Creating course content, particularly content that works to reach the goal of the course, can be one of the most challenging pieces of creating an online training course. Fleshing out what to put into the course and what delivery methods to use is critical to the success of your course.
The mark of a great course is does it complete the goal of teaching what you want to teach? Was your student able to complete the course and then do the task if it’s a task related goal, make the behavioral change if it’s a behavioral goal, or recall the content if it’s a memorization and recall type of goal.
Cramming too much content into a course is a sure way to lose your students. This is particularly true when writing for a business audience. Unless you’re writing a course for graduate studies, and even then I’d reconsider making it too complex, break the content down into bite sized pieces.
To make sure that students are successfully learning, you need to integrate quizzes, assignments, and other interactive tools to see how students are progressing. Offering forum support is a great way to connect with students, but don’t count on it to make sure the students are understanding the lessons in your course.
Auditory learners need to hear the information, and kinesthetic learners learn by touching or doing. In actuality, there are a variety of learning style theories some with many more styles than the simplified three above. There is also much debate in the education fields about the validity of these theories.
Variety is the Spice of Life in Course Content. A major part of great content is variety. Almost all courses should include a variety of audio, visuals, video, and text. If the goal is to accomplish a specific task, there should also be assignments and exercises allowing the student to complete the task and accomplish the goal.
Visual learners learn with visuals like video, diagrams, and even text. Auditory learners need to hear the information, and kinesthetic learners learn by touching or doing. In actuality, there are a variety of learning style theories some with many more styles than the simplified three above.
Examples of effective PDF content include: Checklists. Worksheets. Tool/Product Recommendations. “How to” Guides. Flowcharts.
PDF content is great for giving your student a handy reference that they can look at anytime, or for creating worksheets for students to fill out. Examples of effective PDF content include: I asked Mackenzie Child, Podia’s first designer extraordinaire, for some tips on creating better visual content.
This free training will help you jump the content hurdle. During this course you'll design a curriculum with learning design best practices mind. Then, you'll get how-to guides for creating video lessons, text lessons, quizzes and more. By the end of this 90 minute course, you'll have a course that your students will love to learn with.
We'll show you how great student experiences have helped Thinkific users create and grow online businesses successfully already
Aaron Morin is the Lead Educator for Thinkific, the most trusted platform for creating and selling online courses.
That being said, you don’t need to create all of the content for your online course before you start selling it. It’s always better to start off with a smaller batch of content, as this will allow you to take in feedback from your students and make improvements accordingly.
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:
Contrary to popular belief, the process of creating online courses doesn’t require a large chunk of money. If you know what you are doing, you can develop profitable online courses at no cost whatsoever. Creating successful online courses is like building powerful magnets.
If you know what you are doing, you can develop profitable online courses at no cost whatsoever. Creating successful online courses is like building powerful magnets. While money can be used to speed up certain steps of online course creation, it’s not even close to a major determining factor for success.
The target audience is the group of people to whom you are writing your 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.
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.
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.
Having competition means that people find the topic relevant and helpful for them. It’s also a good idea to create content that can comfortably fit into an existing, tried-and-tested space. Once you have a clear target audience in mind, you are best equipped for later creating and marketing the 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.
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.
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.
The idea behind rapid eLearning is where you use every tool and strategy you can to potentially create a course in 2 to 3 weeks instead of taking several months. So within your lessons, outline the exact content you will cover.
Module 1: Marketing. Lesson 1: How to choose the right marketing strategy for your business. Topic 1: Why choose Facebook marketing. By using the modules, lessons, and topics for each new idea, you will create a system that is simple for your learner to follow.
Like with everything, there are tools you can use to help you outline your course. You can definitely use a pen and paper for this exercise, but it's really nice if your outline is already on a device where you can work with it later. That way you can expand on it when you go from outline to your actual content.
Alternatively, you can use just modules and lessons if you don't need the topics. I've created many courses this way, but there are some topics that have required all three components.
You don't want to lose your audience because you are rambling from topic to topic with no clear direction. Outlining will also help with lesson planning.
Depending on how far down the path of microlearning you are going, lessons might only need to be a couple of minutes up to 10 to 15 minutes in length. There's not too much content in a 2-minute lesson so you really need to get at the heart of the topic and do so quickly if you're going that route.
Course Assessment Plans. Assessment plans fall in line with learning objectives. While your learning objectives identify what the student will learn, the assessment allows you and the student to have a clear picture of how well they have mastered the objectives.