# 32 Claude Skills for Instructional Designers, From the Request to the Release 32 Claude skills that take one course from the request to the release: scope it, get the content from experts, design, write and build it, then run the checks a person signs before it ships. - Page: https://lantern.meet-polar-bear.com/skills/instructional-designers-pack - Download: https://lantern.meet-polar-bear.com/skills/instructional-designers-pack.zip - Source: https://github.com/polar-bear-org/claude-skills/tree/main/packs/instructional-designers-pack - Price: free ## Install in Claude Code ``` /plugin marketplace add polar-bear-org/claude-skills /plugin install instructional-designers-pack@polar-bear-skills ``` ## The 32 skills you get The set follows one course in eight stages: scope the course, get the content from experts, design it, write it, build it, check it, ship and improve, and your practice. ### 1 · Scope the course - **Course Brief** — use when: "Can you just make it a course?" arrives with the format and the date already chosen. Output: The request restated as a problem, what is fixed and open, a "course, job aid or neither" line, a reply the requester can sign. - **Learner Analysis** — use when: The brief says "all staff" and nobody has asked who will sit in front of the screen. Output: Learners by role and task, device, place and real time, each line marked evidence or assumption, five questions for real learners. - **Action Mapping Workshop** — use when: The sponsor's list is everything people should know and nothing they should do. Output: A one-hour run of show, the map (goal, actions, causes, practice, minimum information), replies to "but they need to know", the cut list. - **Course Estimate and Timeline** — use when: The sponsor expects it next week "because AI writes it now". Output: Effort by phase from your own past builds, three scope options for the date, review gates, the scope line the sponsor signs. ### 2 · Get the content from experts - **SME Interview Script** — use when: You asked the expert for answers and got a slide deck, or pages an AI wrote. Output: A pre-interview note asking for one real case, questions in three passes, a live notes sheet, the decision-point table, the follow-up message. - **Source Content Triage** — use when: The source is a 147-slide deck, two manuals that disagree, and a page nobody can date. Output: An inventory with dates, owners and conflicts, the practise, remember, look up, cut table, AI-written passages marked, a cut list the expert accepts. - **Review and Sign-Off Plan** — use when: Six people will review the course and nobody has said who breaks a tie. Output: Who reviews what at each gate, one named decider, rounds and dates, the change rule, the sign-off table. ### 3 · Design it - **Measurable Learning Objectives** — use when: The only objective on the page is "understand the policy". Output: One objective per action with condition, verb and criterion, the level the job needs, the evidence each will need. - **Course Design Document** — use when: The sponsor sees finished screens and none of the decisions that made them. Output: Need, audience, strategy and practice per objective, format choices with reasons, the decisions log, the sign-off block. - **Course Curriculum Map** — use when: The course grew lesson by lesson and nothing connects. Output: Modules and lessons in order, objective, practice and check per lesson, the gaps, the learner's path. - **Assessment Blueprint** — use when: The quiz is written last, from whatever is on the slides. Output: Objectives by level, evidence type and number of items, where practice ends and assessment begins, what a result is used for. ### 4 · Write it - **Branching Scenario Script** — use when: Learners pass every screen and still freeze on the real call. Output: The setup, numbered decision nodes, options from real mistakes, consequence and feedback for each, a path map with every ending. - **E-Learning Storyboard Template** — use when: The build starts from the expert's slides and ends as narration over bullet points. Output: One row per screen with text, visual, narration, interaction, build note and alt text, coverage by objective, the cut list. - **Training Video Script** — use when: The script reads well on paper and sounds like a manual when said aloud. Output: A two-column script (heard, seen), a spoken-word rewrite, the shot list, caption and transcript text. - **Knowledge Check Questions** — use when: An AI can pass your quiz from a screenshot, so it proves nothing. Output: Items written to the blueprint as short decisions, distractors from real mistakes, feedback for every option, the retake rule. - **Job Aid Template** — use when: People need the answer in the middle of the task, and a module is the wrong place for it. Output: A checklist, decision table or one-page flow, the mistake next to its step, where it sits in the work, who updates it. ### 5 · Build it - **Interactive Practice Activity** — use when: You want to try a practice idea this afternoon, before anyone opens the authoring tool. Output: One practice activity as a Claude artifact to prototype and pilot, the spec behind it, a test log, a plain note on where it can live. - **Course Slides Build** — use when: Part of the course is delivered as slides, or your authoring tool starts from a deck. Output: A slide-by-slide deck from the storyboard, notes kept apart from slide text, the practice slides, an export check. - **Microlearning Series** — use when: Nobody will finish the long module, and chopping it into pieces is not the answer. Output: Short units of one action each, a retrieval prompt and a decision in each, the order and the gaps, what the series replaces. - **Live Session to E-Learning Conversion** — use when: "Put the workshop online" means a recording of slides. Output: What the room did, what replaces each part on screen, what must stay live, the new outline, what is lost and who accepts that. ### 6 · Check it - **AI Content Accuracy Check** — use when: The draft reads beautifully and nobody can say where its numbers came from. Output: Every factual claim traced to an approved source, untraced and conflicting items flagged for the expert, the expert's decision per flag. - **Does It Teach Review** — use when: The course looks finished and you suspect it teaches nothing. Output: Per objective: shown, tried, feedback that explains; screens that tell against screens that ask; fixes for the designer to accept or reject. - **Accessibility Check** — use when: Accessibility is found after the build, when every fix costs a rebuild. Output: A first pass marked pass, fail or cannot check here, the list a person must test with assistive technology, fix owners. - **Designer Run-Through** — use when: You built it, you reviewed it screen by screen, and you have never once taken it. Output: A protocol for taking the whole course yourself as a named kind of learner, an issues log with severity, your own verdict. - **SME Review Round** — use when: Comments arrive in four formats, two contradict each other, and one reopens the objectives. Output: The brief for one round, a comment sheet by lane, comments consolidated with conflicts side by side, a change log, the reply. - **Learner Pilot Test** — use when: The course is about to go to everyone and not one learner has tried it. Output: Who to invite by role, the "we are testing the course, not you" wording, a think-aloud script, findings by screen. ### 7 · Ship and improve - **Release Sign-Off Record** — use when: Launch is tomorrow and "it was reviewed" is the only evidence. Output: The result of each check with its date and who ran it, open issues with owners, the decision: release, fix first, or stop. - **Course Release Note** — use when: The course goes live with a file name and nothing else. Output: Purpose and audience, version, what changed in the learner's terms, known limits, owner and review date, the upload note. - **Course Data Review** — use when: The report says nearly everyone completed it, and that is all anyone reads. Output: Questions most people miss and the option that draws them, where people leave, comments in aggregate, a ranked fix list. ### 8 · Your practice - **Course Project Setup** — use when: Every chat starts from zero and Claude fills the gaps with plausible detail. Output: A setup sheet for one course in Claude: approved sources, standing instructions, what never goes in, a version naming rule. - **Learning Content Style Guide** — use when: Three courses sound like three different organisations. Output: Voice and reading level, terms, how feedback is worded, rules for examples, a before and after pair per rule. - **Portfolio Case Study** — use when: Your portfolio is screenshots, and the decisions behind them are what make you worth hiring. Output: The problem, your decisions and why, what you checked and changed, what Claude drafted and what you did, a confidentiality check. ## Workflows - **Scope the request** (A request arrived with the format and the date already chosen.) Course Brief → Learner Analysis → Action Mapping Workshop → Course Estimate and Timeline - **Get the content from experts** (The expert sent slides, and six people will review the course.) SME Interview Script → Source Content Triage → Review and Sign-Off Plan - **Design before you build** (The only objective is “understand the policy” and the quiz would be written last.) Measurable Learning Objectives → Course Design Document → Course Curriculum Map → Assessment Blueprint - **Write the course** (The blueprint is agreed and the screens are still blank.) Branching Scenario Script → E-Learning Storyboard Template → Training Video Script → Knowledge Check Questions → Job Aid Template - **Prototype and build** (You want to try a practice idea before anyone opens the authoring tool.) Interactive Practice Activity → Course Slides Build → Microlearning Series → Live Session to E-Learning Conversion - **Check it before it ships** (A draft exists and nobody has checked it or taken it.) AI Content Accuracy Check → Does It Teach Review → Accessibility Check → Designer Run-Through → SME Review Round → Learner Pilot Test - **Ship and read the data** (Launch is tomorrow and “it was reviewed” is the only evidence.) Release Sign-Off Record → Course Release Note → Course Data Review → Course Project Setup ## The quality bar - One method or one artifact, applied properly: each skill uses the real mechanics of its method (the gates, the passes, the grid, the questions asked at each step), not a generic “gather, analyse, recommend” - It tells you where it breaks: every skill says when not to use it and which skill in the pack fits instead - Same shape every time: a fixed output template, a short “done when” check, and a decision that a named person makes - Flag, never fix, on facts: Claude lists what it cannot trace to a source you approved. The expert corrects it. Cases and characters are marked real or fictional - Courses are checked, people are not: results are read by question and in aggregate to fix the course. Nothing grades, ranks, scores or profiles a learner, a reviewer or an expert - Exact about Claude: skills name a Claude surface only where it helps, and say plainly that nothing here exports a standard e-learning package or reports to an LMS. Legal and accessibility-law questions end with “check with a qualified adviser” - The red line: Claude drafts and checks, but you decide what the learner needs, you run through the course yourself before anyone else does, and a named person signs it off; nothing invented is passed off as real, and no learner’s result is ever used to grade them ## Questions people ask ### What is in the Claude for Instructional Designers pack? 32 Claude skills that follow one course in eight stages: scope it, get the content from experts, design it, write it, build it, check it, ship and improve, and your practice. Each skill holds one method or one artifact. ### How do I install these Claude skills? In Claude Code, two lines install all 32 at once. In Claude.ai or Claude Desktop, download the zip, open Settings, Skills, Add, and upload the skills you want. Either way it takes about five minutes. ### Do I need Claude Code to use them? No. The skills work in Claude.ai, Claude Desktop and Claude Code. In the app you upload them yourself; in Claude Code one command installs the whole pack. ### Do the skills work with ChatGPT or other assistants? They are built as Claude Skills, and installing them is a Claude feature. Each one is a plain Markdown file, so you can read it and reuse the method elsewhere, but it will not load and trigger by itself outside Claude. ### Does Claude sign off the course or grade learners? No. Claude drafts and checks, but you decide what the learner needs, you run through the course yourself before anyone else does, and a named person signs it off. Nothing invented is passed off as real, and no learner’s result is ever used to grade them. ### Is the pack free? Yes. It is free to use inside your company and in client work, and not for resale. There is no signup: the download and the install command are on this page. ## About Written by Polar Bear (https://meet-polar-bear.com/). Published on Lantern (https://lantern.meet-polar-bear.com/), which turns your notes, documents and call transcripts into social post drafts you review and publish.