If you have in-depth industry knowledge based on firsthand experience, you have a valuable asset that others can learn from. One way to capitalize on this opportunity is via online courses.
You’ll need engaging and compelling content to get started – but that’s not all. Your audiences’ needs continuously change as the industry does, so its crucial to pay attention to trends and make adjustments as you go.
It’s an iterative process to administer education that remains relevant, effective, and aligned with your learners’ expectations. Want to stay on top of the competition? You should start auditing and optimizing your course curriculum.
What’s a Course Curriculum Audit?
A course curriculum audit is a comprehensive review of your entire course in terms of its materials, structure, and delivery methods. The main goal here is to ensure the curriculum meets your enrollees’ ever-changing, diverse needs.
Meanwhile, here are the other benefits that come with an audit:
- Better learning experience resulting from engagement
- Higher success rates
- Feedback from satisfied learners
- More returning enrollees for your future courses
- The potential attraction of new learners
And while most of their needs evolve, one remains consistent: success at whatever they’re doing. You make it a win-win situation by building your audit initiative on that idea.
Let’s get started with the steps for auditing your course curriculum.
Step 1 – Know Your Intended Learning Outcomes
The learning outcomes serve as your roadmap for developing and delivering your course. Use your intended outcomes to check the following components:
- Course content
- Teaching methods
- Assessments
- Learner engagement strategies
To check these components, you can ask several questions. Will your learners be able to do what they have to after they listen to your lectures? Are they consistently engaged? This is how you ensure that each part of the course aligns with your objectives.
If there’s anything that doesn’t contribute to your intended outcomes, don’t worry. You can save them for future courses should you consider removing them.
Step 2 – Understand Your Learners
This step requires you to continuously communicate with your enrollees and obtain feedback from them. Doing so lets you achieve more when you take action on your audit results. Below are a few ways you can solicit opinions from them:
- Course surveys: You can send surveys before, during, and after the course duration. Just make sure not to exhaust them with too much feedback requisition. To ensure this doesn’t happen, you should instead focus on the course components you consider the most important.
- Open discussion boards, one-on-one sessions, and meetings: By opening these channels, you let your learners know how much you value them and their opinions.
- Course analytics: Don’t stop with your learners’ feedback. Consider the grades, completion rates, and attendance – these can offer valuable insights, too.
Since you get to check what works, what doesn’t, and what you need to start doing, you can determine how to make your course even more engaging. Ensure you allot time to study what your learners want and need.
Step 3 – Evaluate Your Content
After touching base with your audiences or objectives, you should now evaluate the course content itself. You can do this using the information you obtained from your learners while you align each component with your objectives.
But there’s more information to obtain. First, check the latest industry trends and standards. For example, you can always read updates on Meta to ensure your social media marketing course is efficient. Remember, social media is just one industry that can undergo several changes within a single day.
You can also see whether your resources and references are current. There can be new findings you can find on the Internet. The more outdated information is, the more credible you’ll be.
Step 4 – Optimize Audience Reach with CourseAI
Don’t stop at audits. Optimize the entire course based on your findings. Here, CourseAI can help you streamline the audit process by increasing course accessibility and even letting you target your audiences better.
You can also take advantage of CourseAI’s email generators to attract new learners and welcome them. Doing so lets you personalize the experience better for potential and existing enrollees.
Wrapping Up
Remember when we said you’d have to stay updated on the latest changes in your industry? To do this, you need to keep practicing what you’re teaching. But that means you won’t have much spare time to create or update a course.
CourseAI can be your invaluable partner, automating the course creation and update process. This you more time to focus on what truly matters – your expertise.
Make technology work for you. Start optimizing and automating your courses with CourseAI today!