12 Principles for a Better Online Course Experience

Like a physical class, a good e-learning program should offer the students a joyful learning experience. The course challenges the students to grow their knowledge, skills, and abilities. Also, it enhances the productivity of learners.

A quality online course is challenging and engaging; it calls upon students' participation, captures their attention and interest, and motivates them to participate. The program should be a sensible, practical, and effective structure that integrates the best research-based and proven practices.

Keep reading if you want to become an online course builder or consider restructuring your current course. This article brings you twelve principles that you can apply to enhance your students' online learning experience.?

Before you get started, you need to ask yourself these questions:

1. What do I want to teach my learners?
2. What kind of learning experience do I want for them?

The answer to the first question lies in your material, and I believe it is of good quality. And, how you present your course material to students answers the second question.?

Before recording your course, it is advisable to plan how you deliver.?

The following principles will help you plan your programs:??

Provide Relevant Contextual Learning Material

Linking theory with real-life practical examples helps learners to understand quicker. Contextualization helps simplify concepts for learners allowing them to retain ideas and apply what they learned.?

Some helpful tips include:

• Link theory to practice: learners understand the idea best if they apply it practically. To help with this, you need to create several practical assignments at the different course levels for your learners.
• Illustrate multiple examples: since your group will have many learners with varying backgrounds, it will be more helpful to have diversified models. Diversification will increase the chances of every student relating to and applying the lesson in real life.??

Plan The Program At An Impactful Pace

The success of your course depends on its pace and how you present the learning material. This principle focuses on your teaching skills and an effective learning process that inspires learners to apply the skills you teach.?

How do you determine the most reasonable pace? Here are some tips:

• Include extra learning material to facilitate fast learners amongst your students who are curious to learn more. You need to anticipate slow and fast learners amongst your students; this principle will help accommodate all your learners.
• Split the program into successive equal proportions to make it easier for your students to understand and remember the course contents.
• Understand your students' backgrounds so that you can formulate assignments and quizzes that your learners can comfortably handle and include them in your course material.??

Avoid Unnecessary Jargon To Enhance Clarity

Simplify your language for an average reader instead of stuffing your programs with jargon and sounding like an authority figure.

Ensure you record or write your programs in a language that the majority can understand. Your learners will drop out if you use words they do not understand. To achieve a good readability level, you can use an editing app like Hemingway.

Encourage Interaction As A Means Of Keeping Your Learners Engaged

You can use gamification to add fun to your courses and encourage interaction among the students. Ensure you issue prizes. Also, you can introduce a forum for students to hang out with, such as through a WhatsApp or Facebook group.?

The more interactions you incept with your courses, the higher your students' chances of staying longer in the programs.?

Develop An Intensive Evaluation System

You need to establish an evaluation system that will track your student's progress and ensure that they get the most out of the course. Hence, it is advisable to identify a testing frequency that will routinely emphasize your students' skills.?

Some of the tips that can help you achieve this include:

• Distribute short assignments in tests and quizzes throughout the learning material. Lengthy assessments will consume more time and make it difficult for your learners to master and remember what they learned.
• Create a two-way response system to ensure that you and your students understand the needy areas. Through extensive feedback, learners will know and work on their areas of weakness. On the other hand, you will also improve the program content.

Encourage Innovation And Creativity

Students can give their best if you allow them to think outside the box and be creative, unlike if you force them to use their skills in a predetermined way. Therefore, it is advisable to inspire your learners to delve into different scenarios and possibilities.?

The following points can help you achieve that kind of environment:

• Create assignments that allow learners to express their views rather than restrict them to multiple-choice quizzes. Please encourage them to develop solutions to problems through reports and presentations.?Also, please encourage them to engage in constructive arguments amongst themselves.
• Offer your students opportunities to practice their skills by connecting them to relevant organizations with projects that expose them to real-life experience.

Create Tailor-Made Programs To Meet Expectations

Make sure you meet your set expectations for the course. Tailor your program to help someone acquire the new skill as promised. Think about investing your money and time in something; you will expect results soon.?

Similarly, your students will be happier if you give them the skills they enrolled to get.

Keep Your Lessons Fun-Filled To Prevent Boredom

Imagine during school; you never forgot lessons from that fun teacher, while you could hardly remember anything from the classes of a boring teacher. To maintain your learners' interest and participation, you wouldn't want to be a boring teacher.?

A boring teacher shows no enthusiasm in their class, speaks in a monotonous voice, and delivers poorly. Fun teachers are energetic and excited about what they teach; this helps them maintain their students' engagement.?

Online programs are even more challenging because your engagement with the learners is only through video and audio. Therefore, you need to put in even more effort.?

The trick here is to convey your message with enthusiasm and energy; this will help engage your students.

Create Collaborative Community-Based Programs

Establishing a student community about your program will enable your learners to help one another through sharing knowledge. Similarly, it will aid you in achieving your target.?

You can successfully build community-based programs with the help of the following strategies.

• Encourage peer feedback through discussion groups. Allow your learners to share feedback on their team progress through active, interactive discussions. Then you will also be able to collect valuable data by analyzing the feedback and using it to improve your courses.
• Stimulate teamwork amongst your learners by not treating them as isolated individuals. Nurturing teamwork skills in your students will help prepare them for the workplace where they will collaboratively work towards achieving common goals in departments.?

You can accomplish this by creating assignments that call for group work.

Use The Right Tone To Keep Your Learners Hooked

The tone of your content is essential. High, low, or medium tones can be a very effective tool. Adjust your voice depending on the context. You will not want to be too quiet or too loud. These tricks can help you with tone:

• You can use a higher volume to emphasize important parts.
• You can increase the learners' attention by lowering the volume.
• Make sure your body language goes with your speech, i.e., facial expression, posture, and hand movement. You can try practicing as you watch yourself in front of a mirror or an audience, ask for feedback, and use it to improve your recording.

Add Actionable Exercises To Your Courses

Regularly testing and rewarding your students help you benchmark their progress and enable students to gauge themselves and know their position in the course. You can quickly achieve this by including actionable tests, workbooks, or quizzes in your programs.

Ensure Your Lectures Are Concise And Clear

Because people don't like wasting their time, you need to ensure that your lessons are concise and clear. The quicker and more efficiently you make an ideology clear, the more your program improves.?

For instance, a thirty-minute or one-hour lecture sometimes serves the situation. However, if you can demonstrate an idea within five to ten minutes, then do it that way. Use these tips in making your program precise:

• Avoid lengthening the course by adding valueless content; additional content doesn't necessarily add value.
• Always put quality first, you will save your learners' time, and they will be thankful.

Summary

The key to a better online course experience is giving your learners a real classroom experience online. Think about the skills your students want to acquire and the most suitable and precise way to deliver the knowledge.?