Hello Rey and Doug -- I really appreciate you taking the time to look through my ideas and providing your feedback.
You've both noted a disconnect between my invitation and the LS activities themselves -- accurately highlighting my own uncertainty about what an 'invitation' is and what it is meant to do.
After reading your responses I took some time to look through the invitations proposed in other triads -- my reading of those is that the invitation is akin to the 'learning outcome' in a traditional activity -- it prepares the participant for the experience by identifying the purpose/expected result of what they are about to do.
I think that part of my confusion derives from the fact that I have proposed a course rather than a single LS activity -- which I guess means that I should really have at least three invitations: one for each LS activity in the course.
I also took a look at the blurb at the top of this (Design with Liberating Structures) microcourse -- and my reading of this is that it serves as an 'invitation' at the course level. Using that as a model, below is a 'tightened up' version of my (course-level) invitation:
You're familiar with Liberating Structures as activities that can help unlock participant engagement, focus and creativity in your group facilitation. But you're unsure how Liberating Structures can work in online environments. Come explore and experiment in this online course where you can work through some of the challenges of and strategies for facilitating LS activities online.
As an added note -- a bit of personal learning that I take away from your feedback is a deeper look at my tendency to get excited about developing (learning) activities without devoting enough thought to the best way of engaging participants in those -- which in a way runs counter to the philosophy of LS (as I read it). I wonder if there's an LS activity or two that could help me strengthen that weakness.
Thanks again for your views -- I found both of your responses very helpful.