Over the past few weeks, I’ve been living in the weeds of one course: Online Teaching Strategies. What started as a fairly straightforward evaluation task quietly turned into a crash course in thinking like a Learning Manager—someone who doesn’t just build content, but orchestrates alignment, facilitation, and continuous improvement at scale.
This post captures what I learned while building a Framework Criteria Checklist, a Change Matrix, and a full Facilitation Plan for this course—and how those lessons will shape the way I show up as a future Learning Manager.
Seeing the Course as a System, Not a Set of Activities
When I first opened the course shell, it looked “good” on the surface: clear weekly checklists, readings, activities, and discussion prompts. But as I applied my Framework Criteria Checklist, a pattern emerged:
- Strong organization, but a weak throughline.
- Lots of discussion, but no culminating artifact or “take-with-you” product.
- Solid structure, but limited autonomy or choice for learners.
The big aha moment was recognizing that a course can be organized and still feel fragmented.
Using models like Community of Inquiry and Transactional Distance Theory gave me language for what I was seeing. The course had teaching presence (clear instructions) and some social presence (introductions, discussions), but cognitive presence stalled at exploration. There was no clear point where learners integrated ideas and resolved them into a coherent plan.
As a Learning Manager, this mindset shift is huge. My job won’t just be to check for tidy modules—it will be to ensure that content, activities, and assessments all ladder up to meaningful, authentic outcomes.
Designing with the End in Mind: The Online Teaching Strategy Plan
The most impactful design decision I made was introducing a capstone artifact: an Online Teaching Strategy Plan that participants build across the course for one of their own classes.
Instead of treating each activity as a one-off task, the revised design:
- Anchors everything to a real course the participant teaches (or will teach).
- Uses weekly activities (COI analysis, social presence strategies, assessment redesign) as building blocks.
- Concludes with a usable, implementable strategy document—or narrated deck, or screencast—that they can take straight back to their institution.
This is where the Change Matrix came alive. I wasn’t just making cosmetic tweaks; I was:
- Rewriting objectives to explicitly reference creating an authentic product.
- Realigning activities so each one clearly contributes to a section of the Strategy Plan.
- Adjusting assessments so mastery is demonstrated through applied, context-specific work.
In a Learning Manager role, this kind of alignment work is the core of the job. Stakeholders don’t just want “time-on-task”—they want evidence that learning translates into better practice. A well-designed capstone artifact becomes that bridge.
Balancing Structure, Dialogue, and Autonomy
Another thread that ran through this project was the constant balancing act between structure, dialogue, and autonomy.
The original course leaned heavily on structure: weekly checklists, clear instructions, consistent expectations. That’s a strength, especially for instructors new to online teaching. But too much structure, without room for choice, can increase transactional distance in a different way—learners may feel like they’re just “complying” rather than co-owning the experience.
My revisions introduced structured autonomy:
- A choice-based redesign task, where participants pick one of three components from their own course to redesign (discussion, announcement, or assessment).
- Multiple format options for the final Strategy Plan (written document, narrated slides, or screencast walkthrough).
- Two consult formats (live 1:1 or asynchronous annotated review).
The key was not to abandon structure, but to strategically place choice where it actually matters. As a Learning Manager, this principle will guide how I design learning ecosystems: clear pathways with intentional forks, not chaos disguised as freedom.
Moving Beyond Design: Facilitating for Presence and Momentum
Building the Facilitation Plan was where I really stepped into a Learning Manager mindset.
It wasn’t enough to design improved activities; I had to spell out how another instructor could:
- Bring the course philosophy to life.
- Facilitate four key activities (Strategy Plan, choice-based redesign, design partner feedback, consults) in concrete, step-by-step terms.
- Maintain a healthy rhythm of communication, feedback, and presence.
That meant getting very practical:
- Planning pre-course communication and early-week announcements.
- Defining how often the instructor should log in, what kind of feedback to prioritize, and how to respond to common patterns.
- Describing how to scaffold early, then intentionally fade supports as participants grow more confident.
This is precisely the bridge a Learning Manager has to build—between design intent and facilitation reality. Someone else may be teaching the course, but the plan ensures that the core vision is preserved and the learner experience is consistent.
Documenting Decisions as a Habit, Not a One-Off Assignment
One of the newer ideas that really stuck with me in this project is the importance of documenting instructional design decisions.
Instead of treating choices as intuitive or one-time, I learned to:
- Capture what I changed (e.g., adding the Strategy Plan, adding choice-based redesign tasks, introducing design partners).
- Clarify why I made those changes (e.g., to increase cognitive presence, reduce transactional distance, or support autonomy).
- Note what trade-offs I considered (e.g., pairing vs group teams, one big project vs several smaller ones) and why I picked one path.
In a Learning Manager role, this documentation mindset is gold. It turns every project into a living case study and makes it far easier to justify decisions to stakeholders, onboard new facilitators, and iterate after you see real learner data.
How This Translates to My Learning Manager Career
This project did more than improve one course—it sharpened how I see my future role.
As a Learning Manager, I will:
- Think in systems, not fragments.
I’ll look for alignment between objectives, activities, assessments, and artifacts. I’ll ask, “What do learners walk away with that they can actually use tomorrow?” - Design with the facilitator in mind.
Every course I build should come with a clear facilitation plan, not just content files. That means scripting communication rhythms, feedback strategies, and practical tips so someone else can successfully bring the design to life. - Use presence as a design lever.
I’ll intentionally design for teaching, social, and cognitive presence—and help facilitators understand how their choices (announcements, tone, feedback, visibility) either strengthen or weaken those elements. - Balance structure, dialogue, and autonomy.
Whether I’m supporting a team of instructors or designing for corporate learners, I’ll keep asking: Where do we really need tight structure? Where do we need more dialogue? Where can we safely offer choice that increases ownership? - Make decision logs part of the culture.
I’ll advocate for simple change logs and design records on every major learning product. Over time, this creates a shared memory for the team and accelerates improvement.
Closing Thought: From “Course Tweaker” to Strategic Partner
What I love about this project is that it nudged me from thinking like someone who “fixes courses” to someone who guides a learning ecosystem. I’m not just changing prompts and adding activities—I’m:
- Clarifying the philosophy behind the learning experience.
- Aligning outcomes, interactions, and assessments around authentic work.
- Translating design decisions into facilitation strategies.
- Building habits of documentation that will scale across projects and teams.
That, to me, is what a Learning Manager really does: they hold the bigger picture of how people learn, then design and support the systems that make that learning possible.
This project is one of the anchors I’ll point to in my portfolio—a tangible example of how I move from evaluation to design, from design to facilitation, and from individual courses to a broader learning strategy.
See the work below!
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