Devon Merza

Designing A Self-Paced Learning Course to Reduce Cognitive Load and Improve Scalability






Self-Paced Course Design – Devon Merza



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Portfolio Case Study

eLearning Development
BrightSpace · Creator+
Asynchronous Learning
Live · Deployed August 2025

Designing A Self-Paced Course
to Reduce Cognitive Load
and Improve Scalability

A live webinar that ran close to two hours was replaced with an asynchronous, modular online course — making expert knowledge accessible, scalable, and reliably retained.

Learners Enrolled
375+
As of April 2026

Completion Rate
85%
Industry avg: ~60–70%

Launch Date
Aug 2025
Currently live

Platform
BrightSpace
Built with Creator+

The Problem

Training existed. The problems persisted.

A live webinar was the primary onboarding method — nearly two hours of passive content delivered by a single presenter. Despite consistent delivery, key errors continued to surface after training. The format itself was the bottleneck.

Passive, Exhausting Delivery
A single presenter carried a near-two-hour webinar. No interactivity, no self-pacing, and significant cognitive and time burden on the facilitator — unsustainable at scale.

Critical Steps Forgotten
Key time-sensitive procedures were consistently missed or delayed after training. Information delivered once in a passive format did not transfer to consistent practice on the job.

Record-Keeping Errors
Inaccurate record-keeping downstream caused compounding issues with tracking, numbers management, and genetic documentation — all traceable to gaps in foundational understanding.

No Scalable Onboarding Path
The webinar format required scheduling, coordination, and presenter availability every time someone new joined. There was no self-serve path for learners to onboard independently.

375+
Learners enrolled since August 2025

85%
Completion rate — above industry benchmark
Industry avg: 60–70%

~2 hrs
Of live facilitation time eliminated per cohort
Now delivered asynchronously, on demand

The Solution

An asynchronous course built for depth, not just coverage.

Rather than digitizing the webinar, the course was redesigned from the ground up — starting with regulatory requirements and building toward complex applied knowledge. Each module addresses a distinct learning need, not just a content category.

“The course wasn’t just about transferring information — it was about building the kind of understanding that changes what learners actually do.”

Course Architecture — BrightSpace · Creator+

01

Regulatory Requirements & Acceptable Practice
When procedures are permissible, what approvals are required, and what documentation must exist. This module also equipped learners to communicate confidently with quality assurance teams and external reviewers.

QA-Aligned

02

Life Cycle & Reproductive Biology
Understanding developmental timelines, reproductive windows, and gestation periods — foundational knowledge needed to make sound decisions about timing, pairing, and weaning.

Foundational

03

Genetics & Nomenclature
Naming conventions and genetic notation were taught not as trivia, but as practical tools — enabling accurate record-keeping, clear communication, and correct pairing decisions.

Applied

04

Mating, Pairing & Breeding Set-Up
Practical procedures for housing configurations, pairing decisions, and monitoring — with situational guidance built in for common variables like vacations, holidays, and facility service schedules.

Procedural

05

Record Keeping
Not just what to track — but how. Learners were given detailed, practical options for structuring records, including example Excel sheet configurations, to remove ambiguity and improve downstream data quality.

Practical Tools

06

Health Monitoring & Early Identification
Designed not to replace clinical expertise, but to train an additional layer of observation. Learners learned to recognize early indicators — reducing the time between onset and escalation, which improves overall productivity and reduces numbers.

Systems Thinking

Instructional Design Highlights

Design decisions that made the difference.

These highlights reflect intentional instructional choices — each one grounded in a specific learning challenge identified before the course was built.

Cognitive Load
Regulatory context came first — by design
Beginning with the “why is this allowed?” question gave learners a framework for everything that followed. It also produced an unexpected benefit: learners could now hold informed conversations with QA staff and external reviewers — reinforcing the value of what they were learning.

Practical Application
Nomenclature as a tool, not a concept
Genetic naming conventions were taught as the foundation of accurate record-keeping and correct pairing decisions — not as abstract knowledge. Framing it this way made the content immediately purposeful and significantly more memorable.

Reducing Ambiguity
Record-keeping explained with real options
Instead of stating what to record, the course provided concrete, visual templates — including example spreadsheet configurations. Learners left with an implementation path, not just a requirement. Ambiguity in this area was a root cause of downstream errors.

Systems Thinking
Individual actions in facility-wide context
Learners were shown how their decisions affected shared resources and facility services — not to increase pressure, but to build genuine understanding. This ecological framing improved motivation and reduced the isolation of learning any one procedure.

Transfer to Job
Situational guidance for real-world variables
Vacations, holidays, facility closures — the course addressed these directly, with guidance on when to request support and how to plan ahead. This closed the gap between “trained knowledge” and “real-world practice.”

Proactive Safety Net
Health monitoring as a second layer of awareness
The goal was not to create clinical expertise, but to train an additional pair of eyes. By understanding early indicators, learners could escalate sooner — improving outcomes for everyone and reducing overall numbers through early intervention.

My Process

From needs analysis to deployed course.

This project followed a structured instructional design process — from diagnosing why the existing training wasn’t working to deploying a solution built to last.

Needs Analysis
Identified root causes: passive format, information overload, and no retention mechanism. Confirmed the problem was design, not content.

Learning Architecture
Sequenced content from regulatory context → foundational biology → applied skills → practical tools. Each module scaffolded the next.

Content Development
Wrote and structured all course content in BrightSpace using Creator+. Developed practical assets including record-keeping templates and visual guides.

Platform Deployment
Configured and deployed the course in BrightSpace LMS. Established enrolment, tracking, and completion workflows from the ground up.

Monitoring & Iteration
Tracked completion rates and learner progress since launch. Course has maintained an 85% completion rate across 375+ learners over 8 months.



BrightSpace LMS



Creator+



Instructional Design



Asynchronous eLearning



Cognitive Load Theory

Let’s Connect

Is your onboarding process
working as hard as it could be?

Whether you’re dealing with information overload, passive training that doesn’t stick, or content that’s hard to scale — I’d be glad to explore how evidence-informed design can help.

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