How to Design Efficient and Effective eLearning?

Originally published on linkedin.com

It’s common sense that no one will pay for a course or training program that isn’t effective. So, to get a return on your eLearning investment, you need to make sure that you only include the most important and actionable information in your course. Here, we share steps you need to take to ensure that your program is effective and efficient.

How to Make eLearning Effective?

#1. Define Your Learners and Their Journey

You always want to start by defining your Perfect Learner Profiles (PLPs). These are the people who take your course. It goes hand-in-hand with your LTS or learner transformation statement. The LTS is a crucial part of how to create effective eLearning courses as it defines the start and end points of your learners. Point A is where they are prior to taking your course, and point Z is where they should be at the end. The LTS also highlights your learners’ journey or milestones that take them from A to Z.

This is a crucial part of how to make eLearning effective because it enables you to understand your learners. You will be able to determine their frustrations and pain points. The PLPs and LTS set the stage for you to design the course.

Keep in mind that your design isn’t everything. You should focus more on the results of the course rather than the design. This is why the LTS is so important; it articulates the results that your learners should have.

Related Read: New to eLearning, Where Should You Start?

#2. Decide How You Will Design the Course

The next part of knowing how to create effective eLearning courses is deciding how they should be designed. There are a few aspects of designing your course.

Authoring Tools

A crucial decision is identifying the authoring tool you want to use. Numerous authoring tools are available, such as Articulate 360 and Adobe Captivate. These tools let you author content to upload onto a learning management system (LMS). Our favorite authoring tool is Rise, which costs about $1,300 a year.

Microlearning Videos

The other crucial part of designing your course is microlearning. Using microlearning videos is essential to making eLearning effective, as they keep engagement high.

However, videos aren’t the only type of content you can include in your courses. You can also include slides, PDFs, and more.

#3. Test and Get Feedback

Finally, make sure to test your course and get feedback. We’ve seen many people make the mistake of creating an entire course without getting feedback from the learners. Without valuable feedback, you might design a course that doesn’t deliver value to your learners.

As you create your course, you want to use your LPLs and LTS as your direction. More importantly, ask for regular feedback from your learners. Use that valuable insight to make changes and adjust your methods or decisions going forward. Use the feedback to influence your decisions and direction as you build your course.

We suggest starting small and getting feedback on your initial work. Then, apply that feedback to the microlearning content you already created and the rest of the content you create in the future.

Conclusion

An effective eLearning course starts with defining your perfect learner profiles and creating a learner transformation statement. From there, you can choose your authoring tools and start building microlearning videos and other appropriate content. As you create your course, start small and test along the way, getting feedback from your learners. Adjust your course and future decisions based on this feedback to develop an efficient and effective eLearning experience for your learners.

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