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How to Create a Course Outline 2022 (Free Course Outline Template] -

Sep 22, 2022

 The last update was September 19 2022

So you're excited about sharing your expertise and knowledge online, but you can't seem to get your thoughts out there to create a fully fleshed-out online courses? Then you're in the right place.

Creating an online course outline is among the most important things you need to do in order to ensure that your online course will be coherent, well-structured, and easy to digest by your future students. Who wants to create lots of content that you later scrapped or re-recorded, because it just didn't seem to perform? Absolutely not!

A solid course outline or outline makes it simpler to design online-based instruction that is:

  • Easy (and enjoyable!) for you to build and then run.
  • Perfect for your students, providing them with the information they desire to learn in the right order, the right depth and the proper method.

In this article, we're going to take you step-by step through the process of creating your own course outline with our no-cost templates for creating your course outline.

This is a brief overview of the topics that will be covered:

What's the Course Outline?

A course outline provides a high-level overview of the online course. It's the foundation of your online course that usually includes a listing of chapters in the course, and a brief description of what's in each chapter. The chapters can be called classes, lessons or modules, or something similar, depending on the type of course as well as the intended audience.

Benefits of Creating an Online Outline for a Course

1. Help Students Understand The Learning Process and Objectives

An outline of your course allows students to have a brief look at the learning path they will follow, making the course easier for them to navigate. The outline also aids your students understand the benefits they will get out of your online course once they have completed the course. A course outline that is clear and consistent will help provide an intuitive and enjoyable learning experience for your students.

2. Efficient Online Course Production

Online course outline can make it a lot easier and faster to produce the material for an online course itself. An outline for your course will prevent you from rambling from one topic to another without clear instructions. It will allow you to organize the lesson in a systematic and progressive fashion, since some lessons might be prerequisites for the next lesson.

Also, this will ensure that you will not be unable to take advantage of any crucial lessons as it will cost you more to change your course in the future. It could also allow to identify aspects where it is necessary to engage a guest speaker for additional expertise.

3. Overcome Your Mental Barriers

Creating a course outline in mind maps or bullet points allows you to get started in making an online course without feeling overloaded by the complicated course creation process.

The majority of issues when you are launching your online course have to do with psychological barriers like fear of failures or negative critiques and impostor syndrome, having too many ideas, and maybe also the idea that you must produce hours and hours worth of lessons for your potential students.

Although it may sound cheesy starting is the best way to overcome the fear of starting. As Susan Jeffers says,

Feel the Fear and Do It However

Making an online course may be hard work, but it's an extremely rewarding and satisfying work that pays off when you start seeing your course income come in and become a stream of income. So get started with a plan for your course.

4. Materials for Marketing Your Online Course

5. Feedback from your potential Customers

If this is your first experience designing an online course making the outline of your course allows you to get early feedback from other course creators or your target market, and thereby allowing the course to be redesigned if you need to.

How do you create a Course Outline

1. Outline Your Learning Outcomes

First and foremost, it's important for you to start by asking "What will my students get from my online course?"

When you've got a clear concept of what you want to learn, you will be able to effectively return to organize the lesson and learning activities that would be ideal in achieving your principal end-point of your learning. All in all, it's preferring to create a concrete and specific learning outcome. Here are some great as well as bad examples

A good example of learning outcomes for learning:

 At the conclusion of the lesson I will have my students in a position to shoot wedding photographs outdoors in a natural setting

A bad outcome of learning example:

By the end of the lesson the students will be better able to capture photographs(too vague)

2. Determine Learning Paths and Milestones

In the above example It's great that you'll be instructing your students to take wedding photographs in an outdoor setting. The next step is to figure out what abilities they will require in order to achieve the goal. You can do so by describing the key learning points within your online course.

Examples of learning milestones may include:

  • Discover the various kinds of cameras that work well in outdoor environments.
  • Learn about various model poses suitable in wedding photography.
  • Discover the different photo editing software for wedding photography.
  • Learn to edit wedding photography photos

This lets you structure your classes in a progressive way where some lessons might have a pre-requisite to the following lessons. In this case, for example, learning about different photo editing software will allow students to understand how to edit photos using the tools that best suit their skills and needs.

3. Organize Your Learning Activities and Lesson Types

Spend some time to think about the students' possible methods of learning (visual or aural physical, logical socialor even alone). After that, decide on the perfect teaching format to make learning fun for your pupils.

If, for instance, you're teaching photography skills It's likely to be more beneficial to use lots of images for examples of what you can do with your photos. You might consider the use of videos rather than text-based classes in this case.

Make use of tests to ensure that students remember information in a more effective way than simply giving out learning resources.

  • Video
  • Text
  • Quiz
  • Assignment
  • Survey
  • Downloadable
  • Embed

Template for Online Course Outline Free

To help you save time, we've prepared the outline for your course in order to ensure that you'll be in the best position for launching a successful online course.

General Course Outline Template

We recommend beginning with an online basic template for courses to help organize your ideas. It is possible to tweak or change the template as necessary while knowing the base layout is strong.

This example is intended designed for a basic four-lesson course, but you can simply extend it to more of a course.

It's a good idea for the outline for the course to include the format for each component (e.g. "video" or "audio recording with transcript" or "PDF worksheet that you can download") except if the material for the course is available in exactly the same layout.

  Welcome to the Introduction/Welcome To Your Online Course  

  • What are you expecting from this online course:
  • Course goals, learning outcomes, and/or skills that students will gain
  • How to get the most value out of your online course
  • Ideas on the amount of hours that students ought to commit
  • How to retain much of the knowledge, which includes tips such as pausing the film and re-creating the things mentioned on the lessonsor by taking tests and/or assignments, and more
  • Where to get help or support for students who are having doubts e.g. support line or Facebook group
  • The information you provide, like eBooks, printables and worksheets for your students to download to go along with your lessons

  #1: Chapter One  

Beginning steps in the course - make this lesson as easy-to-understand as you can.

  • What students will learn in this lesson
  • Content: try to break this into three to five key areas or sections
  • Lesson 1
  • Lesson 2
  • Lesson 3
  • ...
  • Summary: close the students' education by explaining what they have learned or what they have learned to achieve
  • Assessment: Define the evaluation (if it is applicable).)
  • The next step is to briefly introduce the following lesson

  #2 Chapter Two  

This lesson should build on the one before, taking students on a journey.

  • What can students expect to learn from this lesson
  • Content: Try to break this into three to five key areas or sections
  • Lesson 1
  • Lesson 2
  • Lesson 3
  • ...
  • Summary: close with a discussion of students' progress or the things they are able to accomplish
  • Assessment: provide an explanation of the assessment (if any)
  • The next step is to briefly introduce the following lesson

  #3: Chapter Three  

The lesson could become more complex. If you notice a significant increase in difficulty, warn students and remind they can get help if they're struggling.

  • What will students learn during this lesson
  • Content: try to split this into three to five key areas or sections
  • Lesson 1
  • Lesson 2
  • Lesson 3
  • ...
  • Summary: wrap up with a discussion of students' progress or the things they are able to accomplish
  • Assessment: state the reason for the criteria for assessment (if there is one).)
  • What's next: very briefly introduce the lesson to students.

  #4 Chapter Four  

The last lesson in the course must end with a bang. Offer learners something useful. It may be quite advanced So, provide additional support or materials when needed.

  • What will students learn during this class
  • Content: aim to break this into 3 to 5 main points or sections
  • Lesson 1
  • Lesson 2
  • Lesson 3
  • ...
  • Summary: close with a discussion of students' progress or what they have learned to do to improve their skills.
  • Assessment: explain the assessment (if it is applicable).)
  • What next? Point students to resources for going further with this topic (including the other services or products you offer, e.g. ebooks)

The Course Outline Template is for Copywriting Courses

This online course outline was derived from the template previously mentioned, describing the first lesson and introduction:

  You are invited to become an Author on Freelance  

  • What exactly is freelance writing?
  • Course goals: finding your first freelancing clients
  • A glossary of the most important terms, e.g. "ghostwriting", "client", "freelancing gig", "paying market"
  • How the course will work (each week, you'll be given an assignment that you can choose to do; and it's possible to comment on lessons if you have a question or simply wish to share your experience with others)

  #1: Your Freelance Writing Portfolio  

  • Introduction: Today, you'll learn how to create your own portfolio for writing freelance Even if you've never previously written much.
  • Content:
  • Section 1: What Can Go in Your Portfolio?
  • Section 2: Writing Extra Pieces for your Portfolio
  • Section 3: Different Ways to Display Your Portfolio Parts
  • Summary We discussed today different types of work you can include in your portfolio of freelance work.
  • Assessment: Choose 2 - 4 items to include in your portfolio. Optional test/quiz.
  • What's next? In the next week, we'll begin exploring ways to establish a Facebook page to promote your writing freelance business.

TIP:If you want to go further, you could make your own course outline templates using current courses that are relevant to your area and seeing how they're structured.

Ideas for Making Your Online Training Online More Effective

If you're planning to go deeper in your online class take a look at the outline of your course template to plan for:

Different Types of Content to Suit Different Learning Styles

A few online courses are built to be centered around video content, but the best online course creators allow you design all kinds of various types of content. With , for instance it is possible to create online courses that include not just videos but also text lessons, questions, downloads and embeds, surveys, and more.

Content That Addresses Students' Most Burning Questions

Although some of the questions might seem tiny or ridiculous in the entire subject, if these questions come often from novices, it's important to be sure to address these questions early throughout your study.

Student Opportunities to Build Their Learning

If the course will take many weeks to complete Give students the opportunity to go over what they've learnt. Perhaps you can include a brief summary near the halfway point such as a recap of what you've learned so far, before giving them an opportunity to take a quick test.

Creating Your Online Course With

Now that you've used the template for course outline to create an outline for your own online course, it's time to think about how to deliver the course - and also sell! - your course.

  • A wide variety of lesson types that will make your class more engaging: Video, Text and Quiz. Assignments, Survey, Downloadable, and Embed.
  • A beginner-friendly course builder - plus complete directions on how to make use of it.
  • It is possible to distribute content, releasing lessons week by week (or whenever it is convenient for you).
  • A fully customizable sales page for the online class you are offering. You could create a full site to market your course, or you can sell your course from your existing website. It is also possible to sell your course on social media using : here's an illustration.
  • Absolutely no upfront charges - simply a small 5% charge for each transaction. You can sell other products but in addition to online classes. You might also want to offer digital downloads, coaching services, memberships/subscriptions, and even physical products.

SELL on-line courses

Join the more than 130,000 sellers that have created their online businesses with

FAQ

Is a course outline identical to the syllabus?

An outline of a course is usually utilized in conjunction with an outline of a syllabus. However, a course outline is typically used by the instructors to organize their ideas when developing the course. A syllabus is typically utilized by students to comprehend the course's results and the learning pathways.

What is the best way to create an outline for your course?

Here's an overview of the steps to make your own course outline with the help of's free template for course outline:

  1. Outline your learning outcomes
  2. Set learning paths and goals.
  3. Plan your activities for learning and types of lessons

Final Thoughts

The process of defining your online course could become a lot faster than you expect.

Make use of our free course outline template to help you get underway. Set your time for 10-15 minutes each day this week to complete the process and then add them to the outline template.

Even if you just outline a tiny portion one at a time, you could have all your lesson outlines within the span of one week or.