You've decided to create online learning; the next step to creating a learn-able virtual program focuses on structuring your content.

These strategies all involve following the Principles of Adult Learning, a topic I've written about more extensively in this blog post.

The key to applying these principles is to remember that people like self-directed, well-organized content that is relevant and applicable to them right now. With that in mind, here are some strategies for conveying content in a more engaging and learn-able way:

1. Stick to focused objectives to avoid knowledge dumping onto the learner. No one wants to read tons of irrelevant information; it's dry, boring, and inhibits the learner from actually learning what they want to learn.

Less is More

Rather, laser-focus on your objectives and tie these to the desired performance outcomes of the course. Guarantee that your learner will reach these outcomes. Lots of online "learning" simply pours unstructured information...

Let's address the elephant, the question so many of us are asking ourselves quietly:

Can people actually learn when they're being taught online? Does this work? Is it realistic? Or are we all just wasting our efforts?

Yes, I just asked the un-askable question. The question that students, teachers, professionals, and educators of all sorts are asking themselves right now. The question that we're all scared to answer honestly when students worldwide from the youngest of elementary to the oldest of professional continuing education have no choice but to convert to this online model of teaching.

I know I've heard a lot of complaints that online learning isn't working. Complaints that it's not engaging, that it's too much screen time, that it's hard to handle, and that it's ineffective. Professionals complain, parents complain, teachers complain — 8-year-old screen lovers complain.

The truth is: online learning can work, if done right.

I have a lot of experience as an instructional...

Worst case scenario: You review course analytics and only 2% of people have completed your course all the way through. How annoying is that? The goal is to get people to buy your course and finish it so they can get results, right?

Want to improve that metric on your current course and especially when you design future courses? Here are five tricks to get people to start and finish your course.

1. Halve the Goal

From Jon Acuff’s book “Finish: Give Yourself The Gift Of Done”, we can apply this strategy to our own course design. He says that perfectionism prompts us to over-stretch. We believe that we have to set large goals for ourselves and our audience. The planning fallacy refers to human tendency to under-estimate the amount of time needed to complete a task. The bigger the goal, the more insurmountable it seems halfway into the process.

The Solution: Cut your goal by 50%. When you reduce the size of your course or module, or at least cut the learning...

Before I was a corporate instructional designer and entrepreneur, I was a violin teacher. Since I was in high school, I taught little kids, teenagers, middle-aged women, and a few old men how to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Irish fiddle tunes. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of work!

After eight years, my ears were ready to explode and I knew it was time to move on. But I will never trade that time because it led me to this fulfilling career today – teaching adults new skills in just about every subject based on my experience as a learning consultant and instructional designer.

It’s why I’m passionate about supporting small businesses, coaches, consultants and other professionals who are working so hard to offer their unique skills to improve the lives of others.

Throughout my decade long journey of teaching and coaching all kinds of subject matter to people of all ages and walks of life, I learned what motivates adults to learn and how to ensure the...