Magic Hour Instructional Design

What do you *actually* need in order to create a course? The six Course Creation Essentials! Now in handy infographic form!

It’s that time of year - The Re-Patterning Project, led by the extraordinary Arden Leigh, is enrolling students for a late-summer session that starts on July 10th. I can’t recommend TRPP enough. I’ve personally taken it multiple times, starting in 2019, and it was earth-shattering to me in the best possible way. As someone who has been in therapy and done quite a lot of self-growth work, I recognize that there’s a lot of value in an accessible, structured, mindful, and trauma-informed course like TRPP. It’s not positivity bypassing hippie nonsense where an instructor tells you to manifest your way out of systemic barriers or hey, have you tried yoga for your chronic illness? It draws from trauma teachings and readings that you would likely encounter in any medically-led trauma therapy group, except you don’t have to navigate the hellish maze of medical insurance or justify your survival mechanisms to a potentially ambivalent system. Not only have I taken the course multiple times, I’ve also been lucky enough to help with some of the visual design and the self-study program, so I’ve seen the backend of how Arden manages TRPP and know the values and alignment that the business and the course are run through.

We’re constantly being made and unmade by the world around us right now. We deal with a huge amount of input. If it feels like too much, it’s because for many of us, it is. The stress and uncertainty of existing in year three of a global pandemic, paired with the increasing pressure from systemic oppression, is pushing all kinds of buttons for us. And that’s just the baseline! For those of us who have dealt with trauma in our childhoods or in previous years, it’s easier than ever to find ourselves slipping into negative coping mechanisms, feeling “stuck” emotionally, and struggling to make choices that are healthy and compassionate. Many “self-help” programs can do more harm than good by telling people to simply deep-breathe their ways out of trauma re-enactments and systemic oppression. Screw that noise. If you want to find out how to repattern your brain and make it healthier and happier to exist in your flesh suit even in a world of systemic barriers and Monkeypox outbreaks, this is the course for you.

TRPP is a seriously thoughtful, well-constructed eight-week course that will rock your world and repattern the toxic and maladaptive patterns that your brain has picked up along your survival journey. You’ll feel attacked at times. But you’ll also feel safe. Things will shift and click in your brain the same way they might after a hallucinogenic trip or other life-changing experience. Except you can do this without the drugs and without waiting for a random life-changing experience to come along. You can start now (well, on July 10). And you won’t be alone. Though there’s a lot of individual work, you’ll be joined by other people who are walking their own paths, and you’ll be supported in a collective environment of integrity and compassion.

It’s an eight-week course starting on July 10th. Group meetings are on Sundays. This intensive two month course is available for $2k, but payment plans and scholarships are available, so if you’re ready to defrag your brain’s core, contact me or Arden today.

[Image Description: a multicolored spiral on a black background. In front of the spiral, white text over blue and purple text blocks read: “TRPP: The Re-Patterning Project Summer 2022 Starts July 10! Enrolling now!”]

I'm proud to be able to share one of my recent client's initiative is now live! Science Rising, a nonpartisan coalition of scientists, science advocates, and activists, has put out a Resource Toolbox! Inside there are four resource buckets (Voting FAQs & How-To's, Civic Engagement Opportunities, Building A Culture of Civic Engagement In STEM) designed around empowering anyone to become an organizer and advocate.

I had the pleasure of designing (and facilitating the flagship synchronous presentation of) their Train the Trainer module, *From Inspiration To Action*! It's a two-hour synchronous interactive learning experience designed to help you become a civic engagement facilitator yourself - from connecting people to their values to mastering the resources in the toolbox, and tips & tricks for classroom management to boot.

The program will be running monthly through October, and the goal is that each person to takes From Inspiration To Action facilitates at least two of their own trainings from the Science Rising Toolbox, whether that's engaging with STEM students on campus about voting for the first time or teaching your D&D campaign how to write Letters to the Editor for a local paper about climate protections. It's open to anyone, and the facilitation I ran had diverse educators, activists, and scientists (including high-level climate organizers) from across North America! Link to Science Rising in the comments.

[Image Description: a slide deck title slide for "From Inspiration To Action: Science Rising Facilitation Training". The slide has a dark blue background with light blue and pink text, and stripes on the side in bright pink, purple, blue, and teal.]

How can Instructional Design add value to a midsize or enterprise-level business? Lots of ways! Including my two favorites: Knowledge Architecture and Knowledge Systems Management. This use case provides a snapshot of the work involved in creating Knowledge Architecture at a B2B data management SaaS company (no identifying data provided).

**Problem**
The internal knowledge base for [Company] “lives” in multiple places. The customer team documentation, product team documentation, and onboarding documentation all contain redundancies as well as missing information. The product - the app platform - is very complicated and very customizable; new clients undergo a year-long onboarding program for their business. No general external knowledge base (help center) exists, and no single guideline for what should go in a KB existed either. Leadership wants to invest in a structure and plan that creates one streamlined internal database for knowledge and one engaging, accessible customer-facing database.

**Process**
Discovery & Analysis involves:
-ingesting, cataloguing, organizing, and mind-mapping all the existing data
-Identifying redundancies and knowledge gaps
-Identifying needs for all stakeholders

Design involves:
-synthesizing overall knowledge architecture structure
-asking the questions “what should be included?” “How does it all fit together?” “How is the customer led through the KB?”
-Creating a detailed outline and receiving stakeholder approval
-Creating a branding and style guide for consistency and scaling

Development involves:
-transforming internal KB resources to external KB resources
-creating new resources from scratch
-creating breadcrumbs, gathering assets and images
-checking on accessibility standards
-QA and proofreading

Evaluation involves:
-Launching internally with an MVP
-Creating a survey and eliciting feedback for improvement
-Orchestrating a full launch externally with three month follow-up survey

**Outcome**
The launch of the internal knowledgebase correlated with increased satisfaction among Customer, Product, and Ops teams due to ease of use and lack of siloed information. Internal efficiency improved as team members no longer needed to hunt down SMEs (subject matter experts) for their secret hidden knowledge. The launch of the external knowledge base correlated with a lower number of support tickets relating to items covered in the database. (Customer satisfaction survey had not yet been collected at time of close of contract.)

*What is the MHID process?*

Instructional Design can be the missing key to the transformation of content. Here at Magic Hour, we specialize in solving the connection issue between expert and audience. But what exactly do we do?

This blog post will provide a step-by-step guide for what you can expect when working with Magic Hour ID.

*The Basics*

Broadly, instructional design is the process of transforming learning material (content) into fully fleshed out learning experiences. First, we ingest and analyze all the existing material. Then, a plan is created and goals are agreed on. After that, the work begins! First a complete outline is created and then the fleshed-out body of work. The completed project often goes through a round of evaluation and change after being implemented to make sure that the results match the goals.

What does this look like? And what kind of learning experiences are created like this?

*Where It Begins*

First, we’ll set up a discovery meeting to confirm that the scope of the project and the goals are a good match for MHID. We’ll talk about the amount of existing material, the kind of learning experience desired, the target audience, and the overall mission and vision of the Subject Matter Expert (that’s you!). During this meeting, we’ll figure out if any additional research is needed and what criteria determine success. We’ll also begin to collect all the information needed for the detailed analysis process. After the meeting, MHID will send a rough proposal/statement of work with an estimated budget, number of hours, and timeline for completion.

Next up is analysis - think of it as the “development” phase if your project were a feature film, or the R&D phase of product design. MHID will absorb and organize all existing material, and fill any relevant knowledge gaps with research. This is where the first piece of “magic” happens - the learning architecture scaffolding is put into place. We’ll agree on a set of learning objectives that clarify what learners get out of the experience. Learning objectives are the cornerstone of an instructional design project, informing the entire rest of the process.

*The Nitty Gritty*

Once the learning objectives are chosen the design phase begins. Using the structure created in analysis, a detailed outline or a thorough mock up are created. This is where the learning experience really begins to take shape - we’ll see the “shape” of the project and what the flow of knowledge transfer is like. If things need to be re-ordered, or material needs to be added or cut, this is the place we’ll figure it out.

A finalized outline means it's time to begin the development process! This is the meat of instructional design, and the part that varies the most in terms of the work itself. Whether it’s a slide deck, a workbook, a certification exam, or a fully interactive e-learning course, MHID strives to create material that is engaging, accessible, and transforms your material in ways that brings you new insights and confidence in your expertise. The finished product is yours to begin spreading your powerful teachings!

Learning experiences shouldn’t be created in a vacuum, however. Having learners engage with the material often provides key insights that could not otherwise be found in the process. MHID provides a round of iterations on every learning experience once it’s out into the world. We offer a variety of options for ongoing involvement for substantial as well as superficial updates; our pedagogy as emergent strategists shows that [the best knowledge experience] is a living corpus and that adapting to new information, skills, or needs is how to serve that knowledge.

If you have any questions about the MHID process not covered here, feel free to email [email protected] for more information or to set up a discovery meeting.