Design Canvas: Worked Example

This is what a finished canvas looks like for a short piece of teaching. The ward, people and problem are made up. Fill the boxes in this order: the activities come fifth, not first. The canvas as six questions is on Before You Plan a Teaching Day.

The session: a staff nurse on a surgical ward runs a 10-minute teaching moment on fluid balance charts at the nurses’ station, during the quiet spell after lunch.

1. Learners and context

Four to six newly qualified nurses and healthcare assistants on the day shift. They have all filled in fluid balance charts, but nobody has shown them how this ward wants them totalled. Ten minutes, standing up, one bleep away from being called off. No screen.

2. Need

Charts are started but often not totalled at 24 hours, so a falling balance gets spotted late. Teaching can fix part of this: knowing how and when to total. It can’t fix missing jugs or a chart that’s hard to read. Raise those separately.

3. Outcomes

By the end, learners will be able to:

1. Total a 24-hour fluid balance chart correctly.
2. Decide whether a given balance needs escalating, and say who to tell.
3. Complete and total the charts for their own patients on their next shifts.

4. Evidence

Each verb decides the evidence, using Miller’s pyramid:

Outcome	Miller level	Evidence
1. Total a chart	Shows how	Each learner totals a mock chart in the session; check it on the spot
2. Decide on escalation	Knows how	Their decision on three short scenarios, said aloud
3. Complete charts on shift	Does	Charts in the ward’s routine documentation check, 2 and 4 weeks later

“Be aware of the importance of fluid balance” would only ever reach the bottom of the pyramid, so it isn’t an outcome here.

5. Activities

• 2 min: spot the two errors on a completed mock chart, in pairs.
• 4 min: everyone totals a fresh mock chart. Swap and check.
• 3 min: three one-line scenarios. Escalate or not? To whom?
• 1 min: hand out a pocket card with the totalling steps.

No slides. The mock charts contain no patient information.

6. Follow-through

• 30 days: the same three scenarios as a two-minute quiz at the morning huddle.
• 60 days: the nurse re-checks the routine documentation results with the ward manager.
• 90 days: if totals have slipped, rerun the 10 minutes.
• Who will ask: the ward manager, at the 30-day huddle.

Does it line up?

Read across each outcome. Every outcome has evidence at the right level, and an activity that practises it. If a box doesn’t connect to the others, change the box, not the outcome.