Online Course Design: From Outline to Lesson

To design an online course, decide what your student should be able to do, identify what stops them doing it today, and build lessons around those obstacles. Each lesson needs an example, a task and a way to check the work. Test one complete lesson before recording the rest.

You probably already have a list of things you could teach. The difficult part is deciding what belongs in the course, what comes first, and what your students will do with it.

This article helps you turn that list into a usable course outline. It draws on the teaching and writing chapters of SchoolMaker’s course creation guide. For the worked example, imagine a course that helps independent consultants write a sales page for their first paid workshop. It’s an illustrative course, not a customer case study.

Start with something your student can produce

“Understand marketing” doesn’t give you much help when you’re choosing lessons. “Write a workshop sales page” does. You can look at the page and ask whether a visitor would understand who the workshop is for, what they’ll leave with, and how to book.

Write a sentence like this: By the end of this course, [person] will be able to [task], using [resources], to [standard]. That last part matters. A page exists as soon as somebody types a heading. A usable page needs a clearer finish line.

For our example: “An independent consultant with a defined workshop offer will write a sales page that names the intended client, explains the workshop outcome, states the price and answers the practical questions needed to book.” This course assumes the offer already exists. Choosing a profitable workshop topic would be a different course.

Define that starting point too. Ask prospective students to show you their current attempt or explain where they got stuck. Their answers tell you more about the course you need to build than a demographic profile alone.

Find the obstacle before choosing the lesson

The teaching chapter distinguishes five kinds of learning gaps: knowledge, skill, environment, habits and motivation. Use them as questions about your students, rather than five compulsory modules.

A consultant who can’t explain their workshop may need to see what a clear promise looks like. Someone who can identify a good promise but can’t write one needs practice. Someone who has written it but can’t publish may need access to a page editor. Another video about headlines won’t solve that last problem.

• Knowledge: What do they need explained before they can attempt the task?
• Skill: What can they recognise but still struggle to do themselves?
• Environment: What tool, document or permission are they missing?
• Habits: What repeated behaviour does the work depend on?
• Motivation: Where might they lose confidence or stop seeing the point?

Give each obstacle a response. That might be an explanation, a worked example, a practice task, a template or a chance to ask for help. Keep the response close to the moment it’s needed. A page-editor setup checklist belongs before the publishing task, rather than in a resources folder students have to discover themselves.

Put the tasks in the order students need them

Make a list of the work needed to reach the final result. Then ask what each task depends on. A student needs a clear workshop promise before they can write a useful headline. They need a draft before they can test whether the page makes sense to someone else.

Here’s one possible outline for our example. The number of modules is a consequence of the work, not a target to hit.

Notice what’s missing: the history of advertising, an exhaustive tour of website builders and every headline formula you’ve collected. Those may interest you. They aren’t all necessary for this student’s first page.

When you’re unsure whether to include a lesson, finish this sentence: “The student needs this to complete ___.” If you can’t name the task, put the material aside for now. You can offer optional references without making everyone complete them.

Build one lesson around one useful attempt

Before you write a script, fill in four fields: the result, the explanation, the example and the task. For a lesson on workshop promises, the result might be a sentence naming the intended client and the change the workshop helps them make.

Explain the decision they’re making. Show a vague promise, such as “Get better at client communication,” and a more specific one: “Prepare a meeting agenda that ends with a decision and a named next action.” Explain why the second gives a prospective client a clearer idea of the work.

Then give the student a task: “Write your own workshop promise. Underline the action your client will practise. If you can’t underline an action, rewrite it.” The example teaches the criterion; the exercise makes the student use it.

Copy this lesson plan:

• After this lesson, you’ll have: ___.
• To do it, you need to know: ___.
• Here’s a complete example, including why it works: ___.
• Your task, using your own situation: ___.
• Before moving on, check: ___.
• If you’re stuck, ask for help here: ___.

There’s no universal video length that makes this work. A short explanation may be enough for one decision. A software demonstration may need longer. Split a lesson when it contains separate tasks, and leave enough detail for students to make an attempt. The video’s running time is only part of the lesson: doing the exercise takes time too.

Decide how students will check their work

A student who has watched your explanation still needs to know whether their attempt is good enough. Write the review criteria while you design the exercise. This also exposes assignments that are too vague to assess.

For the workshop promise, check three things: it names a particular client, it describes an observable action, and it fits what the workshop actually teaches. “Great job!” gives the student less to work with than “You’ve named the client, but ‘feel more confident’ doesn’t explain what they’ll practise. Name the task that confidence will help them do.”

Choose a review method you can sustain. A checklist works for checking whether a booking link opens. A writing decision may need an example answer, peer feedback or your own review. If you promise personal corrections, allow for reading, replying and reviewing a second attempt. Our assignment feedback guide shows how to write useful comments and plan that workload.

Make revision part of the task when it matters: submit a draft, receive a comment, change the draft. A completion tick or certificate records a milestone; neither is a substitute for checking the skill you promised to teach.

Choose the format after the task is clear

Use a screen recording when students need to see where to enter their page copy. Use text when they’ll need to copy instructions or refer back to a checklist. Use an annotated example when the important part is spotting why a sentence works.

You don’t need every format in every lesson. Extra resources give you more material to maintain and students more places to look. Add a resource when it helps them do the exercise.

Choose the course platform on the same basis. Can students find the next task, submit their work and ask a question where you’ll see it? In SchoolMaker, steps inside lessons can ask students to complete an action, write an answer or submit a file. That’s useful when the lesson ends with a draft to review. You still have to write the instructions and decide what a good draft looks like.

Test one complete lesson before recording everything

Give a prospective student one lesson with its example, exercise and review criteria. Ask them to attempt it. Explain that you’re testing the instructions, so an unclear question is useful feedback.

Watch where they hesitate. Do they understand the assignment but lack an example? Do they copy your example because they don’t know how to adapt it? Can they find the place to submit their work? Ask what they expected to happen next, then compare their submission with the criteria you wrote.

If the exercise doesn’t work, change it before making the remaining lessons. You may need to explain a missing prerequisite, narrow the task or show an imperfect draft being improved. Test the change with another attempt; a more polished video alone won’t tell you whether the problem is solved.

Also try the lesson on a phone: read the instructions, open the example and submit the work. Check captions and readable text for video material. If the exercise requires a desktop tool, say so before the student starts.

Your next step: design the first lesson

Open a blank document. Write your course’s final result, the student’s starting point and the first task that moves them towards that result. Fill in the lesson plan above for that task.

You’ll have something you can put in front of a prospective student before committing to weeks of recording. For the wider process, including choosing a topic and testing demand, follow the complete course creation guide. For what happens after a student joins, use the first-week onboarding checklist.