Planning and outlining your courses
Outline Your Course
Outlining your course before starting to draft your lessons is the quickest way to create structure and properly organize your courses. To create inspiring videos, we recommend using a combination of the following throughout your course video lessons:
- Talking Head
- Screencast
- Slides
- Notes and Quizzes
- Structured Workshop (also used for Live Lessons in a Group format)
Before you start outlining the course content, it may help to begin with the learning objectives.
Then by writing out the key points you wish to cover before starting to record your videos, you will be prepared to stay on point throughout your lessons and refrain from going off topic. If you have a script written out, that's even better to get yourself prepared. However, completely reading off a script will most likely sound too mechanical and robotic, so having a bullet point list will help properly guide you throughout each lesson.
Based on studies around viewers attention span, it's better to keep each video lesson to a minimum length and for longer lessons, split them into multiple lessons. The recommended video length is 20 to 30 minutes, but it may vary depending on how technical your courses are. If you have a lot of video hours for your courses, then consider creating a series of courses that will gradually prepare each member and provide a clear progression. Members have the ability to create a learning path and put the courses in the order they wish.
Tips and Ideas Before You Start Recording
When sharing information and data related to a specific concept, such as charts and graphs, it's important to first get the student member familiar with the format and information being displayed. Here are some additional tips that may benefit you when creating your courses:
- Carefully choose your course topics and target audience
- Students learn better and stay more engaged when there is hands-on learning involved
- Provide assignments, practice activities, or projects. Keep them small and manageable to instill a sense of accomplishment when they are completed
- Use good quality audio and video recording tools
- Speak clearly so that your message comes across smoothly and use good lighting when you are filming yourself speaking
- Keep the volume level steady throughout the course
- If you use captions when recording, be sure to double check that the captions are accurate. If not, remove them completely.