How to create an online course.
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Project background
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The Challenge
This client needed to train two very diverse sets of learners. On one hand, university professors needed to transfer their highly re-knowned face to face courses to an online setting. On the other hand, busy consultants with little or no previous teaching experience needed the same training, as well as a condensed introduction to the most important principles in education. The Solution To meet the client’s needs, I designed a Create-Your-Own-Course-With-Me. Upon finishing the course, the learner would have created the skeleton of their own course, ready to be handed in for approval. |
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I included:
- Bite-size step by step lessons of best online teaching practices
- Examples from other courses
- Practice activities to apply concepts
- Template to apply the information to their own course
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Course features
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Incorporating microlearning lessons
To capture the busy learners’ attention, I split the content into short microlearning lessons. Each lesson illustrated concepts that the non-educators needed to see and the professors could use as review. |
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Choice
Since the course was intended for consultants and professors with a wide range of experience, I included a key points review section at the end of each lesson where course participants could review and pick the lessons they needed to review or to go deeper. This offered them the freedom to find their level and go from there. This kept the consultants from being overwhelmed with too much new information all at once. The professors could refresh and expand their knowledge by dipping into the exact lesson they need to see. Within a lesson either group always had the option to jump ahead to practice a task, or review the key concept summary to check their knowledge, or wander anywhere else they’d like in the lesson, for that matter. |
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Real Life Application
The Business School required a syllabus of each new course to be approved. Each unit supported the development of one section of a course. The course I created served as a model itself. Then, I incorporated examples from other model courses. Finally, I provided the learners with templates for them to build their own plans for a course. At the end of my course, their course would be in the format required by the university, ready for approval.
The Business School required a syllabus of each new course to be approved. Each unit supported the development of one section of a course. The course I created served as a model itself. Then, I incorporated examples from other model courses. Finally, I provided the learners with templates for them to build their own plans for a course. At the end of my course, their course would be in the format required by the university, ready for approval.