15–20 minute learning blocks with a clear weekly rhythm.
AI & Education ResearcherAll work ↗
Case study 04Online course design
Designing an online class for decisions—not coverage.
A theory-grounded asynchronous course concept for adult learners, built around authentic public-budget decisions, guided practice, social learning, and feedback learners can use.
Experience the module ↓PAD 5520Week 4 · Budget Trade-offs12 min
Today’s decisionClose a $5.5M gap without treating every cut as equal.
1
OrientKnow the decision and criteria
2
PracticeCompare evidence and options
3
TransferDefend a recommendation
Online learning becomes meaningful when learners use ideas to make a decision that resembles real work.
LearnersMPA students · early-career public professionals
ModeAsynchronous + optional fiscal clinic
My roleCurriculum · interaction · assessment
Course patternModel → practice → application
StatusPortfolio prototype
01 Learner & online context
Design for the adult learner’s reality
Busy professionals do not need more content. They need supported practice with consequential choices.
The course serves learners balancing work, study, and family responsibilities. They bring valuable professional experience but uneven familiarity with public finance, data interpretation, and equity analysis. The design must be predictable, accessible, and immediately relevant—without reducing complex decisions to a checklist.
Course-level performanceAnalyze a public-budget problem, weigh evidence and stakeholder effects, and defend a feasible recommendation in a decision-ready memo.
Prompts connect new frameworks to prior professional judgment.
Text-first resources, transcripts, keyboard paths, and downloadable templates.
Playable online module
The $5.5M Challenge.
Experience one course segment as a learner. The interaction activates prior knowledge, models expert reasoning, provides bounded practice, and ends with a new-context transfer.
Orientation01 / 06
You are the budget analyst
Riverton must close a $5.5M gap before the city council vote.
Your taskRecommend a package that is evidence-informed, equitable, and feasible.
Time12–15 minutes
OutputA defensible recommendation
SuccessUse all three criteria
By the end, you can
Distinguish a budget constraint from a decision criterion and use evidence to explain who benefits, who bears risk, and whether the plan can work.
02 Theory-to-design map
Theory is a design tool
Each principle changes something the learner sees, does, or receives.
The page makes the reasoning traceable: not a list of theories beside the course, but a map from learning mechanism to interaction and observable performance.
Learning theoryDesign moveWhere it appears
Learners advise a city manager on a realistic fiscal trade-off.
One decision per screen; stable labels distinguish evidence, constraint, and preference.
Two memos make expert reasoning visible before independent practice.
Learners identify the criterion that makes one recommendation stronger.
A low-stakes opening question activates the idea that balance is a constraint, not the goal.
Feedback separates evidence use, equity reasoning, and feasibility.
The final county-clinic decision asks learners to reuse the reasoning frame.
Cases, structured peer review, and predictable instructor touchpoints support meaning-making.
Whole-course architecture
A repeatable rhythm lowers navigation effort and raises the level of thinking.
Each asynchronous week follows a predictable learning arc, while the cases, evidence, and professional artifact become more complex.
Overview
Purpose, outcome, time, access options
Mini-lesson
One visual model and annotated transcript
Worked example
Expert reasoning made inspectable
Guided practice
Low-stakes decision with feedback
Application
A staged professional artifact
Reflection
Transfer plan and muddiest point
Predictable, visible guidance
A weekly preview, annotated exemplars, rubric-based feedback, and a short end-of-week synthesis make instructor thinking visible without requiring constant synchronous attendance.
Structured peer sensemaking
Learners exchange one strength, one risk, and one question on a draft memo. An optional recorded fiscal clinic lets participants compare reasoning across professional contexts.
Inquiry through authentic cases
Each week begins with a public decision, moves through evidence and alternatives, and ends with an explanation the learner must defend.
03 Assessment, access & iteration
Alignment from outcome to evidence
The assessment is the work learners came to become able to do.
Instead of a content-heavy final exam, learners build a decision-ready budget memo through short, feedback-rich stages.
Feedback checks framing before learners invest in a full analysis.
A transparent rubric separates evidence quality, equity, and feasibility.
Learners deliver a concise memo plus a short accessible presentation or transcript.
Evidence boundaryA course-design prototype grounded in authentic teaching and public-policy contexts.
This case demonstrates curriculum architecture, online interaction, assessment alignment, and theory-informed decisions. It does not claim that this exact module has been implemented or produced learner outcomes. A pilot would examine completion patterns, reasoning quality, transfer, accessibility, and learner experience.
What this case demonstrates
Strong online learning is not a digital container. It is a carefully supported path toward authentic performance.
Adult learningOnline course designUDLCommunity of InquiryAuthentic assessmentFormative feedback