Designing Effective Interactive Cloud Exercises
When creating cloud exercises, the focus should be building a meaningful, hands-on experience that reinforces the lesson’s learning objectives. Use the following guidelines to ensure your exercises are clear, engaging, and aligned with best practices:
Concepts and Focus
Single Concept Per Exercise: Each cloud exercise should validate understanding of one concept. If the final question involves multiple concepts, simplify it.
No New Concepts: Exercises cannot introduce new concepts not covered in the corresponding video or prerequisite lessons.
Structure and Flow
Follow Learning Objectives: Exercises must align with the learning objectives outlined for each lesson.
Time Efficiency: Exercises should take no more than 5 minutes to complete (2–3 minutes is ideal).
Step Limit: Exercises should be concise, with a maximum of 7 steps (6 instructional steps + 1 final question). Ideally, aim for 4–5 steps.
Final Question: The last step should primarily be a question. Any required context, navigation, or setup should appear in earlier steps to avoid formatting limitations in the final step (e.g., bold-only text and no newlines).
Instructions and Hints
Actionable Instructions: Provide high-level, action-oriented instructions that describe what learners need to achieve.
Detailed Guidance in Hints: Save detailed step-by-step guidance for hints:
Step Hints: Reveal 50–80% of the answer.
Final Hint: Offer close to 100% of the answer to ensure learners can progress.
Action-Based Hints: Focus on how to complete a step rather than restating the task. Refer to this guide for examples.
Use Bullet Points Sparingly: If detailed steps are needed, include them in bullet points preceded by a bolded sentence summarizing the step’s goal.
Content Variation
Avoid Copy-Paste: Exercises should not replicate the exact steps or code shown in videos. Instead, create variation by:
Using datasets with different structures than those in screencasts.
Incorporating new functions or steps taught in previous lessons or prerequisite courses.
Altering tasks (e.g., using a full outer join instead of an inner join).
Highlighting the business value of the exercise’s outcome.
Real-World Relevance
Practical Application: Exercises should mirror real-world scenarios learners are likely to encounter in their work.
Videos and Scripts
Keep Videos Short: To maintain learner engagement, videos should be under 3–4 minutes, with scripts containing 550 words maximum with an ideal length of 400.
Dependencies
Minimize Dependencies: Exercises should stand alone whenever possible. If a dependency exists:
Provide any required files within the exercise to avoid backtracking.
Add a note encouraging learners to complete all dependent exercises in one sitting to avoid losing progress.
Limit dependency chains to a single lesson; avoid dependencies across lessons or chapters.
By following these principles, you’ll create high-quality cloud courses that are interactive, engaging, and effective at helping learners achieve their goals.