Online courses are not that easy to create. To produce a truly effective course, you need to invest your time, effort, and money on it. So if you can reach a greater audience with one course, that would be the best way to maximize what you are investing on it.
The question is, how is this possible? You do not want to make the content of the course too general because it might make the course boring. Sometimes, to make the course engaging and interesting, you have to make it appealing to the learner on a personal level. Of course, that is where the challenge is. The preferences of learners can be quite diverse. Some learners may be in the same industry thus making them interested in the same content. But if they have varying personalities, you need to make sure your method of delivery will cater to this diversity. That is how you can hook them to the lesson so the online courses will result in the highest retention rate possible.
Here are tips that will help you create elearning courses that will appeal to more people despite the diversity in learning preferences.
- Choose how you will make the course relatable to increase its relevance. All courses should be relevant. That means you need to make it relatable. When your learner can relate to the course, that is how it starts to become relevant. The challenge is in figuring out the angle that you will take so the content of your course will be relatable to a diverse learner group. You can probably concentrate on what unifies your learners. Although they may have different learning preferences, they all have that one reason for using your course to learn. Once you know what that is, you should be able to capture their interest.
- Do not make your course culture specific. The reason why online courses are rising in popularity is because it is accessible anywhere. If you want your course to be appealing to learners from different countries and cultures, you have to refrain from using terms and references that are specific to a culture. For instance, pop culture references may not have the same meaning to learners from different countries. By avoiding cultural references, you will keep miscommunication and misunderstanding to a minimum. Not only that, you will also avoid the possibility of offending anyone.
- Be cautious about language-barrier issues. When it comes to creating online courses, English seems to be the popular choice when it comes to the language. While there is nothing wrong with this, you have to consider the fact that different accents may lead to learner misunderstanding. Make sure you use simple references and avoid using slang. If you will use a video, make sure there is a caption. If the platform is sophisticated enough, you may want to consider giving your online courses the ability to translate itself into the native tongue of the learner.
- Use a system that will allow you to easily make modifications. There are cases when you cannot use one course for your diverse learners. Sometimes, you need to change a reference here or an assessment method there. You do not want to start from the ground up when it comes to making all these modifications. What you want is the ability to separate what needs to be changed and reinsert it without affecting the whole course.
By following these tips, you should have an easier time creating online courses that will cater to a diverse group of learners – regardless of who or where they are.
Image courtesy of stockimages for FreeDigitalPhotos.net