A curriculum is a great way to organize your content based on a broad learning goal.
Aren't similar courses already organized under categories?!
Yes, but categories can only get you so far. A curriculum is more of a learning plan than it is a method of organization.
Let's say you want your frontline staff to increase the number of digitally-focused conversations they're having. To do this, you'll need to create a learning plan (i.e., a curriculum) that likely includes courses from multiple categories!
For example, you'd want to include courses from the categories Online Banking as well as Financial Sales.
Have a look at some of the curricula that we've created, available from the Content Exchange.
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A curriculum is used to provide structure and flow to your training, directing learners towards a particular learning goal.
So, let's dive into how to do it!
Want a more interactive way to learn about creating curricula?
You can actually learn about how to create a curriculum within LemonadeLXP! Import our "Creating a Curriculum" course from the Content Exchange and play through it. |
How to Create a Curriculum
Examples are provided in these text-boxes along the way to help provide context.
1. Determine your vision and intention
What's your goal? What are you knowledge or behaviour are you hoping to instil in your learners?
Your Goal: Promoting digital products and services.
You decide you want to do this by increasing the number of digitally-focused
conversations that your frontline staff are having with customers.
2. Outline your overarching topics
What individual topics do you need to cover while training your staff towards your goal?
To encourage staff to promote digital products with customers, you may need to
teach the following topics:
- customer service basics
- sales basics
- digital banking
- how to introduce digital products to customers
3. Review any existing curriculum and courseware
Have you already created a similar curriculum? Maybe just a few related courses? Consider using those in your new curriculum!
However, you don't want to make people take the same training twice, so be sure to revise and remove unnecessary or overly repetitive content.
If this is your first curriculum in LemonadeLXP, consider reviewing any previous training content.
Maybe you already have a Mobile Banking curriculum. Think about how this
curriculum will interact with it. Will learners be completing both curricula?
If so, don't make it too repetitive.
4. Organize your learning goals based on topics and timeline
Think back to you main goal. Ask yourself some of these questions.
What topics should be taught to meet this goal?
Is order important? Do some topics need to be introduced first?
What existing knowledge do learners already have? Do you need to establish much foundational knowledge, or can you jump into specialized courses?
Does this information need to be learned by a certain time (e.g., a product launch date)?
What needs to happen to achieve your learning goals within your time frame?
How deep should we dive into each topic? If you're on a tight schedule, maybe it's needs to stay closer to the surface. If you have time and resources, provide a deeper understanding for learners.
For your "Digitally Focused Conversations" curriculum, you want to teach
the following topics to achieve this goal:
- Selling digital products
- Mobile deposits
- Automated bill payments
- Online transfers
- Digital banking
- Online banking
- Mobile banking
There's a lot of content to learn, and you want to get staff trained on the
basics before new features are added to your online platform (3 months).
To meet your goals and time frame, prioritize intro level courses and courses
that focus on online banking in order to prepare staff for this launch in 3
months. Include the mobile courses later in the curriculum, since these
can be completed after the feature launch if need be.
Proposed topic order:
1. Digital banking
2. Online banking
3. Selling digital products
4. Online transfers
5. Automated bill payments
6. Mobile banking
7. Mobile deposits
5. Write the lessons to provide a complete learning experience
Now that you have a rough outline of what topics need to be included in your curriculum, and how it needs to be structured, it's time to create content!
In step 3 you may discovered that some content is already written. Consider including it in this curriculum, but make sure to review and edit as needed.
If you need any tips, tricks, and resources for writing new content see some of our other articles on step writing in the Administrator's Guide.
If you want to draft content offline (before entering it in the LemonadeLXP platform) consider using our Step Writing Templates. These are great if you need to get content reviewed and approved.
Unless you already have lots of content written, this stage will usually take the longest! Give yourself time.
For your "Digitally Focused Conversations" curriculum, we suggest starting with
first topics (digital banking, online banking, selling digital products).
6. Review and assess your content
Now that your content is created, it's time for inspection and review. Does your content seem to address your learning goals?
If possible, it can be a good idea to get coworkers to test-play your courses within LemonadeLXP before publishing them to your learners.
It's normal to need to rework some content here and there. Edits are always easy to make in LemonadeLXP, even once a course is published.
7. Publish your courses to the masses
You've done it! The curriculum is written, reviewed, and ready to teach your learners everything you need them to know!
Now it's time to publish, and let people know that it's here! There are a few ways this can be done.
To let learners know when a new course is published, set up email notifications.
If you want to share your curriculum, consider promoting it through emails, newsletters, or your intranet portal. Creating a graphic/flow-chart is a great way to show learners what's to come.
Have a look Sales and Customer Service Curriculum to get a feel for how curricula can be presented (keep in mind, ours a targeted to LemonadeLXP administrators, not learners).