🎓 Module 05: Lessons
5.1: A Big Design Step Most “Noobs” Miss
In this lesson you learned:
- Jumping straight into curriculum design is a bad idea because it means skipping a major step, which only experienced designers can do safely
- The #1 reason people don’t get results from courses is that they don’t do the work – so work should be at the centre of your course design approach
- The design step many beginners are skipping is getting clear on the work they want their students to do before trying to create their curriculum
5.2: The 2 Modes that Move Folks Forward
In this lesson you learned:
- Knowledge-led vs action-led course design and how “leading with the doing” keeps you focused on the result and avoids teaching non-essential ideas
- The two working modes that drive results – doing and learning
- The interconnectedness of learning and doing – learning makes the doing possible (and sometimes vice-versa)
5.3: What Ground Must Your Course Cover?
In this lesson you learned:
- Why designing your course is like planning the trip of a lifetime – because you need to decide where to visit before building an itinerary
- The simple question that’ll help you break down the journey: what absolutely “has to happen” for students to reach their destination?
- Why we don’t care about the order of things just yet – because it’s easy to get bogged down in the sequencing and that can wait until later
5.4: Reducing the Result (with Examples)
In this lesson you learned:
- A simple exercise to help you uncover the essential achievements: imagine you have only 60 seconds to tell your “student zero” how to get their result
- Two examples of “reducing the result”: landing your dream job and transforming your well being
- The right number of achievements to aim for is around three to seven.
5.5: The Cascade: My Go-to Mapping Tool
In this lesson you learned:
- Why the cascade is like an organisation chart – because it has the same hierarchical structure and the “real work” happens lower down
- A small example revisiting a familiar scenario – showing the “drawing a flower” example as a cascade
- A simple notation you can use to map your territory – nested bullet points with prefixes like “RESULT”, “ACHIEVE”, “LEARN”, and “DO”
5.6: How to Break Down the Work Required
In this lesson you learned:
- A two-pass process for breaking work down: first decide the “doing” work require to make each achievement happen, then add any necessary “learning” work
- A practical example of breaking down the work for a specific achievement called “set up your blog” in a course that helps people create a profitable blog
- Why you sometimes need to flip your approach – because the overarching achievement is legitimately more about learning than doing
5.7: Going Deeper on Doing vs Learning
In this lesson you learned:
- Examples of doing work, such as: drafting a resume and pitching magazines; and characteristics of doing work such as: a definite output, happens outside the course, etc.
- Examples of learning work, such as: learning the fundamentals of video editing and learning the four stages of the sleep cycle; and characteristics of doing work such as: may not have a definite output, happens inside the course, etc.
- The relationship between achievements and doing/learning: achievements sit above the other work in the cascade but also do/learn work is more tactical, more likely to have a logical order, and put the student in the driving seat
đź’Ş Module 05: Assignments
[A01] List the essential achievements
List the 3–7 “essential achievements” that lie on your students’ journey to the main result your course will deliver.
[A02] Create your practice cascade
Practise creating a simple cascade by mapping the work behind a commonplace activity such as making a cup of tea or coffee, cleaning your home, or shopping for groceries.
[A03] Draft your course cascade
Break down the list of essential achievements from the first assignment into a more complete cascade, which gives a fuller picture of the work students will complete on your course journey.