ThoughtLab: From Topics to Transfer — Using Big Ideas and Essential Questions in Training Design

​Training design often suffers from topic chaos and scope creep. Without clear focus, every stakeholder adds their own must-have content, and the training ends up trying to cover everything without much of it sticking. This workshop introduces two tools from Stage 1 of Backward Design/Understanding by Design (UbD) that help L&D practitioners cut through the noise: Big Ideas and Essential Questions. Participants work through their own training challenge using both tools, and leave with a Big Idea and a set of Essential Questions ready to apply.

​🎁 KEY TAKE-AWAYS

• ​Understand the difference between a Big Idea and a learning objective and why it changes what you design.

• ​Craft a Big Idea grounded in UbD principles: transferable, deep, and meaningful.

• ​Translate a Big Idea into Essential Questions that drive design decisions — from content selection to activity and assessment design.
  
  Before the session, spend five minutes on these. You'll use your answers directly in the workshop.

  1. ​Pick one training you're currently designing, revising, or dreading. What's it officially about, in one sentence?

  2. ​What's currently on the "must include" list for that training — and who put it there?

  3. ​If people forgot everything else about this training a month later, what's the one thing you'd want them to still walk away with?

​🗣 HOST BIO

​Teresa Moreno is a Learning Experience Designer based in Germany. Her expertise combines learning experience design, storytelling, and design thinking to translate complex content into learning formats that actually work.