How To Become A Successful Course Creator

I started teaching some 16 years ago. In the beginning, I was only responsible for teaching courses that had already been created with an effective curriculum in place. However, over the course of the next five years, I slowly transitioned into curriculum development, and finally into creating new courses.

For the last decade or so, I have been developing curriculum for a wide range of courses both at further and higher education level. I am the lead assessor and quality assurer at Britannia School of Academics, a recognised training provider for teaching professionals. Therefore, I often get to train and mentor professionals who themselves are course creators, or are training with us to be one.

When it comes to creating courses, the following considerations are very relevant.

1. Accredited vs Unaccredited course

As much as one should be excited about a great idea for a course that people are going to love, it’s always worth ensuring it is perceived as credible. Even though Continuous Professional Development (CPD) can be achieved through an unaccredited course and your potential clients/learners might still like the idea of doing an unaccredited course, my own inclination has always been to offer courses that are accredited by a regulatory body. Exactly what you decide upon also depends on the sector you operate in, the priorities of your clients, and the affordability of your clients.

Also Read Unaccredited CPD Courses

2. Doing your research

In the excitement of having a wonderful course idea that you are passionate about, you can be tempted to ignore the importance of market research to gauge the demand and affordability of your client base. One of the many ways in which this could be achieved is to look at keyword planner on Google Ads to review key statistics on how often people search for courses like the one you aim to design and offer. This could lead to further queries such as prices being charged by other course providers so that you can decide on the best price for your course.

3. Do you hold a related qualification?

Courses are usually split into units or modules, with each module having different learning outcomes. Each learning outcomes is then assessed through a range of assessment criteria. To make sure that your learners can pass each assessment criteria, you design a curriculum comprising of a range of topics to be taught and exactly how you wish to teach and assess these topics. Schemes of work are then prepared, followed by lesson plans for each of the lessons that you aim to deliver. The actual delivery only starts from this point onwards.

There are a lot of technicalities involved in the above, so if you do not have a recognised teaching qualification along with some experience of carrying out the above tasks, chances are that you will end up creating a course that would be too confusing and ill-structured, and even fail to deliver on the promises made. Therefore, make sure that you are qualified and experienced before embarking on a journey to design new courses.

4. What sort of VLE you are going to use?

You will hardly ever find a course provider that is trying to deliver a course without the use of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). I have used some of the best ones including Canvas, Ulearn, Smart Assessor and Google Classroom. However, I have found Moodle to be the best option available in the market.

Moodle is used by thousands of universities around the world and hundreds of thousands of SME training providers. You will find countless plugins and themes created to enhance the Moodle experience, most of them being available as free open-source files. Moodle provides an easy and yet comprehensive solution to design and offer your courses to a range of learners.

Before you start any kind of work, make sure you have a plan for what sort of VLE you are going to use and any supporting plugins or tools that will be needed.

Closing remarks

The above is not an exhaustive list, but rather what I would highlight as the most important considerations when designing a new course. I am happy to be part of any study on the topic. If you wish to look at a sample of a course, for which I have personally designed the curriculum and delivery, please visit the page Level 3 Award in Education and Training by Britannia School of Academics. I am also happy to allow you to have access to the course free of charge if you happen to be interested in experiencing it further.