Speaker 1: It is Monday, October 26, 2015. I am Doug Neill, and this is Verbal to Visual Video. This week, we are going to be talking about a favorite topic of mine, curriculum design. This is one of my favorite things about teaching, the planning of a cohesive learning experience that helps your students go through a particular transformation. Now, there are two reasons that this is the topic that we are going to focus on this week. The first is that for quite some time now, I've actually been meaning to do a little bit of a behind-the-scenes look at the development of the verbal-to-visual classroom, specifically the introductory course that sits at the core of that classroom. So that's one thing we're going to talk about this week. In addition, instead of looking back to something we've made in the past, I'm also looking forward to something that I am currently developing, and this is a project called Learn in Public, which if you followed last week's series on how to create a sketchnoted video using an iPhone, you will see that the video that I created on my iPhone was kind of an introduction to that project. So if you haven't seen that go check out learninpublic.com. And I'm at the very early stages of thinking about a curriculum, a framework for what it means to learn in public. So what I'm excited about is after I lay out a set of ideas over the next three videos here about curriculum design, I will then have the opportunity to apply those ideas again as I build a learning experience around this idea of learning in public. In today's video, let's get it started with a look at some high-level planning. Let's get into it. The first piece of this puzzle is understanding who your audience is. Who will your students be and what sort of situation are they currently in? Once you have a good idea of who your students are and where they are in their particular stage of development, then you can start to think about the second piece. What's the transformation that those students, your audience, will go through as a result of engaging with this curriculum that you're designing? And then the third step of this high-level planning, what is the container for this curriculum? Are you writing a book? Are you teaching in a high school semester-long class? Are you producing a set of online videos? Make sure you understand the container or the context surrounding the learning experience. So those are the three main pieces to have in place before you dig any deeper into the details of the curriculum that you're developing. Let's take a look now at how I applied those ideas when designing the verbal-to-visual classroom. In my case, when building this thing online, it can be a little tricky to clearly define who you're making this course for. In my case, the best way that I could define who I hoped to help with this classroom, this online classroom that I was creating, was this intersection of learners and makers. When I think about the folks that are interested in developing their visual note-taking skills, I think that's a pretty good description. Those people that fall somewhere in that intersection. Clearly they like to learn if they want to develop this note-taking tool, but also by the creative, visual, shareable nature of it, chances are they like making things as well. And that's a pretty cool combo. As much as I like that intersection there, it is still a little bit general. In my case, when building something for an online audience here, I wanted to reach out specifically to the folks that I was building this thing for. What I did very early on in the process of creating this classroom is I sent out a survey. A survey asking specifically what folks wanted to learn, what their current profession was, or what they were interested in, why they were interested in learning how to take visual notes. And that was a really useful thing to be able to refer to. To have that direct communication from the folks that I was making this classroom for. To better be able to create an experience that resonated with them and that met their specific needs. Regarding the transformation that I hope to bring about in the folks that signed up for this classroom, I have two main objectives. The first was to help those folks develop their core visual note-taking skills. There are some basic drawing and writing and layout skills that you need in order to be able to take effective visual notes. So that was piece number one. And then I also wanted to help students develop a customized visual note-taking process. One that they developed that met their needs and their circumstances. So my goal for the students of this classroom is that by the time they finish it, they have a solid base of core skills. And then they also know how they want to implement those skills. They have a particular process that fits well for whatever reason they're learning how to take visual notes. The last piece is the container. Which in my case, I decided to make a nine module course. Here are those nine pieces. I knew I wanted an introduction to be able to set the stage. And then from there I broke the course into two parts. Corresponding to those two transformations that I hoped to help bring about. In order to help students develop their core skills, we started the first section with a look at how to use text and layout and imagery and color. Those are what I consider to be the pieces of visual note-taking. Then we tackled the process in the next three modules about how to use visual note-taking as a tool to learn, solve problems, and share ideas. Which ultimately is the point. Which is really something that I try to emphasize throughout everything here at Verbal to Visual. That it's not about learning how to draw or make pretty pictures. It's about doing something useful with your sketchnoting skills. And finally we wrapped it up with an outro helping folks decide where to go from here and continue using and developing their skills moving forward. Now, even after identifying those nine components of this introductory course on visual note-taking, there was still a lot of work yet to be done. But having these three pieces, an idea of who my audience was, a clarified description of the transformation that I hoped to help that audience work through, and a structure, a container, a set of boxes to organize the learning experience. Those three things are what helped me to move on to the next stage of actually digging into those details. And these were kind of the very useful reference points to return to as I actually built out the lessons and activities. Which is what we will get into in tomorrow's video. In which I will share how I used Steven Pressfield's clothesline method to actually flesh out what those nine modules looked like. I hope to see you tomorrow to share those ideas with you. In the meantime, if you are building a curriculum, I give you the task of taking these three pieces and identifying them for whatever you are working on. Clarify who your students are, what transformation you would like to help them go through, and what's the container, what's the context, what will the learning experience look like in its broadest forms. Thank you for watching, good luck, and I will talk to you tomorrow.