The skill course design model (SCDM) is an instructional design model for making good skills courses. You could use it for other courses, but that’s not its goal.

SCDM draws heavily from 4C/ID, and Ten Steps to Complex Learning. It includes schemas, worked examples, knowledge activation, and much else.

Skilling and SCDM evolved together. Skilling helps you use SCDM for a particular course. However, you could use SCDM with other tools as well.

Here’s a quick summary of SCDM.

Course designers

tl;dr

Skill courses help students learn how to do problem-solving tasks, like:

  • Writing programs

  • Analyzing data

  • Writing technical documents

What’s a good skill course like? Here are the elements.

Tasks

Pick tasks students will learn to do. The course goal will be learning relevant schemas, procedures, and facts, and how to use them to solve problems. Learning to solve problems is harder than you think. Aim for fewer concepts, and more practice.

Flipped

Classes are flipped, and often self-paced. There are no lectures. Students read lessons outside of class. Class time is for helping students individually, for group work, and for cheering.

Lessons

Lessons are web pages, or videos. They explain concepts in various ways. There’s direct instruction: “Here’s how you…” Worked examples show people doing tasks. Reflection questions deepen thinking by asking students to, for example, infer schemas from examples. Simulations show processes, or let students see the effects of decisions.

Exercises

Students do many exercises. They get personal formative feedback on each one. Lessons and exercises are intertwined. You need a good work system to handle the grading load.

Instructors

The open source software Skilling helps you make and run good skills courses. However, you can use other tools as well..

Software

The open source software Skilling helps you make and run good skills courses. However, you can use other tools as well.

Introducing SCDM