Designing Online Weeks with PANDA

Overview
Curriculum
Instructor
FAQs

Designing Online Weeks with PANDA is a free, four-week course for people who build courses in a virtual learning environment, with practical examples from Canvas. It combines four models that work well together: PANDA (Prepare, Activate, Navigate, Demonstrate and Articulate), Gagné’s nine events of instruction, Bloom’s taxonomy and Gilly Salmon’s five stage model.

Each week takes about an hour and a half and follows PANDA itself, so you experience the framework as a learner before you build with it. Every week has a short Prepare lesson, an Activate question, one to three Navigate lessons, a practical Your turn task with a five-question graded quiz, and an Articulate reflection. You need 70% to pass each quiz, and you can retake it.

By the end you will have designed one complete week that you can reuse as a template.

Curriculum

4 Sections
26 Lessons
4 Weeks

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Week 1: Why structure matters
Why a repeatable weekly pattern helps, what the five PANDA elements are and how to build them in Canvas.
8
Week 2: Sequencing learning with Gagné
Gagné’s nine events of instruction, five practical tips for Canvas, and how the events sit inside the five PANDA elements.
7
Week 3: Setting the level with Bloom’s taxonomy
The revised Bloom’s taxonomy: six levels, two dimensions and how to match outcomes, tasks and assessment.
8
Week 4: Supporting learners online and bringing it together
Gilly Salmon’s five stage model, and how to combine PANDA, Gagné, Bloom and Salmon to design one complete week.
7

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Some Bio info

How long does each week take?

About an hour and a half. You can spread it across the week and repeat the quizzes as often as you like.

Do I need Canvas?

No. The examples use Canvas, but the models apply to any virtual learning environment, and you can plan on paper first.

What do I need to pass?

You need 70% on each week’s quiz. You can retake a quiz up to three times.

Do I need to know the models already?

No. The course assumes no prior knowledge of PANDA, Gagné, Bloom or Salmon.

Can I reuse what I build?

Yes. The week you design in Week 4 is meant to be kept as a template for other weeks.

Requirements

A real course, module or session you can use as your working example
Access to Canvas, or another virtual learning environment, if you want to build as you go
About an hour and a half each week

Features

Plan a week of an online course using the five PANDA elements
Explain the nine events of instruction and map them onto PANDA
Write learning outcomes with observable verbs from Bloom’s taxonomy and check that tasks match them
Apply Salmon’s five stage model to pace activities across a module
Design one complete week that combines all four models and build it in Canvas

Target audiences

Lecturers, teachers and learning designers who build online courses
Staff who support colleagues with course design in a virtual learning environment