Using the curriculum planning process discussed in Parts 1 and 2 of this series, at by Step 4, you should have a holistic view of the target audience and findings about what they need to learn, how they prefer to learn it, the stakeholder’s definition of success, and how to set up the course or curriculum for easy adoption and tracking.
With this information, you are ready to create your training recommendations and share them with the stakeholders and target audience representatives.
Step 4: Creating the Curriculum Plan Report
The curriculum planning report includes the findings, the training plan and associated recommendations for plan success. In this step, the report is created then it is reviewed for feedback and questions with the stakeholders and target audience representatives. Any edits are made to the report following their review.
Examples of the information that should be included in the report are as follows:
- Stakeholder goals and success criteria for the training
- How is success defined
- Target audience profile
- Audience description of how they contribute to the business
- Audience job tasks that are related to the subject to be taught
- Preferred training delivery modalities and constraints to taking or completing training
- Course outlines
- Learning objectives
- Course prerequisites
- Course outlines organized by topics, lessons and modules
- Hands on experiences such as labs
- Course delivery modalities
- Completion strategy, for example exams
- Course development resources
- Subject matter experts
- Lab resources
- Resources needed for delivery modalities for example, instructors or video capture and editing
- Adoption and data analytics strategies
- Depending on delivery modalities, what’s needed for successful adoption, for example:
- Ideal hosting platform
- Certification program
- Incentives or consequences for completing or not completing the training
- Data analytics
- Define a metrics strategy that matches the business objectives
- Completions
- Number of Hits
- Define a metrics strategy that matches the business objectives
- Resourcing and Budget
- Resourcing and budget may or may not be appropriate to include at this stage of the curriculum planning process. Who the report is distributed to will determine if you add this section at this point or as part of step 5 when you submit a final version. For example, if the report is for a customer, then yes, these items need to be included, but if the report is for the group for the target audience it may not be appropriate to include cost details.
- Depending on delivery modalities, what’s needed for successful adoption, for example:
Step 5: Finalizing the Report
The final report includes the details that were agreed to during the ‘reporting the recommendations’ phase of the process. Once the report is approved, the next steps include working on budgets, assembling resources, and defining schedules.
Call to Action
With today's content capture software, and up and coming technologies such as AI, it is easy to jump in and create content intended for training others without understanding the target audience. We often presume that because we know the subject matter, we know what the audience needs to learn and how they prefer to learn it. Performing either a full or abbreviated curriculum plan to better understand your audience will help you create training products that are more impactful and effective, and therefore more likely to be adopted by your audience.