Today, an increasing number of people are creating online courses, whether to advertise a small business, create a specialized brand, or just share expertise.
Online classes provide an opportunity to meet new people while also earning money. While the concept and logic for creating an online course are straightforward, the implementation is sometimes complicated.
You can create successful online courses easily if you know what you’re doing. By the end of this article you will be able to:
- Create the perfect online course by yourself
- Learn about the best industry practices used by professionals
- Understand what makes an online course great
The 10 stages described below are the most important criteria for creating a successful course design.
10 Steps to Create A Great Online Course
1. Select A Course Topic
The first step in creating an online course should be deciding on a primary focus topic. You must choose a specific course topic early.
Make the statement as detailed as possible. In your first phrase, don’t try to cover too much ground. Be careful to allow enough area for the future when creating your first course.
A typical early assumption is that you should create one course for each topic. That is a bad concept from the perspective of a student.
Within a single course, students are overwhelmed by huge volumes of scattered material. And, from a business perspective, that’s an even worse idea. Focusing on small courses instead of a single major program allows you to sell more and improve on early editions.
2. Determine Your Target Audience
Be specific once more. The target audience is too broad and non-actionable to be defined as “anyone interested in my course subject”.
Instead, focus on identifying your target audience’s main demographics.
- Age – Online students are on average 34 years old. This number may vary depending on the subject of your course. Make the necessary changes to your writing and teaching methods.
- Gender – Online students have a gender split of 53 percent female and 47 percent male on average.
However, in other areas, such as engineering, the ratio can shift dramatically, with male students accounting for up to 85 percent of students.
- Education levels – The majority of students enrolled in online courses have a Bachelor’s degree or above. Adjust the course’s difficulty to meet your target audience’s educational level.
- Status of employment – Is your course designed to teach professionals who are already employed? Is it geared towards job searchers looking to start a new career in a different field?
It is not always easy to identify all of these demographics. If you’re having problems locating your target audience, consider using social media.
3. Collect And Organize Your knowledge
After you have determined what and who you are teaching, then you will need to gather and structure your information.
You must communicate it in a way that makes sense to a learner and that he or she can comprehend.
We wouldn’t need schools or instructors if simply dumping information worked for most people.
What should you learn right away and what should you store for later? What is the logical link between one subject and another?
When is it appropriate to consider a student to have learned enough about a subject? These are all things to think about while putting up the framework of an online course.
You can teach with ease if you have the right structure and connections in place.
4. Make A Plan For Your Online Course
It’s time to consider how you’ll impart that information to your students.
Here are the tricks:
- Determine the most important learning result – This is advantageous to both you and your students. It will assist you in arranging your materials since you should question yourself at every stage, “Will this serve the end I desire?”
- Make A List of Skills – Create a checklist that includes all of the skills, information, and abilities that the student must possess by the completion of the course.
- Create Course Modules Using The Skill Checklist – Sort the abilities on this checklist by their level of difficulty. Keep the fundamental abilities at the beginning and the advanced skills at the conclusion.
- Set Learning Objectives For Each Of Your Course Units – Every online course should be divided into sections, and each segment must have a distinct learning objective.
Consider these factors and how they could influence your class preparations.
Keep your final objective in sight at all times.
You’ll need to teach precisely the correct number of classes to get the desired result.
5. Select The Platform For Your Online Course
What are your plans for storing these lessons? You should choose an online course platform from our list.
As we have seen above there are many excellent online course platforms available that will help you get your online course company up and operating fast.
We have discussed this topic in detail in the best online course platforms article.
6. Creating The Content
This section delves into the specifics of the course’s development.
To create a fantastic online course, you need to concentrate on the following
Selecting The Sorts Of Material You will use – Here you need to figure out how you will present your material.
There are three basic types you may create:
Text Content – Delivering a series of text-only lectures, preferably with a list of recommendations for future reading, would require the least amount of work.
You should, however, include additional kinds in the mix.
Video, Graphics, and Image Content – Video is an important component of how to create an online course, and nowadays, a proper camera and adequate video editing software won’t cost you a lot.
The simplest way to include pictures and videos in an online course is to structure it like a PowerPoint presentation:
Screencasting Content – It is very useful for online classes since it allows you to illustrate exactly what you’re talking about in real-time.
When considering how to create an online video course, you can’t neglect screencasting.
Writing, Recording, and Editing Content – It’s a good idea to start with a smaller batch of content so you can get feedback from your students and make adjustments as needed.
Some instructors complete their course while teaching their initial group of students they put up a structure and then improvise from there.
Assessments and Grading – It is important if you want to see your student demonstrate their understanding.
Assessments might range from a simple pop quiz after you finish a course to a major assignment at the end.
Of course, assessments are optional, and whether or not you use them relies entirely on your teaching style.
7. Make Sure The Content Is Appealing And Interesting
If you want to be successful in this market, you must engage the students who enroll in your course.
The problem with online courses is that it’s a lot simpler to drop out: one just quit and there are no repercussions, no one to blame if he/she doesn’t finish.
A pupil must be able to track their progress to feel like they’ve gained knowledge rather than wasting their time.
When you break down your body of information into small, learnable bits, students realize to see how far they’ve come.
It’s also why quizzes and exams are valuable tools: they allow you to track your progress and help learn new things hence keeping them interested.
8. Make Your Online Course A Community
Humans are sociable creatures. Even introverts require social interaction in a learning setting, which is something that cannot be overlooked.
This is where technology comes into play once more.
You should create a community for your students, whether it’s through a Facebook group, using a forum, conducting a webinar, or any other method you can think of.
Let’s assume you have a learner who didn’t fully comprehend the last lesson.
They could be nervous about approaching you.
If you provide this wandering learner space to engage with their peers, they may ask their peers to fill in the gaps in their knowledge, and before you know it, they’ll be back on the right track.
9. Collect Feedback
The ability to develop a successful online course relies heavily on good feedback.
What is clear and simple to an expert may not be so to a novice.
This is why you should seek outside help.
You should have two individuals look at it to get the best results.
First, a subject matter specialist who can look through your materials and offer feedback on your approach; see if you’re missing anything, and so on.
The other person should be similar to your target audience.
10. Adapt, Enhance, and Revise
It’s difficult to do everything right the first time you create an online course.
As a result, as an online course instructor, your workflow should constantly include listening to your students’ comments and refining your product based on that feedback.
It’s also worth noting that no course will ever be forever useful. They are bound to get obsolete. Students learning requirements vary regularly, as does the competition from other teachers.
This means changing your tactics regularly based on circumstances. If you’re willing to put your heart and soul into your job you will succeed
What Makes A Online Course Great
As an instructor, if you keep these in mind and employ these strategies while creating your Online Course are sure to succeed.
Here are the things you would like to implement to create a great online course;
a) Issues of equality and justice are at the heart of a great online course. It considers social, political, and cultural problems, as well as the backgrounds of students.
This implies you should include learning that is both diverse and intersectional. Use audiovisual products that do not discriminate against, humiliate, or degrade individuals.
b) Interactivity is a key feature of a great online course. Courses are more than just a way for learners to get information.
A successful online course not only delivers material such as texts or lecture videos but also incorporates interactions between you – student and student-student
c) A great online course should be interesting and challenging. It should encourage learners to engage, inspire them to contribute, and pique their curiosity.
You should take advantage of learners’ enthusiasm for learning and push them to improve their skills, abilities, and knowledge.
d) Practice is an important part of a good online course. Students should be “doing” — not simply watching and reading — “doing since” and applying what they have learned in good courses.
e) A great online course is well-designed. A course like this determines the skills, talents, and information that students will receive by the conclusion of it. You should develop activities to help them acquire them, and analyze whether or not they were successful.
f) A great online course should be engaging and connecting., and you should show students that you care, empathy, and trust them. You should also keep in mind that your learners have a life outside of the classroom.
Just remember being physically present is not a need for education. If you follow these strategies you are sure to create a great online course.
What Is An Online Course?
A video, audio, or text-based learning experience is referred to as an online course.
These self-paced courses are designed to be done from the convenience of home, or remotely, so there’s no need to rush through them. However, there are some which are time-based.
They are also highly cost-effective, and it allows people to advance both personally and professionally.
People can broaden their expertise by taking online classes.
There are many different online courses accessible, whether you need to learn how to create a logo, complement what you learned in school, or simply want to learn more about something that interests you.
Summary
You’re all set to start building your online course from the ground up. If you follow the ten steps outlined above, you’ll be able to not only produce a great and successful online course but also charge a premium for it.
How to create an online course may appear to be a difficult undertaking, but by breaking it down into tiny sections, each piece becomes a bit simpler to grasp and consume.
Editorial Team at 99BusinessIdeas is a team of experts led by Rupak Chakrabarty with over 25 years of experience in starting and running small businesses. Started in 2010, 99BusinessIdeas is now one of the largest free small business resources in the industry.
