hear, decide what to revise, and make appropriate adjustments before broader delivery.
Target Audience
This workshop is designed for groups that want to:
- Build stronger instructional design skills for in-person, virtual, blended, or self-paced learning.
- Help internal trainers and subject-matter experts design more effective programs.
- Improve training needs analysis before courses are built.
- Create clearer learning objectives and better program maps.
- Select activities, assessments, and support materials with more purpose.
- Improve the quality of pilots and revisions before a larger rollout.
- Reduce training that fails because the real performance problem was never diagnosed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who should attend this instructional design course?
This course is for trainers, instructional designers, learning team members, subject-matter experts, managers who build training, and anyone responsible for creating workshops, courses, or learning programs.
Is this course for experienced designers or beginners?
Both can benefit. New designers receive a practical structure, and experienced designers can use the course to refresh their process, improve needs analysis, strengthen objectives, and make programs more action-focused.
Does the course cover needs analysis?
Yes. Needs analysis is central to the course. Participants learn how to determine whether training is the right solution and how to identify gaps that training can realistically address.
What is the Training Wheel?
The Training Wheel shows that training is only one part of a larger learning ecosystem. For training to work, organizations also need clear expectations, practice, leader modeling, accountability, recognition, coaching, tools, and realistic conditions.
Will participants write learning objectives?
Yes. Participants practice writing objectives using condition, audience, behavior, and standard. They also work with measurable verbs and avoid vague verbs that are difficult to assess.
Does the course include activity design?
Yes. Participants connect activities to the level of learning required, from remembering and understanding to applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating.
Does the course address assessment?
Yes. Participants compare formal and informal assessments and consider which methods will provide useful evidence of learning and application.
What should participants be ready to do after the workshop?
Participants should be ready to diagnose a training need, choose a design approach, write measurable objectives, build a program map, select activities and assessments, create support materials, and evaluate a pilot.