course_outline_builder v1.0.0

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name: course_outline_builder description: "Build a course outline using backward design: write measurable learning objectives, align assessments to them, sequence modules by prerequisites, and pace the whole course. Use when someone asks to create, plan, restructure, or fix a course outline, syllabus, curriculum map, or training program, or to write learning objectives for a course."

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Course Outline Builder

Purpose

Turn a topic and an audience into a course outline that holds together: every objective is measurable, every objective is assessed, every module serves an objective, and the order respects prerequisites. The method is backward design from Wiggins and McTighe, objective writing from the revised Bloom taxonomy and the ABCD model, and alignment checking from Biggs.

A topic list is not an outline. If a draft only names subjects in order, it has no way to show whether learners learned anything. This skill builds the missing structure first, then fills in content.

Workflow

1. Fix the frame before writing anything

Collect, and ask only for what is missing:

• Audience: who the learners are, what they already know, what they need the course for.
• Terminal outcome: the one thing a successful learner can do at the end that they could not do at the start. One sentence, with a verb.
• Constraints: total time available, session count and length, delivery mode (live, async, blended), any required standard, exam, or accreditation the course must map to.
• Evidence available: what can realistically be assessed in this setting (project, exam, observed task, portfolio, quiz).

If the terminal outcome is vague ("learn about spreadsheets"), stop and sharpen it with the requester before proceeding. Everything downstream depends on it.

2. Stage 1, desired results: write course objectives

Write 3 to 7 course-level objectives. More than 7 usually means two courses, or module objectives being promoted too early.

Each objective must be ABCD complete:

• Audience: the learner, named once for the set if it is constant.
• Behavior: one observable verb plus its object. One verb per objective. Split "analyze and design" into two objectives.
• Condition: the situation, tools, or material given when the learner performs.
• Degree: how well, how many, how accurately, or within what limit counts as success.

Pick the verb from the revised Bloom levels (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001). Full verb table is in references/verbs-and-frameworks.md.

• Remember: define, list, recall, identify
• Understand: explain, classify, summarize, compare
• Apply: solve, demonstrate, implement, use
• Analyze: differentiate, organize, examine, contrast
• Evaluate: critique, justify, judge, defend
• Create: design, construct, formulate, produce

Banned as objective verbs: know, understand, learn about, appreciate, be aware of, be familiar with. They name a private mental state, not a behavior anyone can observe or grade. Replace them with the behavior that would prove them.

Also write, for the course as a whole:

• One transfer goal: where the learner uses this outside the course.
• Two or three essential questions: open questions the course keeps returning to. Keep them short. They guide module framing, they are not objectives.

Worked rewrite:

• Weak: "Students will understand budgeting."
• Strong: "Given a household income statement and a list of fixed and variable expenses (condition), the learner (audience) will build a monthly budget that allocates income across at least six categories (behavior) with totals that reconcile to income within 1 percent (degree)." Verb level: Apply, moving to Create if the learner designs the categories.

3. Stage 2, acceptable evidence: design assessment before content

For each course objective, name at least one assessment that requires the same verb at the same level. This is constructive alignment (Biggs): the verb in the objective, the verb practiced in class, and the verb tested in assessment must match.

• Objective says "design", quiz asks to "list": misaligned. Fix the quiz or lower the objective honestly.
• Split assessment into two kinds. Formative: low or no stakes, during learning, gives feedback (drafts, checks, practice tasks, self-tests). Summative: at the end, certifies the outcome (final project, exam, observed performance).
• Every objective needs at least one formative touchpoint before its summative assessment. A learner should never meet the graded version of a task for the first time at the final.
• Write the success criteria now, not later: what a passing performance looks like, in the same terms as the Degree in the objective.

Record this in an alignment matrix: one row per objective, columns for assessment, formative touchpoint, and the modules that teach it (filled in at step 5).

4. Break objectives into modules

Decompose each course objective into module objectives, using the same ABCD and verb rules at a smaller grain. One module teaches one main idea or one procedure, sized to its session or study block.

For each module record:

• Module objective(s), usually 1 to 3.
• Prerequisites: which earlier module objectives must already be met. Name them, do not write "previous material".
• Core activity: the task where learners practice the module verb, not just hear about it.
• Formative check: how the instructor or the learner knows the module objective landed before moving on.
• Time estimate: split into input, guided practice, independent practice, and check. Practice should take at least as much time as input for Apply level and above.

5. Sequence the modules

Order modules by these rules, in this priority:

1. Prerequisite order first. A module never appears before a module it depends on. Draw the dependency chain and topologically sort it if the list is long.
2. Simple before complex, concrete before abstract, part before whole, where prerequisites leave a choice.
3. Climb in Bloom level across the course. Early modules can sit at Remember and Understand. Later modules should reach the level of the course objectives. A course whose objectives say Create but whose modules never pass Apply is misaligned.
4. Spiral deliberately: revisit a core concept at a higher level later, and label it as a revisit so it does not read as repetition.
5. Put a formative checkpoint after every 2 to 3 modules, and schedule the summative assessment only after the last module that feeds it.

6. Pace the course

• Sum module times. Compare against the constraint from step 1.
• Reserve 10 to 15 percent of total time as buffer for overruns, questions, and reteaching. State the buffer as its own line, not hidden inside modules.
• If the total is over: cut in this order. First cut enrichment and nice-to-have examples. Second, merge modules that share a prerequisite chain. Third, drop a whole objective and its modules, and tell the requester which objective was dropped. Never fix an overrun by shrinking practice time below input time, and never by removing formative checks.
• If the total is under: add practice, a worked example review, or a spiral revisit. Do not add new topics just to fill time.
• For async courses, give each module an estimated learner time range (for example 45 to 60 minutes) instead of a single number, and state the assumed pace in the outline header.

7. Run the alignment and quality checks

Before delivering, run every check. Fix failures, do not annotate them away.

• [ ] Every course objective is ABCD complete and uses one observable verb.
• [ ] No banned verbs anywhere in objectives.
• [ ] Every course objective has at least one formative touchpoint and one summative or end-of-module assessment.
• [ ] Assessment verb matches objective verb at the same Bloom level.
• [ ] Every module maps to at least one course objective. Orphan module: cut it or write the objective it serves.
• [ ] Every module's prerequisites appear earlier in the sequence.
• [ ] Bloom level climbs across the course and reaches the course objectives' level by the final modules.
• [ ] Module times sum to the stated total, buffer included, and practice time is at least input time for Apply and above.
• [ ] Transfer goal and essential questions are present and actually referenced by at least one module each.

If the outline is in the JSON format described in references/worked-outlines.md, validate it mechanically:

python3 bin/outline_check.py outline.json

The checker reports banned verbs, missing assessments, orphan modules, prerequisite order violations, and time totals. A clean checker run does not replace the judgment checks above, especially verb-level matching.

Output Contract

Deliver one outline document with these sections, in this order:

1. Header: course title, audience, total time and session pattern, delivery mode, terminal outcome, transfer goal, essential questions.
2. Course objectives: numbered CO1, CO2, and so on, each ABCD complete, each tagged with its Bloom level.
3. Alignment matrix: objective, formative touchpoint, summative assessment, success criteria, modules that teach it.
4. Module sequence: numbered M1, M2, and so on. Each module lists objectives (with the course objective it serves, for example M3 serves CO2), prerequisites by module number, core activity, formative check, and time split.
5. Pacing summary: total input, practice, assessment, and buffer time, and the grand total checked against the constraint.
6. Cut list, if anything was dropped for time: what was cut and which objective it affected. Omit the section if nothing was cut.
7. Open decisions: anything the requester still needs to decide, such as a standard to map to or an assessment format that needs approval.

Keep the language plain. Objectives are written for learners and graders, not for marketing.

Operating Rules

1. Outcomes first, assessment second, content third. Never reverse the order to save time. A request for "just a quick topic list" gets a topic list labeled as such, plus a note that it is not yet an aligned outline.
2. Never invent a standard, accreditation requirement, exam weight, or contact-hour rule. If a course must map to a named standard, fetch or ask for the actual standard text and map to that. Unverified mapping is worse than no mapping.
3. One verb per objective. Compound objectives hide which half a learner failed.
4. Do not promise a pace you have not summed. Every time figure in the outline must add up.
5. Respect the stated audience level. A beginner course that assumes intermediate prerequisites fails at M1, no matter how good the later modules look.
6. When the requester insists on a misaligned element (a recall quiz for a design objective, a module with no objective), keep it if they own the course, flag the specific misalignment in Open decisions, and do not silently certify the outline as aligned.
7. For regulated or safety-related training, assessments must require demonstration under the stated condition, not only written recall, unless the governing standard says otherwise in text you have actually read.

References

• references/verbs-and-frameworks.md: Bloom verb table with knowledge dimension, ABCD template, backward design and constructive alignment summaries, sequencing patterns.
• references/worked-outlines.md: two complete worked outlines in both document and JSON form, one short workshop and one multi-week course, plus the JSON schema the checker uses.