How YaizY Designs Future-Ready Courses: 7 Frameworks That Drive Our Impact

At YaizY, we believe that quality education goes beyond content — it’s about how learning is structured, delivered, and experienced. Behind every engaging student project and real-world skill gained is a thoughtful instructional design that combines global education frameworks with valuable industry insights. By aligning with the expectations of employers, we craft our curriculum to equip students with skills validated through industry-based credentials and work-based learning experiences. This approach ensures that students are not only prepared for academic success but also for real-world career pathways, empowering them to step confidently into the future.

Here’s a look at how we build our courses to empower K-12 students with digital career skills — step by step.

🎯  Course-Level Design: We Begin With the End in Mind

Every YaizY course starts with one question: What should students be able to do in the real world after this course?

Our design process follows a backwards design approach, popularized through Understanding by Design (UbD) [1], where learning outcomes drive every decision. Instead of starting with content, we begin with performance goals and build backward to create lessons, tools, and assessments that align directly with those outcomes. In addition to aligning with academic standards, we ensure that our courses meet the expectations of local universities and employers by considering the skills and qualifications they require for students to succeed in higher education and the workforce.

At the course level, we focus on defining clear, measurable Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) [2]. These guide everything that follows — from the skills we emphasize to the tools students use and the types of assessments we implement.

Each YaizY course answers three essential questions:

1. What will students know and be able to do?

2. How does this knowledge align with academic standards and industry requirements?

3. How will students demonstrate their learning in meaningful, authentic ways?

🧠 Lesson-Level Design: From Passive Learning to Active Application

As students move through our courses, they don’t just recall facts — they apply, analyze, and create. That progression is no accident. It’s guided by the cognitive hierarchy described in Bloom’s Taxonomy [3], a foundational model we use to scaffold lessons and assessments.We also draw on Webb’s Depth of Knowledge framework [4] to ensure that tasks not only require higher-order thinking but also involve strategic reasoning and extended performance over time.

Early modules may focus on helping students understand concepts and practice basic skills. But as learners progress, they engage in more complex challenges — evaluating code, critiquing animations, or designing original solutions. By the capstone projects, students are working at the top of Bloom’s pyramid: creating something new, grounded in what they’ve learned.

This structure ensures deeper learning and prepares students not just to pass tests, but to solve real problems creatively and confidently.

🎮 Engagement That Goes Beyond Motivation

YaizY doesn’t just aim to hold student attention — we design to sustain curiosity and fuel creativity. This approach is inspired by Montessori’s principles [5] of hands-on, self-directed learning, which emphasize active engagement and giving students choice in their learning journey. For example, we give students significant freedom in designing their capstone projects — whether it’s selecting the issue for an impact marketing campaign, deciding the type of game to design, or choosing the elements of their animated film. We believe students learn best when they are actively involved in making decisions, experimenting, and iterating, leading them to deeper understanding and ownership of their work.

By embedding learning in interactive, game-like experiences — with mechanics like quizzes, matching pairs, ordering tasks, classification activities, and polls — students are not passively consuming content. These activities actively involve them in the process, encouraging experimentation and problem-solving. This design is rooted in cognitive load theory [6], which suggests that students learn more effectively when they are actively building knowledge and solving problems, rather than simply receiving information. 

📈 From Learning Outcomes to Industry Outcomes

At YaizY, we design our courses with a strong focus on industry demand and real-world application, ensuring students are equipped for careers in the digital age. Through project-based learning (PBL) [7], students engage in authentic tasks that mirror the work professionals are doing in the field — whether it’s designing social media posts, solving cybersecurity problems, or creating digital art. Every lesson is carefully crafted to address the practical challenges faced by workers in those industries, allowing students to solve the same problems professionals encounter daily.

Our courses go beyond preparing students for industry exams like Adobe Certified Professional, PCEP, or Google Cloud Digital Leader. While industry credentials are important, our goal is deeper: to ensure students graduate with portfolio-ready projects, real confidence, and a solid understanding of how their skills translate into actual careers. This approach is rooted in PBL, where students synthesize their knowledge and apply it to tasks they will face in their future jobs.

To further enhance the learning experience, we offer work-based learning (WBL) opportunities in collaboration with schools and industry partners. These partnerships provide students with the chance to gain hands-on experience through internships, ensuring that the knowledge gained in the classroom is reinforced through practical, on-the-job learning. This connection between classroom theory and real-world practice helps students bridge the gap between education and career success.

🚀 From Frameworks to Futures

Instructional frameworks provide the foundation — but what makes a YaizY course special is how we bring them to life: with student voice, creativity, and real-world purpose.

📘 Explore how YaizY's CTE courses prepare students for the real world at yaizy.io/cte or contact us at hello@yaizy.io to bring future-ready learning to your school.

Sources:

1. McTighe, J., & Wiggins, G. Understanding by Design Framework. ASCD. Retrieved from https://www.ascd.org/

2. Cedefop. (2009). Defining, writing and applying learning outcomes: A European handbook. Publications Office of the European Union. Retrieved from https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/publications-and-resources/publications/4077

3. Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I: Cognitive domain. David McKay Company.

4. Webb, N. (2002). Depth-of-Knowledge Levels for Four Content Areas. Madison: Wisconsin Center for Educational Research.

5. Montessori, M. (1967). The Discovery of the Child.

6. Sweller, J., Ayres, P., & Kalyuga, S. (2011). Cognitive Load Theory.

7. Bell, S. (2010). Project-Based Learning for the 21st Century: Skills for the Future.