Basic Elements of an E-Learning Course

[Keny]

Basic Elements of an E-Learning Course

When something’s new, it can feel complex and difficult. And when you’re first getting into e-learning and you view a final course, it’s hard to imagine what all the moving pieces are—especially since you’re viewing slides one at a time.

However, when you peel back the curtain and look at the most basic elements of an e-learning course, you’ll realize that many of these elements are part of most e-learning courses. If you’ve taken or designed at least one online course, you should recognize most of these common course building blocks.

While there’s no rule that governs which elements are in every course, it’s often helpful for new users to know the basics about each element and where it fits in the overall course structure.

Course Welcome Screen or Cover Screen 

The course welcome screen is the first slide your learners see. In addition to welcoming learners visually, it usually also provides options for navigating the course modules.

Welcome slides can be static or interactive. Static screens will include the course title and include engaging imagery to set the tone of the course.

Interactive slides can include static images combined with video introductions or animations synced with text and audio narration.

Instructions

The purpose of the instructions slide is to help learners understand the general functionality of the course player so they know how to navigate through the course. Course instruction slides can be either static or interactive.

Static instructions slides will use arrows, callouts, and text to point out the important features of the course player. Noteworthy features typically include navigation buttons, resource tabs, a transcript menu, and help buttons.

Interactive instructions slides can include narrated videos that demonstrate the course features by syncing annotations and callouts to the narration.

Instructions slides are more important in custom courses that use non-standard navigation or that introduce a new course format. The course player and navigation are pretty standard with today’s e-learning tools, so not every course will need to include this slide. Many course designers prefer to let learners choose whether to view the instructions and will add the instructions slide to a player tab or a navigation button.

Learning Objectives

The objectives slide gives learners an overview of the course goals. Usually presented in bullet point format, the list shows actionable objectives the learner should know or be able to do after completing the course.

Objectives do not have to be listed in bullet point format. Often, it’s the client, business partner, or organizational style guide that requires objectives to be presented in list format.

There’s actually a trend in the e-learning industry to find creative alternatives to the bulleted format. Alternatives include scenarios and non-graded quizzes to challenge the learner and create buy-in without specifically listing out the objectives.

Here are some additional resources and discussions on bullet points and making them more engaging:

• Convert Your Bullet Points to Interactive E-Learning with Video
• Five Sure-Fire Ways to Get Rid of Bullet Points
• Ideas on Getting Rid of Bullet Points to State Course Objectives
• Reducing Bullet Points and On-Screen Text
• Animating Bullet Points - Is It Possible to Animate More than One?

Content Slides

Content slides are the meat of your course. These are information slides and include screencasts and videos, scenarios, text and images, charts, and much more.

For a consistent look and feel across your course, you should base your content slides on predefined layouts.

Practice Activities

Practice activities follow content slides and are intended to help learners to help learners strengthen their skills and knowledge. They should include content presented earlier in the module so learners can apply what they just learned.

Knowledge Checks

Knowledge checks are informal slides at the end of each topic, module, or course, where learners can test their progress during a module. These slides might look like typical quizzes (i.e., true/false, multiple choice, etc.), or take on a more casual format, such as a scenario in which learners must make decisions about what to do in a real-life situation. In most courses, knowledge checks are typically scored but not graded against the final course assessment.

Assessment

The assessment slide serves as a final assessment of what the learner learned during the course. It may function and feel like the knowledge checks or practice activities, but typically the assessment questions are pulled from all course modules and are usually graded.

Summary

Summary slides are usually found at the end of each topic, module, and course. Their purpose is to quickly state the key points from that section before moving on to the next topic or module.

Summary slides are typically presented in bullet point format. They can include links back to specific sections in the module to help learners refresh their understanding of one or more key points.

Supporting Resources

Resource slides provide post-course support for your learners. These slides are typically found at the end of each topic, module, or course. They can also be included in resource tabs on the player so learners can view them on-demand.

Typical resources included are:

• Contact information: People to contact for help or questions about the course
• Continued learning: Additional resources beyond what was in the course
• Job aids: Handouts from the course that can be used as performance support

Final Thoughts

As a course designer, you have unlimited options for combining e-learning elements in your courses. Your experience level, combined with expectations for your course and learners, will influence many of your choices. And if you’re a new e-learning designer, try covering these common elements to start. Good luck! Leave a comment or post in the forums if you have any other questions about these e-learning elements or want to share ideas for combining them in unique ways.