How to Start an Online Course
As a teacher, you are an expert in creating and delivering lessons. This also makes you a great fit to start an online course!
The world of online courses has blown up in recent years, with classes being offered and sold on all sorts of topics. You can truly create an online course about anything you’d like, whether related to teaching or not. And who better to teach an online course than trained teachers?! Though most courses are geared toward adults, the same skills we use to teach kids can be used when teaching online.
The beauty of learning how to start an online course is that courses can be run asynchronously. You can create them whenever you want and students can access them whenever they want. If you want more of a community aspect, you can add in live calls or group interactions as well.
Online course creation can also act as a mostly-passive income stream. Rather than live teaching each lesson, you can teach the lessons once and have people learn from them time and time again.
3 Simple Steps to Start An Online Course
If you’re interested in exploring the world of online courses and want to start an online course of your own, follow these simple steps to get clear on what you’ll teach about, plan out your course, and get the essential tech pieces set up.
Step 1: Decide What You’ll Teach About
If you want to explore how to create an online course, the best way to begin is by thinking about what you love to teach.
Is there something that colleagues or friends come to you for? Do you find yourself collecting knowledge and resources around a certain topic? Tuning into these questions can help you find great online course ideas you can make a reality.
The sky’s the limit when it comes to course topics! Potential ideas could include:
Education-related topics
Classroom management
Social emotional learning
Supporting new teachers
Math or reading centers ideas
Setting boundaries
Self care for teachers
Non-education-related topics
Knitting
Baking
Fitness
Animal care
Jewelry making
Creative writing
Don’t feel like you need to know everything about the topic you choose to start an online course (that’s likely impossible). You just need to know more than your students and to be able to package what you know along with your unique outlook and perspective.
Step 2: Plan it Out!
Once you’re ready to start an online course and have determined a topic, it’s important to come up with a clear plan. Create a scope and sequence for your course, just like you likely have done when teaching in the classroom.
Decide what your course will and will not teach, then decide what lessons you will include. Consider how your students would best learn the topic you’re teaching about. Will they learn best through demonstrations? Links to resources? Activities?
Your lessons can be a mix of videos, text, and/or worksheets for students to download. For your videos, you can record yourself, slides, and/or share your screen. Think about what the best options for both you and your students will be.
And remember - you don’t need anything overly complex to start an online course. You can always start small, then add resources to your course over time. After you create a first draft and get feedback from students, you’ll get lots of ideas for improving and extending your course.
Step 3: Master the Tech
When I was first exploring how to make an online course, I was intimidated by the tech that went into setting it up. You need to have a way to record videos, create downloads, and to host all the resources you create.
But I found there are so many great resources for creating courses and some amazing online course creation software out there! My favorite online course platform is Kajabi, which is very user-friendly. You can upload videos, worksheets, and text directly to the platform. They even have website hosting, email marketing capabilities, and lots more. If you sign up through this link*, you can take advantage of a 30 day free trial to try it out.
Ready to Start An Online Course?
Feeling inspired to create an online course? I encourage you to just start creating, playing around, and taking action. We often learn best by doing and the act of planning a course can help you get clarity on how to present the information you want to teach.
Learning how to create an online course can be the first step toward leveraging your education expertise outside of the classroom, starting your own education business and discovering a new, more flexible way to stay an educator forever!
If you want to learn more about alternative careers for teachers, including online course creation, then be sure to check out our Beyond The Classroom course. In the course, you’ll get step by step advice to help you turn your unique teaching experience into a new career you’ll love.
*Note: this is an affiliate link, so I’ll receive a small commission if you decide to sign up for a paid version of Kajabi. I only am an affiliate for products I use and love myself. Kajabi is one of them!❤️