Hello community! Do you have a tip on how to structure a long course that is divided into 5 main parts and up to 8 sub-parts (I can't shorten it, it's an institutional course). I have started on Rise and am introducing interactive slides as I go along. Thanks in advance
It's definitely tricky when you have a long course and you can't cut anything. What I find can help these kinds of courses feel less overwhelming for learners is often just a bit of organizing and labeling.
First, take advantage of the sections feature in Rise 360's course outline to cluster sub-topics together. Instead of a long list of lessons (which can make learners feel like they'll never get through everything) you could have a section for each of your 5 main parts and the multiple sub-parts listed as lessons under each section. Here's a screenshot with placeholder lessons to show how that could look.
Clustering related content together like this can help learners see the course's overall themes and give them logical points to pause and take a break between lessons. It also just makes a large number of lessons seem a bit easier to take on.
Second, another thing that may help is how you title your lessons (and sub-topics in them). If every title is clear about what's being covered in that lesson/section, it makes it easy for learners to skim through, understand what's being covered, and revisit content if needed.
Hey Nora! I also want to say, welcome you to the community!! 🎉 To go along with Bianca's helpful ideas, I just want to add that you can also break up content within a lesson by using the Continue block. Here's an article about it to show you how it works and to give you some more ideas.
On a related note, my client has long MS Word-based manuals that students are expected to read on their own and then take tests to assess their understanding of each module. They want to transition to online learning but it seems to me that maybe this type of course content may not lend itself to eLearning at all, except for the tests. What do you think?
@Nora Hbb, Aside from splitting the lessons, it's possible to split them into modules. The advantage is that each module can be a separate event that can provide them with a "mind break" between events to avoid cognitive overload.
@Rik Barnes, Good God! Really? Read an entire manual? When it comes to software, it's best to create learning experiences that are task-based, rather than just "click here for this, click there for that". Also, there is an overwhelming amount of MS Word tutorials that can become just-in-time learning for whatever purposes they need them (unless there are strict policies or the required knowledge of Word is too company specific for that).
I really doubt that learners are going to use all the features included in the manual (again, unless it's a company manual created for their specific purpose). If it's just general Word features, Word is a commercial software with widely available training.
I see that I didn't explain my issue very well. The course consists of dozens of hard-copy manuals (industry-specific topics, not related to software at all). Even if I split them into modules, add some graphics, etc., am I right in thinking that simply putting the reading material online isn't going to accomplish much? And even if will, it may be better to just post the PDF-versions online rather than build them into Rise.
Hi Ric. Based on what you've shared, simply porting the manual text as is into e-learning courses might not make a huge difference on its own. That would just be the same material in a different form. But there are some other ways e-learning might be able to make this learning experience less overwhelming for people. For instance:
If the manuals are dense and hard to understand, you could create e-learning courses that share the content using more conversational language and also show examples specific to the ways your students need to use Word.
If there are instructions in the manuals that students are having trouble following, you could add screenshots and/or video tutorials to your e-learning version to make it easier for people to understand.
If the manuals are poorly organized, moving the content to e-learning would give you an opportunity to rearrange the content in a better order, cluster similar content if it's not clustered already, and/or give sections better titles.
If most of the manual is working for students, but there are a few areas they tend to struggle with understanding (and/or getting right on the test), you could make a short e-learning course to supplement the manuals and provide better explanations of the content the manuals aren't great at explaining.
Which of those ideas (if any) could work well is going to depend so much on your learners as well as what challenges they might be experiencing with the content and current learning process.
6 Replies
Hi Nora. Welcome to the community!
It's definitely tricky when you have a long course and you can't cut anything. What I find can help these kinds of courses feel less overwhelming for learners is often just a bit of organizing and labeling.
First, take advantage of the sections feature in Rise 360's course outline to cluster sub-topics together. Instead of a long list of lessons (which can make learners feel like they'll never get through everything) you could have a section for each of your 5 main parts and the multiple sub-parts listed as lessons under each section. Here's a screenshot with placeholder lessons to show how that could look.
Clustering related content together like this can help learners see the course's overall themes and give them logical points to pause and take a break between lessons. It also just makes a large number of lessons seem a bit easier to take on.
Second, another thing that may help is how you title your lessons (and sub-topics in them). If every title is clear about what's being covered in that lesson/section, it makes it easy for learners to skim through, understand what's being covered, and revisit content if needed.
Hey Nora! I also want to say, welcome you to the community!! 🎉 To go along with Bianca's helpful ideas, I just want to add that you can also break up content within a lesson by using the Continue block. Here's an article about it to show you how it works and to give you some more ideas.
On a related note, my client has long MS Word-based manuals that students are expected to read on their own and then take tests to assess their understanding of each module. They want to transition to online learning but it seems to me that maybe this type of course content may not lend itself to eLearning at all, except for the tests. What do you think?
Hello all.
@Nora Hbb, Aside from splitting the lessons, it's possible to split them into modules. The advantage is that each module can be a separate event that can provide them with a "mind break" between events to avoid cognitive overload.
@Rik Barnes, Good God! Really? Read an entire manual? When it comes to software, it's best to create learning experiences that are task-based, rather than just "click here for this, click there for that". Also, there is an overwhelming amount of MS Word tutorials that can become just-in-time learning for whatever purposes they need them (unless there are strict policies or the required knowledge of Word is too company specific for that).
I really doubt that learners are going to use all the features included in the manual (again, unless it's a company manual created for their specific purpose). If it's just general Word features, Word is a commercial software with widely available training.
I see that I didn't explain my issue very well. The course consists of dozens of hard-copy manuals (industry-specific topics, not related to software at all). Even if I split them into modules, add some graphics, etc., am I right in thinking that simply putting the reading material online isn't going to accomplish much? And even if will, it may be better to just post the PDF-versions online rather than build them into Rise.
Hi Ric. Based on what you've shared, simply porting the manual text as is into e-learning courses might not make a huge difference on its own. That would just be the same material in a different form. But there are some other ways e-learning might be able to make this learning experience less overwhelming for people. For instance:
Which of those ideas (if any) could work well is going to depend so much on your learners as well as what challenges they might be experiencing with the content and current learning process.