Start with the goal
Decide what people should be able to do after the lesson before you write a single card.
The most common reason a lesson doesn't work is that it starts from the content: everything the author knows about the topic, squeezed into cards. People swipe through it, maybe pass the quiz, and do exactly what they did before.
Start from the other end: what should people be able to do after the lesson that they couldn't do before? Choose the content only after that.
Write the goal as an action
A good goal describes something a person does, decides or solves: something you could watch them do at work.
| Instead of | Write |
|---|---|
| Know the complaints policy | Handle a complaint from first contact to a solution, following the policy |
| Understand IT security | Spot a phishing email and report it the right way |
| Learn about our new CRM | Log a call and schedule a follow-up in the CRM |
| Be aware of fire safety | Know where to go and what to do in the first minute of a fire alarm |
| Get to know our values | Recognise when a decision goes against "customer first" and say so |
Watch out for verbs you can't observe: know, understand, be aware of, learn about, get familiar with. Replace them with choose, spot, explain to a customer, fill in, decide, respond, put in order, fix.
A quick test
One lesson, one goal
A lesson should have one main goal, at most three closely related ones. If you have more, split the topic into several lessons and send them in a sequence. Short, focused lessons are easier to finish, easier to remember and easier to send again when needed.
As a guide:
- 8–15 cards, about 3–7 minutes. Grizlet shows the estimated lesson length as you write.
- If a lesson grows past 15 cards, ask whether it really has one goal.
Cut what doesn't serve the goal
For every piece of content, ask: does someone need this to do the goal?
- Must know: without it, they can't do the task. Keep it.
- Good to know: useful background. Keep only if it helps them understand why, in one card at most.
- Nice to know: history, every exception, the full list of rules. Leave it out, or link to it from a Button card.
It's hard to cut things you know well. Remember that every extra card makes the important ones a little less visible.
Ask what goes wrong today
If people already know the rule but still don't follow it, more information won't help. Find out what happens in real situations:
- What do people do wrong now, and why? (It's rushed, the right way is unclear, the wrong way looks reasonable, no one notices.)
- Which decisions are hard? Those are the moments to practise.
- What do the best people do differently?
The answers are your best material: typical mistakes become wrong options in questions, hard decisions become scenarios, and the best people's tips become examples.
Choose the approach
When the goal is clear, choose how to teach it. In Grizlet you start from a use case (what the training is for), and each use case comes with a matching teaching approach. As a rule of thumb:
| People should… | Use |
|---|---|
| know and apply new information (a product, a policy, a change) | Explain a topic |
| solve a task they meet at work | Solve a real problem |
| make the right decision under pressure (sales, service, compliance, leadership) | Practise decisions |
| change a belief or intuition that is often wrong | Explore first or Bust myths |
| change a habit or a way of working with people | Reflect & build a habit |
| follow a procedure step by step, often looking it up again | Step-by-step how-to |
| understand why a value or rule matters | Tell a story |
| remember what they learned earlier | Review & recall |
Check that goal and lesson match
Before you publish, go through the lesson with your goal next to it:
- Is there at least one card where learners try out each goal: a question, a scenario, an ordering task, a checklist for work?
- Do the scored questions check the goal, not small details from the text?
- Does the lesson end with what to do at work?
If a goal has no card where people try it, the lesson only talks about it.