Six Tips to Structure an Online Course |
No matter if you're constructing your first or your 10th or 10th grade course, these 5 tips will help your audience get the most out of the experience.
There's an abundance of courses available online. Let's say it again... Many.
A few are excellent. Certain are good. Certain are horrible.
The online course boom means that a lot of people are trying to earn money with their own online courses This is fantastic! But too many online teachers are producing mediocre courses that do not serve their students.
There's an art to building the perfect online course. In spite of many competitors an organized, well-thought out course that offers the change they require is still able to do very well.
In this article in this article, we'll be talking about the best way to organize an online course so that your students get the most out of it. These six tips can assist you in gaining a clear vision of what transformation you're taking your students through and learn how to achieve it. If you implement these steps instructions, you'll soon be in the process of creating a successful course, and feedback from students who appreciate it.
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In this piece...
3. Test for knowledge retention
Begin at the beginning and at the
Do we have the ability to explain the problems with too many online courses?
The majority of course creators begin by listing what they know they want to share with students. They decide what they want to discuss. Then they begin to plot the course.
Here's why this isn't a good idea.
Good courses don't come from simply dumping your brain with every thing you've ever learned. The key to a successful course is being crystal clear about the message you wish the audience to gain from it. What will they do when it's done?
Begin with the goal in mind. If you are building communities online, we describe this end as a Big Purpose statement.
A Big Purpose statement is similar to this.
The Big Purpose for the course isn't much different. The goal is to bring together a group of people who want to attain a particular outcome. That's what your course is designed for.
It's not:
- Sharing everything you know
- Impressing them with your skills
- Making them expert in their field (unless it's an introductory masterclass)
Your primary objective for the course is to get your participants through a transformation of some sort. These could be big, life-changing transformations. They could also be simple, personal and enjoyable.
Here are some instances of transforms:
- You can go from not knowing anything about guitar and playing around the campfire
- You can go from being a couch potato to a slow and uninspiring runners
- Go from being a floral designer into running an enviable floral business
- Go from knowing nothing about marketing to becoming an expert in YouTube ads
People want transformations. Therefore, you must define what transformation you want your members to accomplish. It is then possible to reverse the process to build the course around EXACTLY what your ideal student needs to accomplish this transformation. No any more, and certainly not less.
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Pay attention to the steps
Once you have a clearly defined goal for your course You can begin drawing out an outline of what the class should include. This might take some research OR, if you're instructing something that you've already learned or mastered, it could be as simple as taking a seat and thinking about the lessons you've learned.
Get a blank piece of paper or blank document. Record the conclusion. Then ask yourself "What is the actual need to complete this transformation? ?"
One of the risks here is the "curse of knowledge." It can be difficult to figure out how to teach a beginner particularly if you've already mastered something and it's been a some time since you've become at the beginning. Remember glazing over at trigonometry as your instructor was talking about hypotenuse, but without giving a reason for it?
This is probably the curse of being knowledgeable working. You assume people know something that you would take for granted.
Therefore, to answer the question concentrate on the process. You should ask yourself "what steps will it require to learn this?" And include everything-whether you think that they are aware of it or not.
Let's say, for instance, let's say you've got a beginner guitar course. You've selected a catchy name, and you're going to call it: "Campfire Guitar Mastery: Go from 0 to Leading singingalong ."
What would someone who's never played the guitar before require to learn to get from 0 to playing around an open campfire?
Here are some steps that could be logical:
- What is the best way to select an instrument if you don't already
- The guitar's parts
- How do I find and understand chord charts
- Patterns of strumming
- The first song
- How to practice effectively
- Where to find song chords
- How do you sing while you play
- How to find the confidence to play in public
Once you know what the purpose is, you'll have a clear roadmap for how to structure an online course that will help your students meet the goal. These can be your lessons or modules.
Don't give them anything MORE THAN THEY NEED!
We have discussed the subject earlier. One of the biggest mistakes teachers make is to cram the course with everything they know. The temptation to do this due to many reasons, however, most often it's because it makes us feel like our students will value this course more, if there's everything in it.
Beware of the temptation. Let them have what they want instead. Students' satisfaction isn't a result of a long course. It's a direct result of an efficient course.
For the campfire guitar class above you'll see that it does not have:
- An extensive study of the development of guitar
- Lessons on guitar music around the world
- A guide to listening to music
- Extensive explanations on why you should learn to play (from the description of the course, they understand exactly why)
- How to construct the campfire
Concentrate on the steps they need. Then, pitch the rest.
A tip: When you've laid out your lesson plan out, go through every step to see how you can take any off. If you are able to get rid of a module, but feel confident that your students can get the results they want take it!
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Test for knowledge retention
If you're going to have assessments or tests in your class Make sure that the exams adhere to the information they'll need to remember going forward. Too many courses approach test as a way to test whether students are attentive, but then ask dumb questions like "In module 2-who was the queen of England that we discussed? ?"
If you're taking a take a test, ensure that it's reviewing and strengthening the information they must take into consideration instead of ensuring they retained irrelevant details of the class.
Here are some examples of both good and bad queries:
Facebook advertising Course:
- What colour is the color of Facebook logo? (bad)
- What does "audience" translate to in your ad? (good)
Course in Business:
- What color pants were Jake wear in the second lesson? (bad)
- What were some ways to improve retention of members? (good)
Check that all questions are linked to the information and skills they'll actually require to achieve the objectives of the class.
Create projects
Another option for you to structure online course material is to have students create an assignment. This can be done instead of doing tests and quizzes.
If your students make it to the end of your course and have something to show for it this is a fantastic thing! Also, they'll be able to have higher retention rates by actually doing the work anyway.
If you're teaching an course that requires the goal of creating something practical or artistic and guiding students in the process of creating an assignment or portfolio may be the option.
Here are some examples of the kinds of projects you could get from an online class:
Course: Web Design designed for Beginners
Project: A website
The course: Ruby on Rails
The Project: Your very first app
Training: Master Watercolor Painting
Project: Your first painting
Course: Intro to Lettering
Project: A portfolio of lettering work
Course: Pitching Magazines
Project: A completed pitch sent out
Too many courses out there TELL students how to do things and then leave them to implement the skills by themselves. If you can show the students how, walk them through the steps, and offer them something to take home, they'll have earned their money's worth out of your course.
Mix mediums
The last thing that can really help with the structure of online courses is mixing delivery mediums. Different people learn in different ways. So adding a mixture of courses helps to serve people with different learning styles and makes the learning easier to access.
For instance it is possible to create a course with pre-recorded, Asynchronous video. The students will have the opportunity to either watch or listen to the video, and also stop and resume as required. You might add a text summary or transcription of the film for those who either prefer to read or have disabilities that make audio or video inaccessible. You could also add live chats where course students meet up to discuss about the course content and ask questions as well as do some activities together.
This form of mixed delivery provides many benefits to students and allows them to be taught in the manner that they are most comfortable learning.
Select the correct platform
Last, but not least the most important thing is to pick the appropriate course platform. There are many choices available, however the majority of them won't let you do all the tasks we mentioned in the previous paragraphs: mixing synchronous and asynchronous teaching, leading live discussions as well as Q&A sessions, conducting assessments and having students present their class projects.
So, choosing the appropriate platform is a crucial decision. If you're in search of the right platform to develop your course your course, give it a go ! It's got a simple sophisticated course engine that lets you deliver content in just about anything you want, plus it gives you the resources to market your course. Each course has an individual community that can be custom branded and can be a mix of live and pre-recorded content.
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Conclusion
At the end of the day, how to structure an online course pretty much comes down to focusing on what students want to change and how they can get there. If you can do this, you'll get ahead of many of the online courses available.
So if you:
- The transformation that you want to give these,
- Determine what they need to get there,
- Let them go through it
- and make sure it was successful...
The course you teach will be one that students love and tell their classmates about, as well as a community of eager fans waiting for your next course!
And if you want to test building your online course with HTML0 , you can check it out for absolutely no cost - and with there is no need for credit cards.
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