If you're new here, don’t worry—we’ve got you covered! This guide will walk you through all the steps to get started with the Learning Design Studio and make the most out of its features. Let’s dive in and get your journey started!
Understanding the Basics
The Design Studio is a space for creating engaging and effective learning activity designs. It allows for combining, reordering, and repeating steps in your activities, which allows you to unlock new use cases. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced designer, this platform supports you in crafting courses, activities, and much more.
Start by exploring the Learning Design System, which outlines the overall framework. It provides clear guidance on designing learning activities, aligning objectives, and ensuring a smooth learning journey.
Design Studio: Step by Step
Step 1: Access the Design Studio
To get started, access the learning design system, and navigate to the Design Studio. You can do this by selecting to create a new activity, and using the 'Create Custom Learning Activity' option.
Once there, you’ll see a clean, user-friendly layout. You’ll notice a sidebar that acts as your primary navigation tool.
Step 2: Explore the Sidebar
The sidebar is where the magic happens. Here’s a quick overview of what you’ll find:
-
Steps:
This section shows all the available steps you can use to build your activity. The options here depend on your institutions licensing.
-
Settings:
This is where you can define properties for your activity, such as its title, description, and more. Currently, you can set basic options like the title and description.
Step 3: Start Building Your Activity
Now it’s time to start building - once you have added a step, there will be a persistent table of contents on the side of the page that will show an overview and each individual step added.
The overview
Within the overview page, you can see all the steps added to that activity. There you can also adjust and edit the activity as needed.
Adding Steps
Click the ‘+’ button to add a new step to your activity.
You can also add groups of steps, depending on your needs.
Built-in Logic and Feedback
The Design Studio includes built-in logic to help you create learning activities that work as intended. Depending on the learning step, there may be restrictions on how many times it can be added or whether another step needs to be present first.
For example, Automated Feedback requires a Submission step, while some steps can only be added once to an activity.
If a step cannot be added or moved to a particular position, the Design Studio will indicate this in the interface.
Logic for steps in Learning Design Studio
The table below gives an overview of how often each learning step can be added and any dependencies or restrictions that apply.
| Learning step | Repeatable? | Dependencies / requirements | Notes / restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Comprehension | ✅ Multiple | – | Can be added anywhere and does not have any dependencies. |
| Discussion on Topic | ❌ Once | – | Can only be added once. No dependencies. |
| Grading | ❌ Once | Aggregates across all steps | One grading step can be configured across all steps. |
| Group Formation | ❌ Once | – | Can only be added once. No dependencies. |
| Group Member Evaluation | ✅ Multiple | – | No dependencies. Can be added multiple times. |
| Interactive Presentation | ❌ Once | – | Can only be added once. No dependencies. |
| Interactive Study Material (ISM) | ✅ Multiple | – | Can be added multiple times. No dependencies. |
| Quiz | ❌ Once | – | Can only be added once. Cannot be added alongside Team-Based Learning (TBL). |
| Reflection | ❌ Once | – | Can only be added once. No dependencies. |
| Self-Assessment on Work | ✅ Multiple | Requires Submission | Can be added multiple times, even with a single Submission step. |
| Self-Assessment on Skills | ✅ Multiple | – | No dependencies. Can be added multiple times. |
| Skill Review | ✅ Multiple | – | No dependencies. Can be added multiple times. |
| Submission | ✅ Multiple | – | Can be added multiple times. Unlocks steps such as Peer Review, Assignment Review, Self-Assessment on Work, and Peer Discussion. |
| Team-Based Learning (TBL) | ❌ Once | – | Can only be added once. Cannot be added in the same activity as Quiz. |
| Assignment Review | ✅ Multiple, conditional | Requires Submission | Requires a Submission step and can be added multiple times. |
| Automated Feedback | ❌ Once, conditional | Requires Submission | Requires a Submission step and can only be added once. |
| Feedback on Feedback | ✅ Multiple, conditional | Requires Peer Review, Group Member Evaluation, Self-Assessment on Skills, or Self-Assessment on Work | Requires a preceding feedback step and can be repeated multiple times. |
| Peer Discussion | ❌ Once, conditional | Requires Submission | Can only be added once and requires a preceding Submission step. |
| Open Discussion | ❌ Once, conditional | Requires Peer Discussion | Can only be added once and requires a preceding Peer Discussion step. |
| Participation Grading | ❌ Once, conditional | Requires Group Member Evaluation, Peer Review, or Interactive Study Material | Can only be added once and has dependencies. |
| Peer Review | ✅ Multiple, conditional | Requires Submission | Can be added multiple times and requires a preceding Submission step. |
| Rate Student Discussion Contributions | ✅ Multiple, conditional | Requires Interactive Study Material | Requires an Interactive Study Material step. |
| Select Most Valuable Contributions | ❌ Once, conditional | Requires Peer Discussion or Discussion on Topic | Can only be added once and requires a discussion step. |
Reordering Steps
Use drag-and-drop functionality to rearrange steps in your activity.
The system will guide you if a step cannot be reordered due to logical constraints.
Deleting Steps
Made a mistake? No problem! You can delete any unnecessary steps at any time.
Step 4: Save and Share
When you’re happy with your activity, hit save. Your work will be stored in the same space where you started, making it easy to access and share. From here, you can:
Use the activity in your course.
Create templates for future projects.
Integrate it with your LMS (Learning Management System) through the activity picker.