2. Blueprint

Once you decide to build a house, you need to create the actual plans or blueprints. In most cases you delegate the task of drawing up the plans to a professional designer, such as an architect.

For a teacher, the process is much the same. Once you decide to teach a course, you have to create the plans. The blueprint for instruction is often referred to as a "lesson plan." The instructor is the course architect — the content expert. So how do you draw the instructional blueprint?

First, begin with the goal identified in step 1. The goal is the foundation for the entire instructional effort. Keep it in front of you! What do you want the learners to accomplish or do when the instruction has been completed?

Second, divide the learning into individual units or chunks. What steps are necessary to take learners through the material in order to achieve the goal? For each individual unit you will need to develop performance objectives (or subgoals). Each objective should answer the question: What will a learner be able to do at the end of each unit? You might be tempted to skip this step in order to save time. Don't! It would be like failing to draw the blueprints before proceeding to build a house.

The blueprint should be a series of goals and performance objectives — similar to the chart below. It cannot be overstated as to how important it is to clearly develop and articulate the goals and performance objectives. Do not cut corners on this part of course construction.

This is the instructional blueprint — a course goal(s) along with the individual unit performance objectives (subgoals). It is a systematic design of how you (the course architect) want to present material to learners. Once the blueprint is designed, it is time to start the actual construction of the course.