Empathize with Students 

What do students need to know in your course by the end of the year?  What skills do students need to develop in your course to be better practitioners of that craft/subject? Where do you want to start instructionally?  

Use an Empathy map to chart out thoughts about an individual student, or better yet conduct some interviews! 

Design for an Extreme User.  Focus on an individual student who exemplifies a targeted behavior, attitude, learning deficit etc. which you want to build your project around as a means to better design the learning experience for all students. 

For a deeper dive into Empathizing, see this field guide from Stanford's d.School