Most trainers and HR professionals know how face-to-face training works. But how do you convey the same learning content online? Learn now what really matters when explaining in an online course and how to create easily understandable e-learnings!
Digital training can be successful, as the last two years have clearly shown us. Nevertheless, learning success in online courses often fails due to the same reasons:
Training managers lack direct feedback from their participants on whether they really understand the learning content.
Participants feel left alone. They do not know whom to turn to when they do not understand the content or the assignment.
You can avoid both problems by paying attention to some essential things as a course leader. In an online course, two central things matter: good explanations and regular communication between the trainer or course leader and participants. The direct feedback from seeing questioning faces is naturally absent. This makes your specific instructions and explanations in the course even more important.
One important note in advance: The goal of your course should always be for participants to understand the content immediately, to process it easily, and to internalize the learned content.
What matters in good explanations in an online course?
An online course is as individual as the topic you want to convey with it. Therefore, there is of course no one-size-fits-all schema that fits every course. After all, it depends both on your course topic and on the chosen learning media.
To reach as many people in the course as possible, a varied structure of your online course is helpful. Variety maintains motivation and attention. Both are needed as a basis, even before substantive explanations begin. How to design e-learnings appealingly is explained in this article: In 4 Steps from Boring Online Course to Successful Highlight
4 Tips for Better Explanations in an Online Course
1. Understandable Language
For participants to focus on the content of your online course, simple language is important. This makes it easier for participants to quickly understand the content without problems.
Use no or very few technical terms that you need to explain.
The same applies to foreign words, especially Anglicisms.
Keep your sentences short and avoid unnecessary adjectives.
Address your participants directly and use active voice.
Formulate examples and content in positive language instead of negations.
2. Spark Interest
An important factor for the learning success of your online course is, of course, the participants' interest in the course content. Online, this can be significantly more complicated than in person, as you cannot directly ask participants about it.
Find a hook topic that interests or personally affects your participants and use this as an entry point.
Remembering is easier when the topic is linked to other things. Relate it to everyday situations and explain why topics are important.
Don't forget the fun of learning and incorporate playful elements, such as edutainment or gamification elements, into your online course.
Create closeness between you and the participants by “speaking the same language” and paying attention to linguistic peculiarities.
3. Establish Connections
You probably remember it from your school days: Before the occasional vocabulary test, we all memorized bluntly and then quickly forgot everything afterward. While rote memorization works for a while, the learning effect is lost: To retain things in the long term, you need connections and clear goals.
Make clear what the learned material is good for and when it can be useful.
Wrap learning content in exciting stories and build a suspense curve in the sense of storytelling.
Focus on real practical examples, especially when it comes to more complex learning content or processes.
4. Take Small Steps
Approach your online course slowly; after all, everyone involved needs to get used to the new learning conditions. Make things as easy as possible for yourself and the participants, and focus on simplicity.
Convey a clear goal in every learning unit that you want to achieve with it.
Keep complexity in your course low and avoid all elements that could cause confusion.
Focus on small self-contained learning units, very much in the style of microlearning. This way, participants can better manage their learning time.
Conclude each topic with a brief summary or a quiz. This way, participants are more likely to reflect on whether they have understood everything before starting a new learning chapter.
Conclusion: You don't need to reinvent the wheel for your online courses! Use your existing content, such as from day workshops or presentations, and split it into small learning bites. Ultimately, both your explanations and the course structure are important! With these tips, there should be no questions or problems in your next online course 🙂
Free Guide
The Ultimate Microlearning Guide for Online Courses
Do you want to learn more about how to take small steps in an online course? Then download the free Microlearning guide now and get inspired by a detailed example!
To the free Microlearning Guide
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