Are you looking to nurture young people with your experience?
The best way to leave a legacy behind is to create a course for those looking to learn more about a particular niche.
So in today’s post, we will discuss the best way to outline your course so you can teach your audience how it is all done.
It will help you stay focused on your course development without wasting too much time researching and creating a course.
Courses are a more efficient and profitable way to get your nurturing spirit across people from all over the world.
Your course needs to be reliable for long-term results
Your course needs to be engaging for your learners. Without this quality, your course will not only ruin your reputation online but also cause you to make a loss after hours of hard work.
The online audience today tends to be quite judgemental before purchasing a course. This is because there are already other courses out there similar to yours.
In addition, the review section, and the discussion section make it easier for people to decide whether or not your course is suitable.
If you want your course to work through then follow this outline so that you will be able to keep your course needed and profitable.
3 Learning Outcomes – Before, during, and after
Your courses will be successful depending on the 3 learning outcomes:
- Before: Before the course starts, you need to meet your audience. This is done by introducing yourself and your course. You also state who this course is for and whether or not your course has any pre-requisite.
- During: Then be sure to state the objectives of your course. Your learners need to know what to expect from your course. For example, you need to mention what will the user gain after completing your course-is it a new skill? Or is it a different perspective a user will experience?
Be honest during this stage. If a user feels your course is not for them, then they will keep your course safe by looking elsewhere. It is better for a user to search for other courses than leave a negative comment on your course rating. - After: This is the final stage where a user has completed your course. If your course has delivered its promises as mentioned in the early stage, then you will have a happy graduate from your course.
Courses that are carefully crafted will have a ripple effect in the long term as your satisfied users will leave positive comments, recommend it to others, and may even market your course on social media.
3 rules for creating a course outline
For creating a course you need to remember the 3 rules of course creation:
- Prepare your course
- Create the course
- Publish the course on a platform
1. Prepare your course
First, do thorough research on the topic that you wish to teach to your audience. You can look at the points below to assist you with your analysis.
- Is this topic popular? If yes, what is the amount of interest in this topic? You can find out the number of interests by browsing course platforms such as Udemy. You can also do SEO using an SEO tool to find how many users are searching for your topic of interest.
- Do not create a course on a topic that does not have any audience. If you already have followers on social media you can ask them what course they would like for their development.
- If you do not have followers online you can do your research as stated above. But be sure to eventually have your own membership platform so that you can receive course feedback, and course discounts and share premium resources such as e-books or any other files.
- Is this a theory-based topic? If yes, you need to ensure the topic is presented in an engaging manner so that users do not lose interest.
- Is your course a training-based course? If so, then you need to ensure you have the resources for presenting the topic. For example, if you are going to teach cooking then you need to have the ingredients and cooking utensils for presenting the cooking techniques.
- When you are done researching your course’s profile. Note down the course topic and break it into smaller modules or chapters of your course. You can do this on paper or by using any editing tool.
- Then, include a summary within each module or chapter to help you plan for your course. The summary should be a description of the module. This will help you to keep track of your course development progress. Remember, you do not have to include everything in one course. If you think there is more information that needs to be added then you can include this in a separate course.
For example, You are trying to create a course on communication skills. It would be best to focus only on communication skills and not on other aspects of your topic such as writing. It would be best to create a separate course on writing if you want to nurture your audience even more.
2. Create the course
Now that you have done the basic outline research of your course, it is time to follow the steps below to create your course. Check the list below to follow along:
- Time is short. A basic course such as one that includes theory may take around only 3 days. But a complex course, such as one that teaches you a new skill, will take around 2 months to complete. This estimation assumes that you work full-time on this course development.
- When creating a course, refer constantly to the summary you made for each module as described above. The summary will help you stay on track which will help you to complete the course.
- If the course is too long, then remember to keep it engaging. Longer courses tend to lose viewers faster than shorter courses.
Have you ever completed a course on Google Analytics? You will see their courses are highly interactive with the learner. So keep your courses interesting even if it is a basic short courses. - Most courses are pre-recorded videos with media formats such as images with videos.
- Make good use of other media formats such as videos, blogs, images, diagrams, e-books, surveys, slides, and so on.
- Theory-based courses are made quickly when using ready-made slides. We highly recommend using ready-made slides where editing is minimal. You can use Canva and Google Slides to make your slides and include them in your videos.
- You can also get help to edit your videos-it will help speed up your progress. Video-based courses tend to take a long time to edit especially if it is a masterclass courses for advanced users.
- Do not forget to test your users who are using your courses. Of course, you do not want to make it too tough. These tests will give you an understanding of how attentive a user was to your course. You can also have exercises but please do not forget to include the answers to these exercises! You do not want your students to be skipping your courses!
- Lastly, you want to review and test your course constantly before publishing the course. You can definitely get someone else to take a look at your course for a more thorough check-up.
3. Publish the course on a platform
After creating your course, it is now time to publish on a platform. It is better to publish it on your own platform. This can be done using the BuddyBoss platform. See more details below.
- Visit this site to start your own course platform. It is a much preferable option in comparison to uploading your course on a platform such as Udemy where your audience will be exposed to your competitors which is very likely to result in your audience getting distracted.
- If you have your own platform, you can set the price according to your preferences without fear of your competitors charging a lower price. This is because your course platform will not feature any courses from your competitors.
- Once you have your site ready to publish your course, you need to market your course on social media. If you already have a following then you can benefit from this by sharing your new course with your followers.
- You will also need to analyze how well your course is doing on your platform. This will depend on how well you are marketing your course. Also, if your course is something users really want, then Google, along with other search engines, will take care of bringing traffic to your site.
- After publication, you need to make sure your course is up to date. If it is outdated, then you need to create the course again with all the updates.
Other tips to remember
Below is a list of extra tips you need to keep in mind for your course.
- You can do live session courses with your audience. There is no hard rule for having only pre-recorded videos as part of your course. In fact, you can charge more if you personally coach your audience in real-time.
- You can also create hybrid courses. Here, you combine the use of pre-recorded lessons along with real-time meetings with your audience. For this to work, you will need to enroll your audience at a specific date and then close the enrollment. Then, you start working only with the audience who enrolled in your course.
- In order for you to stay in business, you need to keep your audience engaged even after they have completed your course. One way is to create more courses. Another way is to have your own membership community which you can constantly use by sharing your blogs and status with your group members.
This is a great way to eventually share your courses and possibly with a discount so that you can maximize your sales. - You can also keep your users engaged on your course site by publishing e-books, and podcasts and even sharing some slides from your course. These types of content can be shared only with your premium members who have bought your course.
- Pay special attention to your courses, if your audience benefits from your course, they will move to try other courses on your course site.
- It is very likely you will be using slides. So use one that has good designs so that you can make your explanations stand out better. Again, check Canva and Google slides to find ready-made slides.
- If you think your courses need to be more lively, then try including a separate module where you are analyzing a debatable topic. You can make this stand out by using a proper heading for such a video.
For example, for a course on programming, you can include a video where you are discussing whether or not a beginner needs to be good with math. This is a popular discussion in the coding community. So for your videos, try to include topics that need a discussion. - There are other ways to make your courses lively. Such as, by using quotes, sharing client success with those who used your course, light-hearted jokes and even sharing your own personal experience. It is really up to you how you want to make your course engaging.
- Lastly, do not forget to share your own profile as an instructor, such as your academic education, contact details, and any certification you have that is relevant to your instructor profile.
Final Thoughts
Creating a course is both fun and challenging.
However, it is extremely rewarding as an instructor looking to watch your learners complete your courses and does wonders because of your nurturing spirit.
All you need to do is just start your course site by following the link. Then follow the instructions as described above.
If you would like to know how instructors are using BuddyBoss to start their own course site then you can check out this page to see how influencers, entrepreneurs, and people from other backgrounds are using BuddyBoss to start their own courses.
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