The Science of Learning

By: Justin Ferriman • October 24, 2017
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One of the most important things you will do as a course creator is to design the course in a way that resonates best with your target audience.

In fact, before you do anything else when creating a course you need to first clearly define the audience, including things like their background, previous knowledge on specific topics, applicable experiences, and general expectations. Doing this upfront will help you to craft a better course.

The very fact that a target audience can vary so much between different learning programs is why “off the shelf” training can be ineffective. I have seen training programs where course creators just borrow private label right content and don’t tailor it for the audience. As you can imagine, the end-results is rather poor in these scenarios.

As online education becomes the norm rather than the exception today learners have higher expectations on the entire experience. If the content doesn’t seem like it’s applicable to them (even in the slightest bit) then they will move on. If you sell courses, expect a refund request.

So how do you create courses that work for your learners? There is no fool-proof method but you will benefit by knowing the science behind the way people learn (and are influenced) as detailed in the infographic above.

Taking into account learner emotions, sociability, receptiveness to gamification, and so on can go a long way in improving the effectiveness of your course content.

Beyond that though there are some other things you can do.  For example, starting by using a proven course creation model is a smart choice.

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter