By Marina Arshavskiy
The choice of your online course delivery method is as vital as the process of developing it. And as an eLearning instructional designer and developer, you must know about the most popular online course delivery methods. When you have a basic idea of all the common techniques used for transmitting an online lesson, you’ll be in a better position to choose the best one for your courses!
So, if you are a new instructional designer, you must be wondering about the best ways to deliver your online learning program. If yes, then this article is just what you need! Today, we are going to walk you through the six best online course delivery methods out there.
Videos remain the most popular and engaging method of online course delivery. According to Dr. James McQuivey of Forrester Research, one minute of video content equals almost 1.8 million written words. Sounds surprising, right? But, yes, that’s true!
Moreover, the human brain loves visuals more than anything. That’s why it processes videos 60,000 times faster than texts. And above all, nothing can beat human interaction. Although it is difficult to compete with person-to-person classroom teaching methods, videos are indeed the next best thing!
Delivering your course through interactive videos helps you create engagement, keeps the sessions interesting, and boosts the students’ learning speed. Plus, students enjoy seeing the face of their instructor.
So if you are camera-shy, we encourage you to take that leap of faith, be brave, record your video, and upload it for your students. You can also combine it with some graphics. It’s a great way to deliver your eLearning courses.
Audios are perfect for helping your students learn on the go. Learners can listen to their lessons while they are on their way to college or work, doing workouts in the gym, traveling, or doing any other chore.
The audio delivery method is most suitable for trainers who give lessons on meditation, teach different languages, provide instructions on music, or use podcasts for their online courses.
You can add some nice and trendy music at the beginning and end of each module to make it more delightful and engaging. Moreover, you can also extract audio from your video lessons and give learners the option to just listen to the course rather than watching the visuals. This option is beneficial in conditions of low network connectivity.
Communicating your online lessons in textual format has always been a go-to option for many online instructors. The reason being, the textual format is one of the most versatile ways for creating your course content.
You can create documents or slides and add images, videos, hyperlinks, and a lot more things to them. You can provide worksheets and exercises to the learners. Moreover, you can also produce lessons in PDF format and allow the students to access them if they are interested in reading them later.
Texts are also great at supporting the video content. You can create captions (in different languages) or provide scripts below the visual content.
Stimulation or scenario-based training programs are widely popular in physical or face-to-face classes. In this method, the instructor re-creates an actual environment and presents the learners with real-life scenarios. They are asked to apply their newly acquired skills and knowledge so the instructor can test them under contextual circumstances.
Today, technological advancements have enabled instructors to use stimulation training for their digital courses as well. Though creating such a course is a little tricky, its impact is magnificent.
With 3D graphics and tools, you can set up a life-like scene for your learners. You can provide them with a guided discussion and then present a series of open-ended or multiple-choice questions to determine what the student would do in that particular situation.
When learners pay for an online course, they want value for their money. They want something they can have at any time and anywhere. And therefore, providing downloadable materials in your online course is a great way to communicate your knowledge and offer them value for their money.
You can allow your students to download multiple types of files, ebooks, worksheets, workbooks, guides, podcasts, supplementary courses, templates, videos, graphics, and pretty much anything relevant to your course.
Delivering your courses through downloadable materials is convenient, saves a lot of your time, is cost-effective (as hundreds of students can use the same learning material), and allows the learners to study whenever they want.
Synchronistic course delivery methods basically include live interaction between the instructor and the learners. Online courses following this delivery method are more formally structured and have fixed dates for the beginning and end of each class. Moreover, there are deadlines for the completion of each module and submission of every assignment.
You can conduct live webinars, Q&A sessions, discussions, and even one-on-one mentoring programs. You can ask the learners to connect via apps or portals like Zoom or Microsoft Meetings and deliver your online course in real-time.
While conducting live classes is more challenging than using pre-recorded videos and audios, it has its benefits too. You get a chance to connect with the learners in real-time and ensure that everyone is progressing through the course simultaneously. On the other hand, the students get the opportunity to take part in lively discussions, study together with their peers, ask their questions, and get an instant response directly from you.
So there were our top six online course delivery methods! As a course creator, the best thing about choosing your delivery method is that you can get as creative as you like. There are no fixed rules that apply here, and so you can let your creativity be in the driving seat.
You can choose to go with only a single method, or you can mix and match various delivery methods for your online course. You can include both audio and video elements, provide downloadables, and conduct live webinars too. It all depends on the needs of your learners and what kind of learning experience you aim to deliver!
This article first appeared on the Your eLearning World website and is published here with permission.
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