Design a Killer Course in 4 Easy Steps

By honouring these learning principles, your attendees will be engaging and eager to learn within your training programme and will take away what they are looking to learn from your course.

3.  Define Learning Objectives

Learning objectives form the foundation of your course. They are a list of things your attendees will be able to do once the training is completed and form a blue print for the direction of your course.

Once you have thrashed out these, all of your content should cover them, whether that be quizzes, practical tasks, workbooks, etc. Through the completion of content both the course leader and the attendees should be able to understand how what they have learnt hits the objective on the head – and how they’ll apply this to the ‘real world’.

4. Design Your Training Materials

Training materials are the things that will help your learners to reach their objectives, and ultimately their goal. Without your materials, no matter how much knowledge you possess on the subject, your learners will struggle to assimilate the information without engaging in meaningful and relevant learning episodes.

Again, any content or assessments must relate directly to the learning objectives. If it is cryptic or difficult to relate to, your learners will struggle to see what’s in it for them, and disengage. If we revisit the learning principles, you’ll see that your adult learners are self-directed and want training that is task-oriented, so it’s important that you put them in control of the learning process. This means allowing learners to talk to each other, give feedback and ask questions.

Once your training course is complete, it’s time to deliver the first run, which is exciting and scary at the same time. But don’t worry! These first courses will give you the feedback and experience you need to refine and change the course if needs be. Don’t be afraid to ask learners what they enjoyed and what they didn’t enjoy, so you can chop and change the training for the next run!