Nicole Krug — December 27, 2019 Online courses are a convenient way of teaching new concepts, so if your business has knowledge to share why not turn it into a course for interested customers? This may be easier said than done, though, because designing a successful course can be tricky.
So what pieces of advice should you keep in mind when creating a course online? Spend 4 minutes watching the video or read on for the tips.
Narrow down your focus for the course
Before you focus on developing a course, you need to map out your ideas for the course. This means racking your brain and recording any ideas you have, then deciding whether these ideas are relevant to your students.
Utilizing a mind-mapping application like MindMeister can help with the whole process. Your ideas could be pretty scattered if you just write them down, but using an app formalizes brainstorming and simplifies the organization of ideas.
Deliver the results your students are expecting
Your students are expecting to learn about a specific topic, so you need to provide students with knowledge regarding that topic. Is your course about improving the quality of students’ emails? If so you better share plenty of tips about sending higher-quality emails.
Remember, it’s up to you as a teacher to deliver results, so don’t leave any of your students disappointed.
geralt / Pixabay
Several courses are better than one
It can be especially hard to narrow your focus for a course if the course covers a wide range of topics. Instead, try designing several courses, with each course covering a very specific topic. In theory, the more courses you offer the more students will sign up, so sell more by offering multiple courses.
Keep things short and sweet
Remember when designing a course that people generally have short attention spans. If you tend to be long-winded you’ll need to adjust your approach to make the material more consumable. So how can this be done?
- Divide your content into short modules (anything longer than 10 minutes is pushing it).
- Limit how many stories you tell (one story is enough to get your point across).
Give students something to take away from your course
When students take your online course, you want them to get something out of it and not just forget what they’ve learned. To this end, you should give students resources that they can easily refer back to after completing the course. Resources that may be helpful include:
- Worksheets
- Checklists
- Summaries
Remind students how valuable your course is by providing them with documents that review the important points.
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