7 Essential Elements of a Good Online Course
It will be easier for any beginner to start their own online courses if they know some basic elements. A variety of requirements should always be followed while developing a course online. Those requirements must guarantee that students will gain the rewards they enrolled for. Because of that, we would like to present you with 7 Essential Elements of a Good Online Course.
1. Establish learning goals
This element speaks for itself a lot and it is in the first place for a reason. This is important to set up because it attracts new students the most and keeps old ones. With learning goals, you can describe your ideas, which methods you use, and the knowledge you offer to your students. Also, with clear goals, you can define the learning opportunities and experiences.
Courses can get off track without them, resulting in student frustration or confusion. So, try to use verbs from Bloom’s taxonomy, such as analyze, evaluate, design, demonstrate, understand or give examples, for defining learning goals because it urges everyone to work on a wide range of the spectrum.
2. Create dynamic yet entertaining content
This is the next thing you need to focus on while designing your online course. As much as you offer quality courses, if they are monotonous, most of your students will certainly not be satisfied. There are simple ways to change that. Try to encourage your students to actively engage in their education and develop their unique and creative concepts and thoughts rather than mindlessly absorbing massive amounts of knowledge. Also, try to avoid a large amount of information in one session and instead try to divide your materials into smaller parts. In addition to making it easier for your students to master your course, they will find it easier to deepen their knowledge. And some of the ways you can make it more dynamic and interesting are various quizzes, individual or group tasks, and discussions.
3. Feedback is always important
Do not forget the power of feedback. It can be useful to you in a variety of ways. You can take advantage of the fact that at the end of each course your students solve a quiz on how much they understood today’s lecture. This way you will know in a short time how much material has been learned and whether you need to repeat parts of it in the next lecture. You will immediately create a terrific potential to progress your students and supply them with quality courses if you do so.
4. Course materials are easily accessible
If during your lecture they did not understand some of the information, these easily accessible materials will come in handy. When your materials are easily accessible to everyone, you will make the learning process easier for them and they will be able to learn without any problems.
Also, students can benefit from these materials to develop a deeper understanding of a subject. You can share any educational materials, such as textbooks or core materials.
5. Choose the right platforms for courses
Once you choose a platform for your courses you will be halfway to successful online courses. Everything just depends on what exactly you want to achieve. If you want to allow your students to re-watch your lectures after the course then choose some platform that allows you to do so. The same thing is if you want your lectures to include as many students as possible without any interference, then you need to find one that works the best for you. There are a lot of great platforms for online courses, such as Skillshare and Thinkific.
6. Put challenges in front of your students
Keep in mind that it is okay for your students not to solve every task you give them and that this opens the possibility of motivating them. A lot of students like to have big challenges ahead of them to better master some material or use some programs. If the challenges are too difficult for them, you can always show or explain them in the lecture. Also, you can encourage other students to explain how they approached the challenge in their own way.
7. Set a reasonable price for your courses
Make sure to see what prices are on the market for courses similar to yours. It does not make sense to put a much higher price if your competitors offer the same service for a more affordable price. Sometimes it is better to put a lower price on your online course and increase it later than vice versa. Especially if you are just starting to create online courses.
Conclusion
In this article, we have presented you with some essential elements for creating an online course. If you decide to include only one element in your plan and program, you will be a step closer to creating a successful online course. We hope we have helped guide you on the right path for your online teaching career.
