How to Create A Successful Plan Outline for Your Course (Template)
It's a simple question. Although that data is stored away neatly in your brain, unpacking it for people who haven't heard of it is an entirely distinct matter. Whatever is clear in your head may be hazy and confusing to others who don't share the advantages of your expertise and personal experience. If you're looking to assist your students achieve those lofty commitments you make in your marketing pitch, you need to provide a roadmap to help students along their way.
This plan is called a course outline. The outline of your course a guideline for your genius as a teacher, but it also helps in delivering your students in a planned orderly manner, layering the skills of your students until they finish your course with the confidence of an experienced professional (and eagerly awaiting your next lesson). ).
If you'd prefer to just sit in a comfortable position and study, you can take a look at our instructional video on how to create an effective outline of your course.
What is the reason course outline are the Key to Success
An outline of the course is important because of two reasons:
- Be aware of the goal. If you know the direction you'll take this helps you consider the steps your students will need to take to reach the destination. What are the skills they'll need to develop as they progress? What foundations do you need to establish at the outset? Similar to a cross-country excursion, if you set out the journey without a complete understanding of where you're going and how you'll arrive there, the possibility is you'll be lost in the process. The way you teach your young child how to read the clock before they learn to count. Likewise, you shouldn't train someone to become a master chef before teaching your children about the ingredients they use, their heat and other seasonings.
- Create expectations. The process of laying out a plan will set expectations for your students. Where you're about to provide them with piece pieces of new facts and skills Your course outline will be their image on the box. It helps them know where they're going, which essential pieces they need to pay attention to, and how to place them in context with one another. Making sure your students have a clear understanding of their goal will help them to be invested in their learning journey along with you.
Making Your Course Outline
A course outline is an excellent tool for helping you deliver on the solutions that you have promised your students. Are you unsure where to begin? Let's look at it in detail.
What is Your Location?
The best place to begin is near the end. In order to create a clear outline, choose your ultimate goal, then go to the back of your head starting from there.
What's the goal of your class? What should students be able to accomplish by the end? Are you teaching them how to cook, paint or even dance the dance of the jitterbug? And lastly, what know-how and abilities should you impart to get your students to their final destination?
Take Your Time and Decide What Steps to Take
When considering these questions, make a list and make it as simple as you can. It's even more simple than this. Start with the most basic foundation you expect every student to have and build up from there. Your students aren't going to be one day Gordon Ramsay before you make sure they know the difference between non-stick cast iron and cast iron pans. No excellent swing dancer missed the lesson about speed. Consider these abilities as the building blocks you need to put them over each other in order to construct the solid foundation.
Start with an orientation chapter that introduces everyone to the terms and concepts that you'll be using for the remainder of your course. It's great for setting expectations and giving your students an overview of the course that's to follow, but it's also an effective way to make sure everyone starts off with the same mindset. It's impossible to tell the moment a new student enrolls in your class if they're already familiar with the jargon and shorthand you use on a daily basis. The orientation program will allow you to ensure that everyone is aware of the same terms and begins your course with the same concepts. Simple - there's it's not necessary to create a new system and this is vital since it is the manner in which students learn the rest of your class.
Once you've figured out what building blocks you need, it's time to put them into order. This make up chapters or modules for your courses (or whatever you choose to name the modules!). Organize your steps sequentially and build each step upon the previous. It is recommended to put your most basic content in Module 1 and build upon it and then move it to Module 2 then move on. If you can, be able to have some overlap between the modules in order to assist students with contextualising the information by creating connections to what they learned in the previous section.
In the field of education the term is scaffolding. It encompasses different instructional strategies to help your students move toward a greater grasp of their subject and an ability to apply this knowledge in a variety of ways for a wide range of circumstances.
Make It Stick
Each module should backup your learning material with two things:
- Learning tools and resources
- Exercises for practice. We all know practice makes perfect, don't you think? Give your students the opportunity to put their new-found abilities to the test prior to you begin the next batch of new knowledge. Activities that practice retention of knowledge and helps students put their knowledge into their minds before teaching the next lesson. Create a test on the course builder, or assign a group conversation activity on your community website or other online group.
It is important to keep your students in mind that the practice exercises do not constitute a formal test. It's a place for your students to get involved and learn a particular skill before they have to face situations where they have to wield these skills independently! There's nothing wrong with a traditional the multiple-choice test, or get creative with things that aren't in your usual box. The sky's the limit you just need to give them an chance to put into practice the lessons you've taught them!
Test It! Test
Finally, you should incorporate some kind of assessments to your curriculum. It's easy to add assessments in your course through the assignment or Brillium Exam features in the course builder, but you don't necessarily require one exam per module. It could be that you do one test for each module or two or three modules or you might even do one large assessment , or wrap-up task right at the end. Make sure that your schedule for assessment is guided by the content of the course.
It could be an assignment that they hand in, or a more deep-dived quiz, or perhaps an integral project. It's all up to you and your materials! It is important to schedule assessments throughout the course and think about the use of the key skills groups or topics.
A good guideline for assessments is to consider asking "if they haven't mastered the info from Modules 3 and 4, are they likely to do well in Module 4?" If it's a resounding no, then you need to set an assessment activity during the time between Module 3 to 4 in order to allow students the opportunity to assess their progress and get the opportunity to correct their course or review before diving in deep into the depths of new information - otherwise it's like trying to learn multiplication before that you've got it down!
If you are planning your tests, make sure to include certain information from the previous module. An assessment is an excellent method to test the skills learned from one module, but it is also necessary to have larger-scale assessments that let students assess themselves on a broad range of skills as well as have the chance to mix and integrate module-specific knowledge before moving forward.
Formatting Your Course Outline
Now that you've got the necessary pieces now, you're ready to connect them together. The outline of your course is provided below. example for you below, and a downloadable template to help you create your own.