Designing Your Path to Learning

Articulate Storyline 360 | Self-Paced E-Learning | University of Utah Certificate Program

The Problem

Research on how people learn has never been more accessible, yet most educators never encounter it. Concepts like retrieval practice and spaced repetition have strong empirical support and are straightforward to implement, but they rarely make it into professional development programming for college faculty.

This project was developed as part of a University of Utah certificate program in instructional design. The scenario: design a self-paced e-learning course for faculty who might visit a university's Office of Teaching and Learning (OTL) seeking tools to improve student outcomes. The challenge wasn't learner motivation — it was access. The cognitive science existed, but no instructional resource made it approachable and actionable for busy educators.

The Audience

Primary Learners:

College educators seeking practical, evidence-based tools to improve student outcomes,
specifically faculty who might engage with a university's professional development programming.

Learner Characteristics:

• Motivated by results, not just theory. Learner's want tools they can apply this week.

• Varied familiarity with learning science; some skeptical of "education research".

• Time-constrained; professional development is rarely their top priority.

• Comfortable with self-directed learning.

The audience shift midway through the project, from students to faculty, was itself a design decision. Faculty have wider reach: one instructor implementing retrieval practice affects an entire class. Targeting educators directly meant the intervention could scale.

Design Decisions

Retrieval as Structure, Not Decoration:

Most e-learning uses quizzes as an afterthought. Here, retrieval prompts were the primary instructional mechanism — the course demonstrates the principle by using it.

Audience Pivot:

My decision to shift from students to a faculty facing presentation wasn't scope creep — it was a strategic redesign of the learner journey based on analysis of where the intervention would have the most impact.  By shifting the audience focus to faculty I was able to make a larger impact institutionally.

Learning Experience Design Sprint Integrated with ADDIE:

Given the project scope and timeline, I used a Learning Experience Design (LXD) sprint to generate and test layout concepts quickly before committing to development. This kept iteration fast and prevented over-investment in ideas during the preliminary design phase

To aid in the creation I created a quick design that addressed the following:

• Overarching Goal of the project.

• Sprint Design Questions, framed as How Might We improve based on the above goal.

• Process Mapping focused on new faculty oriented design process.

The ADDIE Process

Analyze:

I began by reviewing the cognitive science literature on retrieval practice and spaced repetition, drawing primarily on Powerful Teaching (Agarwal & Bain) and Make It Stick (Brown, Roediger, McDaniel). I identified two core goals:

• Give participants a direct, first-hand experience of retrieval and spacing.

• Provide concrete, actionable steps they could implement immediately in their own courses.

I also mapped the learner journey: 

1. faculty begin by seeking professional development.

2. engage with the e-learning course materials.

3. Direct experience of retrieval and spacing as a learner and educator.

4. identify actionable implementation steps in their classes

5. participate in a facilitated follow-up workshop.

Design:

I used a design sprint framework alongside ADDIE to move quickly through ideation. My design questions were:

• How might we get educators to experience retrieval and spacing first-hand, not just read about them?

• How do we create actionable next steps rather than abstract knowledge?

Key Design Decisions:

• Built the course inside the Storyline environment using UVU designed PowerPoint and color templates to ensure visual consistency.

• Designed the course to model the very principles it teaches — learners encounter retrieval prompts throughout, not just at the end.

• Incorporated a JavaScript-powered output at course completion: learners leave with a personalized design document summarizing their reflections and action items.

Develop:

Built and published in Articulate Storyline 360, with:

• Branching navigation allowing learner-directed pacing.

• Retrieval prompts embedded at key intervals (not just a final quiz).

• Consistent branded visual design throughout.

Implement:

I paired the e-learning course with a Facilitator's Guide for a 60-minute follow-up workshop, based on Powerful Teaching. The workshop used Think-Pair-Share, peer accountability structures, and case study review to extend and reinforce the course content. I also included a spaced email sign-up list to continue retrieval practice beyond the session.

Evaluate:

Evaluation was built into the course structure itself: retrieval prompts at each module served as formative checkpoints, and the final output document served as a performance-based summative artifact. The facilitator guide workshop provided an additional behavioral evaluation layer aligned to Kirkpatrick's Level 3 (transfer to practice).

JavaScript-Generated Output:

Storyline training course often don't leave learners with anything tangible. I added a finalized PDF that summarized the learning using JavaScript.  This document captured learners' in-course reflections compiled into a personal action document they could take back to their classrooms. This was the most technically challenging aspect of the build and addressed the "so what do I do now?" problem directly.  It also provide the learners with actionable steps to take and implement.

Final Outcome/Reflection

This project taught me as much about instructional design as the books the course was designing around. The audience pivot forced me to rethink my entire analysis and restructure the learner journey from scratch — which, in hindsight, made the final product significantly stronger.

The JavaScript output feature pushed me outside my comfort zone technically, but it addressed a genuine design problem: learners needed something to take away. That problem-solution instinct — "what does the learner actually need, and how do I build it?" — is how I approach every project now.

If I were to iterate on this course, I would invest more time in user testing with actual faculty participants before finalizing the course structure.  Additionally, I would disable the audio from playing automatically.