Improve Engagement and sell more Courses with the Content Structure Strategy
It's time to build out your course. You've purchased and installed and you have everything in place however there's the crucial decision you need to make prior to starting.
What should you do to structure your content to maximize student engagement as well as courses sales?
Like all the top Learning Management Systems, has an organizational structure for content. Instead of experiencing a monotonous learning environment where you go from one lesson to another it is possible to organize content into sections, lessons, and topic areas for lessons.
Your content's structure is a major factor in the quality and effectiveness of your classes. It's worth doing the right thing.
This article will explain the structure of the content hierarchy, psychological principles influencing learners' engagement as well as sales and the best way to determine the appropriate structure to the course material.
Let's start by discussing the hierarchy of content.
Content Hierarchy
As previously discussed, segments the content into segments, lessons, topics, and quizzes. It allows you to divide the content you create into themes as well as smaller bites that are easier to manage. Below, you'll find a screen representing each segment.
Let's go over each section in more detail.
Lessons
Lessons comprise the most level of content. If students begin a course, the initial action is moving into the first lesson. They will then go through each following lesson until the class is finished.
If you have a simple course, you might just have lessons.
Sections
Sections are basically groups of lessons. Simply put, the addition of a section makes it possible to split lessons visually with an introductory heading between. This has advantages that affect sales as well as participation, and we'll explore further down.
Topics
Topics are children of lessons. They function similarly to lessons , in terms of capabilities but they can only be accessed by first navigating into the lesson of the teacher. Topics can be divided into lengthy lessons into manageable, multi-step bites, which can increase the level of engagement.
Quizzes
Questions can be placed in various places within the content hierarchy. As an example, they could be at the top level alongside lessons, as a student of a lesson (similar to the topics) or be a student of a particular topic.
It is important to remember that the only thing you need to consider is quizzes at the lesson level can only occur in the course's final lesson. Therefore, if you want an exam to be held prior or following a lesson it has to be a kid test.
Assignments
Assignments are situations where the user must submit a file or respond to an open-ended query to proceed. That file can be auto-approved or manually accepted. The lessons and subjects can include assignments. The segments can't, however, as they lack an individual page. Instead, they're an opportunity to break up lessons with a visual.
Once you have a better understanding of the content structure let's talk about the psychological factors influencing the best way to organize your content into this hierarchy.
Design Psychology
The perfect order of content for your course is affected by psychology. When they see your outline of the course prospective students and learners make assumptions and judgments about the value and complexity of your course.
The likelihood of buying is lower in the event that the format isn't able to provide a simple evaluation of the course's value. Similarly, they're unlikely to purchase if the structure makes the course feel too complicated or confusing.
From the standpoint of an experienced learner The course's design directly affects how enjoyable the course is and can be the difference between a learning experience that is completed or abandoned.
Three fundamental psychological principles in play:
- Chunking
- Progressive Disclosure
- Gamification
Chunking
It is easier to comprehend and process large amounts of data when it's grouped into common themes. As an example, if I were to ask you to recall this list, you'd likely be struggling:
- Carrots
- Hamburger
- Oranges
- Brocolli
- Watermelon
- Celery
- Strawberries
- Pork chops
- Bacon
However, if I break the group into smaller pieces it's easier to handle.
Vegetables
- Carrots
- Brocolli
- Celery
Proteins
- Hamburger
- Pork chops
- Bacon
Fruits
- Oranges
- Watermelon
- Strawberries
Sections and topics allow you to group content into themes. Similar to the above grouping that reduces the cognitive load to process the topics and ideas taught in the course. The course is more manageable for current students, and helps potential buyers better understand the value of the course.
Take a look at these two examples. lessons with or without sections:
and
Which is easier to process and comprehend? Second example.
A related and equally important psychological principle is "Progressive Disclosure," Let's get into it.
Progressive Disclosure
Progressive disclosure is a concept which makes it simpler to understand data when first exposed to top-level information and then you can choose to view greater detail should you wish.
An example would be the archive of blog entries on your site. It is not common to display an entire post on a single page. Instead, you display the most pertinent information, like the title and short description. You can also include a link to show the full blog post.
The use of summaries rather than an entire blog post helps you identify all the topics mentioned on the blog and then decide on which topics to engage with and see more.
You can use progressive disclosure to your students through topic and child quizzes. Lessons become high-level knowledge, while students can expand the lesson to see the more intricate ideas.
We'll expand our previous example above:
Similar to chunking, it's simpler for prospects to comprehend the core concepts taught by your class and increase the chances of buying. Additionally, for current students, the program appears less overwhelming since there aren't as many tasks to concentrate upon at any given moment.
Gamification
It is possible to use two principles of gamification to design your course's structure "Investment Loops" and "Appropriate Achievements."
Progressing in a class (like completing a section, lesson, topic, or even a quiz) triggers reward centers. We're making progress toward a goal, which is a good feeling. If you are able to create this feeling of happiness that motivates learners, the better off they will be.
Triggering our reward center is an art of equilibrium. As an example it is the Appropriate Achievements principle says that, in order to create reward emotions then the next stage is to be tough enough to be challenging, but not so difficult it feels unobtainable.
When it comes to execution, every step of the course must be complex and long enough to be challenging for the learner yet short enough to be immediately possible. Therefore, instead of an extensive lesson that covers 3 - 5 complex concepts, you have a single lesson with 3 - 5 areas.
There are a couple of tasks that be completed in 3 to five minutes rather than ones that take between 15 - 20. This means that learners will be able to tackle a couple of steps quickly, which feels rewarding instead of. having to devote more time or energy to complete the next process.
It also triggers an "Investment Loop" which is when you are satisfied having completed a task, but need to complete to do more. As a result, learners tend to finish 3 5min tasks than a 15 minute step.
Pro tip! Indicating visually how long a step will require is a fantastic method to boost the engagement of learners. Visual Customizer can accomplish this in a matter of only a couple of minutes!
Now that you understand the psychology behind segmenting your content into sections, lessons, topics and exams We'll discuss how to determine the best course content structure.
Create your Content Outline
Before filling any of your material, I would suggest creating an "content outline" which is a set of bulleted lists which identify the lessons, sections subjects, quizzes, and topics.
Themes that are broad
The first step is to create your list of major themes or concepts the course will teach learners. If you end up with more than 10, I'd suggest examining if they could be combined into one general subject.
Secondary and Sub Concepts
Then, within each of the three broad themes make a list of the three to seven ideas within those themes.
Then, evaluate the idea in question and determine how long it would take to clearly explain the idea to someone who knew nothing about the subject. If it takes more than 5 - 7 minutes, you'll need another layer of hierarchy. Split your 3 - 7 sub-concepts into another 3 - 7 sub-sections.
If you require more than seven sub-sub sections or you find that it will require more than five minutes to explicate, you might want to split this course into several specific courses.
Sections or Topics
Now you have between two to three layers within the hierarchy of your content. There are sections, lessons or topics if you have three layers.
You must choose topics or sections in your hierarchy, even if you have two.
I'd look at it like the following: your classes correspond to your book's Table of Contents.
Table of Contents is a significant factor in the decision to purchase a book. In the same way, readers will look through your lessons list to decide if they want to buy. Therefore, there's a benefit of having more courses available, so to keep the course from becoming overloading. In the example above, fifteen lessons divided into three segments will more effectively "sell" your course than three lessons with five subjects each (because there is more info to be hidden.)
You now have a complete plan to fill and segment your content !