how to design online course

In order to design an awesome online course, you need to focus on:

• Choosing the types of online course content you’ll be using
• Writing, recording and editing your content
• Establishing grading & assessment methods

Full Answer

How to build an effective online course?

Sep 29, 2020 · Online course design is rooted in the same solid principles of face-to-face teaching, but requires additional considerations. Start with the same pedagogic principles of overall course design, such as the Cutting Edge course design philosophy. Set out goals for the course: At the end of the course, I want my students to be able to...

How to create and launch an online course?

Jan 22, 2020 · Choose main topics. Preview current textbooks and updated literature for a unique course topic. Find out if there is consensus for the necessary topics by reviewing former course syllabi and through ongoing dialog with colleagues. Adjust your list to reflect course goals and student characteristics.

How to start creating an online course?

Jul 06, 2016 · Course designers should create an array of assignments, activities, and assessments that allow learners to interact and practice with content in multiple ways, on multiple cognitive levels and using multiple measures and methods to assess learning. 5. They Are Accessible. Effective online courses should be accessible to all learners.

How to create best online courses?

The course design process involves intentional and deliberate planning in order to create a course that best supports students. This process works equally well for on-campus courses, fully online courses and hybrid courses that have elements of both.

What are the limitations of online learning?

One of the most significant limitations of online learning is that students can’t interact with you or each other as directly. If you don’t include an interactive aspect of the course, the education students are receiving will be little better than if they simply bought a textbook and read it on their own.

Why is online learning so popular?

Many prefer online courses because of the convenience while others note challenges for interactive and engaged learning. Before you start designing your course, it’s important to recognize the differences that will make lesson plans originally designed for an in-person class an ...

What is the most popular LMS?

The most popular LMSs are BlackBoard, Edmodo, Moodle, SumTotal, and SkillSoft. If you have some software development skills, you may want to consider an open source LMS.

Is there an open source LMS?

If you have some software development skills, you may want to consider an open source LMS. These software are free to use and will allow you to manually change aspects of the code to tailor the LMS to your preference. The downside is that they usually don’t come with a customer support service.

What is the most important part of creating an online course?

One of the most important components of creating an online course is setting a learning goal for the course . However, there’s more to it. Every online course consists of various sections, and each individual section also needs to have a clear learning goal.

How to make an online course more engaging?

An easy way to make online courses more engaging is to stimulate the student visually. This means pictures and videos. The simplest method of using picture and videos in an online course would be constructing your online class more like a PowerPoint presentation:

What is the target audience of an online course?

The target audience is the group of people to whom you are writing your course.

What does it mean to get started teaching?

Which means you need to get your knowledge together.

Is teaching more than imparting knowledge?

Remember, teaching is more than just imparting knowledge. Never in human history has so much knowledge been so accessible to anyone with such a low barrier for entry. Just on your phone, you can bring up a wealth of information about Nuclear Physics with just a few keystrokes. Fifty years ago, you’d have to break out an encyclopedia or a book dedicated to the subject, and it’d be just as much work to get another point of view on the same topic.

Is it easier to drop out of online courses?

The thing with online courses is that it’s a lot easier to drop out of them: you just stop, and there’s no consequences at all, nothing to bite you for not completing. This understandably damages completion rates. A study examining sixteen online courses offered by the University of Pennsylvania revealed that the average completion rate was 4%.

Is it a waste of time to create an online course?

It’s crucial that you decide on a specific course subject in the beginning phase of creating your online course. Be as specific as possible.

How to design a course?

Online course design is rooted in the same solid principles of face-to-face teaching, but requires additional considerations. 1 Set out goals for the course: At the end of the course, I want my students to be able to... 2 Set skills goals such as working in groups, developing quantitative skills, or improve writing skills 3 Choose content to achieve overarching goals 4 Develop a course plan

What is the USGS online lecture collection?

USGS Online Lecture Collection This database is a compilation of selected videotaped lectures made at the USGS. All of these lectures are suitable for viewing by the general public and upper level students (grades 8 through university). The videos are in MP4 format and are typically 60-90 minutes long. Also see USGS YouTube Channel, containing a variety of videos from the USGS.

How to improve writing skills?

Set skills goals such as working in groups, developing quantitative skills, or improve writing skills. Choose content to achieve overarching goals. Develop a course plan. That said, even though the course topic and goals may be the same as a face-to-face course, the course layout, pacing, content delivery and assignments will all be tailored ...

What is traditional lecturing?

Traditional lecturing is replaced by a variety of multimedia communication tools. The default mode of communicating course content, the lecture, is generally absent or minimal in an online course. Think of this as liberating rather than constraining, as there are many means to deliver content.

What should the topic of an online course be?

The topic for your online course should be either a subject that you’re already knowledgeable about or are willing to invest in learning thoroughly. Either way, you need to be passionate about the subject.

Why is online education important?

Therefore, fostering a community of learners around your course will greatly improve their experience, contributing to the overall success of your course. An active online community can help users share their learning process with a group of peers.

How to teach a lesson?

Go in a logical order and try to make your ideas evolve naturally from one to the other , to ensure a smooth and frictionless learning process. Remember that teaching is about guiding your audience through an idea, step by step. To make this clear in your course outline, define an objective for each of your lessons.

What to do after a video is filmed?

After you’ve filmed your content, invest some time editing your raw footage. There are many free video editing software available, from iMovie, to Lightworks, and the Wix Video Maker. Try to craft a nice rhythm to your video by breaking it up into digestible bites.

What is a paid plan?

Paid Plans act as a pay-wall, allowing users to access the content only after they pay and log into the members area within your site. One-on-one real-time lessons: In addition to the course, you may teach live lessons to students in a personalized 1:1 setting.

Do you need to run a test before starting an online course?

Creating an online course requires a lot of hard work and effort on your part, so running a test before you begin will allow you to validate this online business idea as one that will pay itself off down the line.

How to grade work?

Decide how to grade the work: papers, assignments, exams, and if appropriate, class participation. Determine how you will deal with issues of student tardiness, attendance, late work, and any extensions/rescheduling of assignments/exams.

What do you want students to learn and be able to accomplish?

What do you want the students to learn and be able to accomplish? With your goals clearly defined, decisions to include certain content, the teaching methods to employ, and the types of assignments and exams to utilize can be more readily determined. To help with curriculum planning primarily in defining goals to maximize student learning (opposed to course content, it is called Backward Design ), check out G. Wiggins and J. McTighe’s Understanding by Design (1998). Basically, according to Backward Design, instructors should clearly define what they expect their students to have learned by the end of the course or section.

Why is it important to allow time for active learning?

It is essential to allow time for active learning as well as to block out sufficient work/study time for students to complete major assignments and to prepare for exams.

What should the exam focus on?

For example, if a course goal is to sharpen problem-solving skills, then the exam should focus on a question that uses problem-solving, not mainly recalling facts. Similarly, both homework and class activities prior to the exam should involve questions and exercises that deal with problem-solving skills.

Is planning a course fluid?

Remember that planning a course is a fluid process. The diagram shows this below. Each step is made with the other steps in mind and, likewise, each step will be refined every time you teach the course.

What is an effective online course?

Effective online courses are well designed so that teaching and learning is organized in the most effective and engaging manner possible. In an online learning situation, the student’s learning experience is almost entirely mediated through some form of technology; therefore, the design of the teaching and learning experience is especially critical.

What is flexible course design?

Flexibly designed courses favor “ill structured” activities over well-structured ones; interactivity over passivity; inductive over deductive instruction; and activity over text and lecture. Such course design supports both the individual and group’s learning and promotes applied approaches to learning.

What is instructional design?

Instructional Design is a broad term that encompasses the selection, organization, sequencing, and assessment of content, tools, and experiences to help learners attain a certain set of goals. Poorly designed technology-based courses can confound learning, frustrate learners and instructors, and result in high attrition rates.

Why is a mix of media more effective than reliance on one type of media?

A mix of media is more effective than the reliance on one type of media because it satisfies the many types of learning preferences that one person may embody or that a class embodies. Particularly in print- and web-based professional development courses which are primarily text heavy, the use of still and moving visual media can help learners who are poor readers better understand content.

What is adult learning?

Research on adult learning demonstrates that adult learners share common characteristics and beliefs that can be integrated into any learning experience. Adult learners: Need to be treated with respect and recognition and their professional experiences integrated into workshops and discussions.

What is cognitive model?

Cognitive models or “frames of mind” shape the way learners perceive and process information and suggest that an individual’s ability to learn is influenced by the manner in which information is presented. Course designers should create an array of assignments, activities, and assessments that allow learners to interact and practice with content in multiple ways, on multiple cognitive levels and using multiple measures and methods to assess learning.

What is the purpose of content, activities, and experiences?

They should be highly interactive and allow for a range of levels of learning, learner entry points, and experiences. Information should be “chunked” and moves sequentially from simple to complex; concrete to abstract and general to specific, in clear, concise text.

What is a syllabus for a course?

Students should be able to navigate the course materials, find assignment instructions and understand the path of the course from the first day. A syllabus that details the course schedule and has defined expectations of students allows you to concentrate on the teaching and not organization during the semester.

Why is face to face learning important?

Face-to-face sessions should take advantage of technologies to include all students in conversations about the materials. Good courses cultivate a learning community.

Can faculty teach remotely?

It is also likely that many faculty will be teaching remotely. All courses should therefore be designed to be online, even if it may be possible to interact with students in person from time to time. The course design process involves intentional and deliberate planning in order to create a course that best supports students.

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