Consistency in Course Design: Why Templates Matter

September 16th, 2026

By Michael Canby, Learning Experience Designer

Those of us who have participated in formal education probably remember our first day at a new school. Being dropped off in front of an unfamiliar building, seeing new faces in the halls, and rushing to find our classrooms before the bell rings are memories that can stick with us for a lifetime. But during those first few days, how much did we actually learn? I think it’s safe to say that both we — and our teachers — were often content just to get used to the new routine. We were busy learning how to navigate the system, leaving little bandwidth for learning in the classroom.

I wonder if students experience something similar when they enter a new digital classroom. In higher education, students may move between several Canvas courses in a single day, each organized differently. Where are the assignments? Which page has this week’s materials? Where do I submit my work? Having to answer these questions while navigating the many distractions of modern life can be a significant challenge for learners. Scutelnicu et al. (2019) found that students responded positively to consistent course templates, particularly for standardized navigation, locating information, and accessing instructional materials. In fact, 71% of surveyed students reported that the template enriched their learning experience.

Why might consistency matter for learning? Cognitive load offers one explanation. Caskurlu et al. (2021) describe extraneous cognitive load as mental effort associated with how information is presented or what students are required to do rather than with the content itself. Their study of instructional designers found that managing cognitive load was considered an important element of online course quality, with organization, intuitive navigation, chunking, and cueing among the strategies designers used. For an engineering student already working through a complex equation, design problem, or unfamiliar technical concept, figuring out where to find the assignment shouldn’t be another problem to solve.

A thoughtfully designed template eliminates that problem by making the routine parts of a digital classroom predictable. Students can then direct more attention toward the learning that matters. That doesn’t mean every engineering course needs to be taught the same way. Instead, we can provide a familiar structure within which instructors have room to teach, engage, and innovate. The LTH Course Development Process emphasizes intuitive student navigation as part of course building. When we make the digital classroom easier to navigate, perhaps we can help students spend less time finding their way around — and more time learning once they arrive.

_{Author’s Note: This article was drafted with the assistance of a generative AI tool to support wording and formatting; content generated by AI has been reviewed and approved by the author}.

References

Caskurlu, S., Richardson, J. C., Alamri, H. A., Chartier, K., Farmer, T., Janakiraman, S., Strait, M., & Yang, M. (2021). Cognitive load and online course quality: Insights from instructional designers in a higher education context. British Journal of Educational Technology, 52(2), 584–605. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13043

Fulton Schools of Engineering Learning and Teaching Hub. (n.d.). Course development process. https://lth.engineering.asu.edu/course-development-process/

Scutelnicu, G., Tekula, R., Gordon, B., & Knepper, H. J. (2019). Consistency is key in online learning: Evaluating student and instructor perceptions of a collaborative online-course template. Teaching Public Administration, 37(3), 274–292. https://doi.org/10.1177/0144739419852759