Instructional Design Storyboard Templates

In the early stages of planning an online course, many educators use storyboarding to streamline the process. A storyboard helps you plan out your entire course down to the smallest details, while keeping the big picture and your overarching goals in sight. We’ve put together 7 customizable eLearning storyboard templates that pull from the most widely acknowledged instructional design models.

What are instructional design models? Instructional design models are frameworks developed by psychologists and educational researchers that organize “creating instruction” (e.g., building an eLearning course) into a streamlined process that follows research-based best practices. By taking the guesswork out of the course design process, instructional design models help educators create learning experiences that deliver results.

What is storyboarding? Storyboarding is a planning technique that has its roots in movie production. Originally, storyboards were used to pre-visualize sequences of events in motion pictures and animations. In education, storyboarding helps plan the contents of a course, lesson, lecture, or any kind of learning experience.

So, summing up, instructional design storyboarding relies on instructional design models to guide the process of putting together a course or class.

Why should you use an instructional design storyboard? Creating a storyboard may sound like adding an extra step to the course development process. But it’s like using a good project management tool — it will ultimately save you a lot of time and arrive at optimal solutions without the trial and error.

Relying on an instructional design storyboard template will help you keep your training focused on research-backed best practices, hit all the important points in your audio and visual materials, simplify production and post-production by lowering the chance that you have to go back and reshoot things, and plan exercises, quizzes, and activities that facilitate the retention of new knowledge and skills.

Using Storyboards to Test Best Practices

Bloom's Taxonomy states that there are 6 consecutive steps to mastering new knowledge or skills- Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create. Use this template to define the scope of what your students are supposed to remember, understand, etc. and plan activities that will support each step.

Gagné's instructional design model breaks effective learning into a set of 9 “events” that happen across 3 stages (before, during, and after the delivery of instruction). This storyboard template will help you plan talking points, activities and teaching strategies for each step.

ADDIE is a popular instructional design model that outlines 5 steps of instructional design- Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate. This template will help you plan and organize your pre-and post-launch tasks within your course development process.

SAM is a simplified version of the ADDIE model of instructional design. It names 3 repeating steps to developing a successful training program- Evaluate, Design, and Develop. Use this template to map out the tasks you will need to build your course and continuously refine it.

Merrill's First Principles of Instruction is a model that outlines the 5 universal principles common to all effective instructional design models. The 5 principles of instruction are- Task/Problem-Centered, Activation, Demonstration, Application, and Integration.

Action Mapping and 70-20-10 Models of Learning and Development

Action Mapping is a model that breaks down effective training into four building blocks- a measurable business goal, a series of actions required to reach the goal, practice activities designed to teach students how to perform the actions, and information essential to carry out the activities. Use this template to map out the real-world problems and tasks you will base your course around, define how you will tie the course in with prior knowledge, and plan the activities, exercises, and talking points that will support each principle. Additionally, use this template to define an overarching goal for your course, plan practice tasks and activities, and build scripts for audio and visual materials based on essential information.

The 70-20-10 model of learning and development identifies three ways in which people learn and assigns a weight to each of them. According to the model, 70% of knowledge comes from experience, experiment and reflection, 20% of knowledge comes from working with others, and 10% of knowledge comes from formal, planned learning. Use this template to define objectives and activities relevant to each category.

Creating a winning online course requires more than just producing content. Instructional designing is a crucial step in the course development process, consisting of various models such as Bloom's Taxonomy, Gagné's 9 Events of Instruction, the ADDIE Training Model, SAM Model, and Merrill's First Principles of Instruction. Each of these models allows creators to develop engaging and effective online courses. Additionally, the Action Mapping Model, and the 70-20-10 Model of Learning and Development both use a storytelling approach to consider how to better facilitate learning. By understanding and following the necessary instructional design models, course creators can develop a successful online course.