Set clear objectives for the course.
Decide what you want  to teach the student.
Describe what the student will know or be able to do by the end of the course.

WHERE WILL THIS
HIGHWAY TAKE ME?

Learning is like traveling.  A course of instruction is like a journey.  As the developer of the course, you’re the students’ guide on this journey.  Good guides know where they’re going . . . and they let the travelers know where they’re leading them.

Begin designing an online course by deciding where you want the student to be at the end of the course.

Write two statements of objectives for the course: 

• one set for yourself, describing what you want to achieve by writing the course
• one set for the students, describing what they should be able to do after completing the course

The developer of a course in writing online instruction might set the following goals for the course:

I want to teach the students to design and write online instruction that is 

• focused by clear objectives
• logically organized
• easy to use
• presented in short lessons according to a plan that the student is aware of
• written in clear, straightforward language, and developed in a consistent pattern

• distracting “bells and whistles”
• the temptation to try to teach everything at once
• inconsistency in design, format, and presentation
• jargon, bureaucratese, euphemisms, circumlocutions, and other obfuscating language

• design a simple but effective online course

Why should you write two statements of objectives for a course?

One keeps you focused on your teaching goals, the other on the students’ learning goals.

If you have two objectives, you can choose the one that you prefer and discard the other.

ERIC KRAFT