“Designing and Delivering Online Courses: An Essential New Normal Skill”

Today, we have asked Mr. Jody Salas, our resource person on program development and facilitation, to give us his insights on developing and delivering online courses, an essential life skill in today’s “new normal.”

If you are wondering why there is so much misinformation and negativity on the internet, this is because of the simple fact that the internet is susceptible to GIGO – Garbage In, Garbage Out.  And it’s so much easier to just share existing content with your friends and social networks.  This is why it’s crucial for “good” people to create and share informative and trustworthy content.    

To express your opinion and share your view point to the global community, you need to learn how to create digital content.  Furthermore, if you want to increase your reach and extend your influence, then you definitely need to know how to teach online.

Whether you are into training your employees, or teaching as a profession, or leading your sales and marketing teams, or promoting social advocacy and community development – your online activities lead towards a common purpose: to get your message across a wider audience and influence their mindset and behavior.

Here are some tips to get you started:

Define the learning objective

Are you imparting knowledge, developing skills, changing attitudes and behaviors?

If it’s about knowledge, learning activities to improve understanding and retention of key concepts should be employed.  If it’s skills building, time between sessions would be recommended to give your participants time to practice.  If it’s about persuading changes in behavior, then stimulating emotional and psychological responses as well as reflection and introspection would be appropriate.  There are countless combinations but we need to ensure the teaching design must align to the learning objectives.

For example, if you are in the automobile industry and you want to increase awareness of your brand, you may create learning videos not necessarily showcasing the cars that you sell but to teach young drivers how to change tires, etc. In this case, possible customers will not only learn a new skill but they will also be more aware of your brand.

Know your target audience

Is this intended for local and international participants? What is their demographic profile?  If you know who you are talking to, then you can provide appropriate context, references, and use relatable analogies to illustration your point.  Defining the demographics is also crucial in deciding the most effective learning technologies to use.

Further to the earlier example, it would be helpful to identify what kind of driver that you would want to target. If you wish to target young and new drivers, it will be easier to plan the content and to choose how the learning material will be delivered.

Define the content

What is needed to fulfill the learning objectives for the intended target audience?  After the two steps mentioned earlier, you should be able to ascertain the scope of the content as well as the ideal way to deliver it.  It is important to define parameters such as the prerequisite to the course, and to describe the limitations of the content.

Apply blended learning

What is the instructional plan, teaching methodology and preferred media? Will it be administered once or through several sessions?  The next step is to curate the content using a blended learning approach.  In line with the learning objectives and your knowledge of your audience, you can tailor fit the design of the course to maximize the learning experience.

Use technology

What learning technologies and tools will you incorporate that will be effective for the target audience?  Given our current situation, using simple and easy to use technologies or apps which do not require superior internet access, would be useful and helpful.

Salas will conduct a virtual workshop on “Designing and Developing Online Courses: Managing Digital Learning Programs for the Workplace” on December 14-15, 2020.  This course is designed for HR practitioners, as well as leaders responsible for continuous professional development of their team and employees of the organization.  The course is also be beneficial to sales and marketing professionals who plan to engage their customers through digital content, as well as those involved in social advocacies.

For your online learning needs, Inquirer Academy could assist you in designing and facilitating a webinar or virtual workshop for your organization.

For more information about the workshops and schedule of online courses offered by Inquirer Academy, please email [email protected], or call (0945) 2158935 and look for Jerald Miguel.

The author is the Executive Director of the Inquirer Academy.