The Magic Triangle of Learning

When it comes to designing a learning experience, instructional designers must take three main components into account to ensure the learning is effective: learning objectives, learning activities, and assessments. This is known as the "Magic Triangle" of learning.

Learning Objectives

Defines and sets boundaries on what learners should know or be able to do at the end of the course that they couldn’t do before.

Learning Activities

Learning Activities are all the course assets used to deploy the learning experience. They are actions that are planned and created by instructional designers during course design and taken or used by the learner during the learning process. Types of learning activities can range from audio, video, animation, gamification, and simulation, to more traditional activities such as reading and lecturing.

Learning Assessments

Assessments are the final step in the learning process. Learning assessments include elements like quizzes, exams, or graded simulations of real-world situations.

They are the final point in the “Magic Triangle” of instructional design because they are a way of checking that the learning objective was met. Moreover, they’re an important part of the cognitive “action and reflection” processes needed for learning to take place effectively.

Summative Assessments

It usually quantifies results on a graded basis (e.g. 8/10 is considered a “pass”).

Formative Assessments

It seeks to measure the learning journey as opposed to hard and fast results at the end of a course.