Throughout the years, I’ve worked for leading players in the online education space like Agora Financial, GKIC, Ryan Deiss-Digital Marketer, Wicked Reports, as well as dozens of successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders like Matt Bacak, Jason Hornung, Kent Clothier-Real Estate Worldwide, Keith Kranc, and many others.
I often get asked by my clients looking to scale and replicate this success, “what’s the secret?”
Well, I hate to break it to you, but…there’s no magic secret. HOWEVER, there are several things online edupreneurs need to excel in to replicate the industry’s most successful online businesses. I’ll be talking about each of these in the following weeks, so make sure you stay tuned.
In this post, I’m going to be talking about one of the critical pillars of successful online courses: “course design.” Don’t be fooled by the name! Course design goes beyond aesthetics. Everything from your outcome to how you’re structuring your content and meeting student needs falls under the umbrella.
Course design goes beyond aesthetics. Everything from your outcome to how you’re structuring your content and meeting student needs falls under the umbrella. Click to Tweet
Here are five principles every online course creator can use to execute course design seamlessly.
Principle #1: Use Backward Design
I wish I could claim credit for this one, but course creators have used backward design for years. One of the reasons why “going backward” is used by top online course creators is because it allows you to keep your course outcome oriented.
In the digital age, people have a treasure chest worth of information available right at their fingertips. The truth is, they could probably find everything you’re teaching online right now. They could probably even find it for free.
So, WHY would someone pay for your online course?
Because your students need your guidance. See, while access to lots of information is great, it’s also overwhelming. Your students don’t know what they need to learn and what they don’t.
Backward design starts by identifying the final learning outcome of an online course. By building from there, you’ll know what content to cover and why it’s important. More importantly, so will your students.
3 Steps to Backward Design
Step 1: Define the final outcome / desired results of your course. Ask yourself: What should your students be able to understand and now execute because they’ve completed your course?
Step 2: Determine the metrics you’re going to use to assess if the desired outcomes have occurred. How will you know? What proof (assignments, quizzes, badges, etc.) of student learning/progress do you have? It’s crucial you understand how each of your assessments will bring your students closer to their objectives.
Step 3: Plan out and design your online course! Define each lesson objective. Tell students what they’re going to learn each lesson and why it’s significant to reaching their final, desired outcome.
Take a look at my Beginner’s Roadmap to Online Course Creation as a guide to help you outline your course and assess your students.
Remember you’re teaching towards a goal. Think of your lessons as a form of instructions, teaching students how to “build” their outcome. Click to tweet.
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Principle #2: Objective & Outcome-Centered Design
Although many entrepreneurs design learning experiences without ever defining exactly what they want students to take away from the course, well-designed courses are crafted with clear course objectives and student-learning outcomes in mind.
Course objective:
A course objective describes what students will learn during the online course. An objective is centered around student learning. In terms of the big picture, a course objective is what students need to know to bring them to their outcome. As a result, your objective statement should mention student impact. Be sure also to mention how students will be able to apply their newly acquired knowledge in your statement.
Remember, your objective is important because it results in your students’ outcomes.
Course outcome:
Outcomes are the tangible results students will achieve after completing your online course and filling your course objective. Outcomes are centered around student behavior. They are typically measurable actions, reflecting how students will act in “real life.”
Objectives are about you and your course.
Outcomes are about your students and their results.
Create a syllabus to serve as a guide for you and your students through the action steps to complete the course. All your content should be objective and (ultimately) outcome-centered.
Here are some questions you should answer, as you’re creating your lessons:
- What problem(s) do your students have?
- How are you helping to solve it?
- What concepts are you teaching?
- What do students NEED to know?
- WHY do they need to know it?
- What steps do they need to take to achieve an outcome?
- What skills do they need to develop to achieve an outcome?
- How will you teach them?
- What resources are you providing?
Read More: How to Write Good Learning Outcomes
Principle #3: Design with Adult Students in Mind
Successful online courses are designed with ADULT STUDENTS in mind –which means, they have a clear understanding of how they learn best and apply those insights so instruction is tailored to their needs.
Keep in mind that motivations to learn to evolve as people age. Some common motivators are family, professional growth, and career goals. In this article, you can learn the different ways that younger and adult students differ.
Andragogy, the theory of adult education coined by Malcolm Knowles, makes the following assumptions about the design of learning:
1. Adult learners are self-directed learners.
2. Adult learners bring previous knowledge and experiences to the learning context.
3. Adult learners are eager and ready to learn what they need to learn to succeed.
4. Adult learners are interested to see the immediate application of learning in order to solve a problem.
5. Adult learners most powerful motivators are internal (self-esteem, better quality of life, self-actualization, etc.)
6. Adult learners learn best when they understand the value of what they are being taught.
Become an effective adult educator by making sure your course is built upon the following considerations:
Consideration #1: Keep Your Content Problem-centered
Your students aren’t learning for the sake of learning. They’re taking your online course to solve a problem. I previously mentioned this, but let me emphasize it again: All your content is already on the Internet. The reason why your students are taking your online course is to learn how to apply your content to solve a problem.
Your goal isn’t to make everyone an expert in your field like you either. Your goal should be to produce outcomes for your students. As a result, you should only teach what students NEED to know…which brings us to our next consideration.
Consideration #2: Give Your Students Wisdom
What your students are learning in your online course needs to be relevant to their current, “real-world” situation. Give your adult learners opportunities to apply your lessons in their life THROUGHOUT your online course. By adding different “stop and apply” activities you are giving them a chance to move from mere consumption to real application. For example, if you’re teaching students how to launch a paid campaign, let them practice creating content on Instagram or allow them to manage their own Facebook campaign.
Additionally, exercises like this will also reinforce learning, meaning your students won’t just be passively absorbing your content. Your students need to know how to apply your content to their real-life situation. If they don’t, they won’t be able to produce an outcome for themselves.
In order to have a successful course, you need to be able to teach your students how to use what they’re learning.
This is the difference between wisdom and knowledge. Aim to make your students wise. Incorporating these considerations throughout your online course design will satisfy adult learners and increase overall motivation, engagement, and learning retention.
Principle #4: They Make Learning “Bite-sized”
A big part of improving online course completion rates depends on how the content is structured, which means creating courses that are modular, divided by bite-sized lessons, and where learners have the power to decide their own learning path (consuming content at their own pace, in any order they want).
If your lessons are too long, they can seem daunting to your students. They may drop off in the middle of a lesson or not start it all together. Keeping them short and easy to access anytime, will allow them to start and finish a whole lesson in one sitting—whether they’re listening at home, in the car, or on their commute.
We live in a culture where we consume “on-the-go.” The most successful businesses understand their users’ behaviors. Companies have even focused their branding on it. Just take a look at Dunkin Donuts’ motto: America Runs on Dunkin.
If you think your students are listening to your lessons at home, in front of a computer at all times–then, I hate to burst your bubble. 90% of people consume content and move across devices sequentially to accomplish their goals. This means your students may start your lesson on their desktop computer and finish it on their smartphone.
As a result, you need to tailor your course to the lifestyle of your students—otherwise, it isn’t going to work!
Principle #5: They Create the 3E’s
Most of the world’s most successful online course entrepreneurs go beyond just attracting new students every month. By the contrary, they are mostly focused on keeping existing students happy, on track and motivated.
I like to tell my clients to focus on “The Three E’s”: Energy, Excitement, and Engagement.
Excitement
Including gamified elements such as progress bars and celebrating achievements provide a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, chatbots give real-time feedback, and interactive activities that allow the student to explore content — are all proactive ways of sprucing up your online course and make students excited to learn.
Energy
Lack of motivation is an obstacle that online students must overcome in order to learn new information. Although online course creators don’t have complete control over this, they can design a course that promotes motivation and stimulation. An effective way to do this is by offering incentives and rewards like a certificate or a digital badge.
For instance, if you want your students to be more participative, reward the most active students with a badge. Not only will this make engaged students feel “seen,” but it will also encourage less active students to increase their engagement.
Engagement
In the case of online courses, engaged students mean higher completion rates and (hopefully) more happy students interested in purchasing additional courses and/or referring you to other people.
Keeping a tight-knit community is a great way to create a system of accountability amongst students. Your role as a course instructor is to encourage students to introduce themselves and talk with one another. Don’t forget that you are a part of the community yourself! Make sure you take the time to get to know your students and have them know you. Additionally, don’t be timid to reach out. If you notice a student’s engagement levels dropping, shoot them a message!
If users feel like you are personally invested in their success, they’ll be more likely to stay engaged throughout your course and stay till completion.
Invest in your clients’ success by implementing the 3 E’s, and they’ll invest in yours too. Click to tweet.
Read more: How to Use Digital Badges for Your Online Courses
Completion = Success
Aaaand there you have it! This is how my clients’ most profitable online course are designed. Don’t forget to collect feedback from your students and make changes as needed. Remember, you need to keep your clients excited and engaged continuously, so you can’t be a stranger to your online course. At CEA, we’ve stressed creating a strong student-creator feedback loop to all our clients.
The best online courses in today’s market are continuously improving–so expect to do the same moving forward. But, in the meantime, give yourself a pat on the back because you’re officially in on the $2,000,000 “secret.”
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