Athena Rayne Anderson

If you’re an educator of any kind, you need my book!

All of you amazing and dedicated K-12 teachers, college faculty and lecturers, corporate trainers, presenters, freelancers… you need my book. If you educate people of any age, in any setting, you need my book.

Here’s why:

The way you were taught to teach is wasting your time and that of your learners.

I use the term “learning unit” to be inclusive of any activity designed to teach people something. This could be a first grade science class, a college arts course, a 1-hour cooking demonstration, a corporate training weekend… you get the idea.

The traditional method of designing a learning unit wastes everyone’s time because it treats content as the most important component of a learning unit. Everything in the unit is designed around the content that “must be covered.” There’s a problem with this, because…

The content is not the most important component of a learning unit, the Learning Objectives are.

I was a college instructor for more than 10 years and no one told me this. This information is critical to designing efficient and effective learning units, but it’s not part of teachers’ college curricula, faculty training, or train-the-trainer programs. I didn’t learn it until I was studying for my MEd in instructional design and I was shocked that it isn’t integrated into every educational field and setting.

You don’t need to earn a master’s degree in instructional design to get in on this secret that shouldn’t be a secret at all. What you need is my book, Simple Instructional Design. In its pages, I distill the field of instructional design into an easy guide for all of you busy educators. You’ll learn:

• Why Learning Objectives are the most important components of a learning unit.
• How to create measurable Learning Objectives.
• How the Backwards Design strategy will help you create learning experiences that are effective and efficient.
• The importance of alignment and how to create well-aligned components.
• The importance of engagement and how to maximize it in your learning units.
• And more!

Everyone’s busy these days. Stop wasting your time and that of your learners. I’m an advocate of working smarter, not harder. My book shows you how to create learning experiences that get the job done every time. With my guidance, you’ll be delighted to discover that your learners are more engaged and your work more impactful.

One enthusiastic reviewer, a career teacher, gave me this feedback:

“I was given zero instruction in teaching… I made it up as I went along. I would have given my right arm for a book like yours.”

Christine F.

Keep up with this blog to follow my publishing journey of getting this book to you. A chapter will be available for download in the near future in a post and on the Simple Instructional Design book’s home page. I’m offering in-person presentations on selected content in the Asheville, NC area starting soon. My goal is that this book will be either picked up by a traditional publisher or self-published by the end of 2025.