Templates, Templates, Templates!!!

As an Instructional Designer, templates are EVERYTHING! They help define processes, create consistency, and make designing education and training more efficient and effectively. Templates can be created and used for all aspects of our job from documentation to course or training design in software or an LMS.


Documentation Templates:
Documentation can be created for course and training design to assist with design planning. When I designed courses in higher education, we used templates for designing all aspects of the course. There were documentation templates for the overall design of the course (design document), for the syllabus and for each week of the course.

Here is a generic week 1 overview document:

In designing training, both the analysis and design pieces are both documentation. I use a template for each document.They are both word documents. The analysis document includes the purpose of the document, an overview of the project, the audience or users, implementation, instructional design strategies, an outline of the training, and places for the stakeholders to sign off. The design document includes much of the same information but also includes a project organization and schedule, and details of what will be included in the training.

A script template is also used to streamline the editing and voice-over process.

I've also created templates within the LMS to give courses the same look and feel, and also to make rapid course creation possible.

We also use a template for the software that we use to create the training (currently Articulate Storyline 2).

I love templates!!!