coursework template definition

How to Write a Coursework

Coursework projects do not resemble essays, research papers, or dissertations. They are the combination of all three. Students spend less time writing coursework than on making a term paper, but this type of work requires more time and efforts than an ordinary essay - it is made of several essays. Thanks to our guide, each student can discover how to write coursework. If you are running out of time or lack experience to complete the specific coursework, we recommend using our coursework writing services to hire professional academic writers.

What is Coursework and Why Does It Matter?

Coursework definition: General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) coursework is a typical academic assignment, given in the course of study to evaluate the student’s knowledge, skills, and identify the final grade. Many students face this type of writing in the US colleges. One of the examples is a coursework UTD (The University of Texas at Dallas) - the requirements of this institution are strict, and many students fail to submit their papers and pass the corresponding courses.

Such type of assignment helps to have the ‘detective’ hat on: a student observes, examines, and evaluates the chosen topic using credible, up-to-date, and relevant sources. Working under controlled conditions is important. Participating in every school class will help to prepare good coursework by the end of the term. Take a look at the examples of what students of various profiles may face:

• English Composition - English coursework is an extended essay in most cases. A student has a right to pick the topic. The tutors provide their students with the list of recommended titles to choose from, sources to observe & analyze, and a format (e.g., a comparison between different relevant articles)
• Sciences - coursework for science is a complicated assignment. Such type of work appears in the form of a scientific paper to test what a writer investigates and reports independently.
• Geography - geography coursework is about collecting, reporting, and explaining information to reply to a certain geographical question or offer solutions to the problem. One idea is to explore the usage of a shopping mall or analyze the recent tornado. No matter whether you have to prepare a coursework Columbia or such paper for other educational institutions, keep in mind these differences!

Types of Coursework Explained

English Language coursework is the most common type of this assignment. At advanced GCE level, the student will be expected to write a couple of essays, totaling 3,000 words. Every assignment is 20 marks maximum.

An analytical essay : Evaluate, compare, & contrast 3 different sources of data interconnected by a common theme; written /spoken / multimedia content. Discuss different uses for targeting various audiences. Learn more on our blog.

Original essay with a supportive commentary : A student will have to come up with a single piece of media writing in the observed modes (written, spoken, or multimodal). Add a supporting piece with details about the aspects of English language. English Language & Literature coursework is a bit different. The basic requirements are the same, and the parts are:

An analytical study : Sharing an analysis of the chosen piece and its relation to the related content. It will show how well the writer understands the original piece. Tutors grade such works based on the:

• Use of the proper terminology and the coherence of the written words;
• Understanding & evaluation of the way a structure, form, and language create the written & spoken word;
• Opportunity to observe relationships between various pieces of writing.

Creative writing & commentary : Produce a creative piece that imitates the style of the assessed text. Share comments to backup your understanding. The goal is to show the knowledge, prove the competence, and use appropriate language skills in communicating with the target audience. You will also need a relevant coursework resume (review) in both cases. Keep on reading to learn how to write coursework of A level.

How to Write a Coursework: Guide for Students

Several factors may lead to the coursework being disqualified. It is a serious matter! The risk factors include:

• Plagiarism - it is the worst thing that could happen to any type of academic assignment. Lots of relevant information is available on the world wide web today, and the tutors are strict about the issue of plagiarism. Write everything in your own words! If you decide to insert the quotes from the sources, apply the suggested citation format and develop a list of references. Sign the declaration claiming it is your original project. If you're unsure about how to approach this, seeking professional help by choosing to write my coursework can be a wise decision.
• Word count - do not ignore the specific requirements concerning the length of the coursework. Specify if the footnotes, appendices, & references are included in the word count.
• Topics - go through the list of available themes. If there is an examination planned on the specific topic, try to pick another idea for the coursework.
• Tutor’s assistance - do not ignore the help of your instructor, ask them to provide guidance on what to write. Ask the questions to learn more details, but keep in mind they can go through the 1st draft once and just offer some general recommendations.

Choosing a Topic for Your Project

Dedicate enough time to this extra important question. Select the field of your interest if it is possible to relate it to the course. That is the golden rule of choosing a coursework topic - keep in mind the rest of the hints:

• Analyze the offered list of topics or develop yours
• Pick a topic from the area of your expertise related to the studied subject
• Select the topic you are interested in
• Choose the topic you’ve started to observe in the past
• Check how much relevant, up-to-date information is available on the Internet about each of the topics
• Pick what you can measure, change, & control (they call it a ‘fair test’)
• Use the ideas of previous researchers and students
• Do not choose a topic with a vast scope - you risk struggling to research it correctly

10 Good Coursework Topics

• Non-traditional Forms of Poetry with TC Tolbert
• Documentary Foundations: Usage of Oral Histories with Beth Alvarado
• Traditional Forms of Poetry
• Hermit Crabs: Type of Fiction
• Writing the Autobiographical Poem
• Creative Non-Fiction on the Examples of New Journalists
• Authors without Borders
• Writing the Sticky Stuff
• Socially Engaged Literary Arts
• Common Vocabulary

Research & Data Collection

Research is an integral part of coursework. Have you written research papers before? If yes, you will find it easier to select proper primary & secondary sources and gather the necessary information (evidence to support the main point - thesis). Depending on the required paper format, cite & reference the following sources:

• Books & e-Books

Base the project on a specific hypothesis. The research must start with minimum one hypothesis. The research stage for some topics may consist of visiting websites to collect information. Leave another time for collecting the data as it is the heart of the research. Three methods of data collection are known:

• Direct personal investigation : The one an author does individually (using literature and findings from previous studies);
• Interview/Questionnaire : The researcher should gather the data from the respondents asking questions regarding required data;
• Discussion with community leaders : Community leaders are approached to fetch information for the necessary data.

In case a student works on a scientific experiment, they should pay attention to planning the analysis with the help of rigorous scientific methods (keeping in mind the Health & Safety precautions you take). Review background information and theories. Take notes to express what you expect to occur to compare & contrast it to what happened in real life. In the write-up stage, one has to evaluate and present the findings.

Writing a Coursework Outline

The writing process follows the research. Do not start it without preparing an action plan and scheduling the work - a paper pin for English coursework is based on an extended essay . An outline will look different for the science coursework projects. The goal of creating a plan is to prevent a writer from being disorganized and waffling.

Let us explain coursework outline on the specific example - a project on the global pursuit of lower costs and the role of human rights.

Start with the brief introduction explaining why it might be a topic of interest for many people. Mention those vast corporations like Wal-Mart abuse human rights by choosing and using child labor in the factories.

Provide an overview of the problem . Define human rights and costs. Pick the definitions from the official dictionaries and cite them properly when inserting in the text. Try to explain the terms in your own words.

Develop a body of the coursework , start with the case for & against ethical business practices. Using evidence and examples, list the arguments supporting ethical business practices and another side of the coin. Include a business case for ethical practices after the opening body paragraph.

Move to discussing ethical responsibilities ; explain why business organizations should care about the ethical aspects of their activities. After three sections of the body, one can conclude the paper. It can be a good idea to share a fact or statistics stressing the importance of research problem in the essay conclusion. End up with the reference list that may look this way:

• Klein N (2000) No Logo (Flamingo, London)
• Marcousé I, Gillespie A, Martin B, Surridge M and Wall N (2003) Business Studies 2e (Hodder Arnold, Oxon)
• Royal Dutch Shell (2006) 4th Quarter Financial Report at (site example)

Additional Elements

Supporting materials and pictures are a must! The sciences & geography projects require tables, charts, graphs, and other types of images to illustrate the complicated topic. Not only should you add the pictures - it is essential to interpret and reference each of them. A separate part of the coursework where the student list and explains every visual element is Appendix , and it is an optional part. The presence of appendix increases the chances to earn an A+.

How to Write an Introduction for Coursework?

Most of the students underestimate the role of introduction & conclusion when it comes to writing an essay. An eye-catchy introduction is a key to success. The primary purposes of a coursework introduction are:

• To grab the reader’s attention
• To introduce the topic
• To explain the research importance
• To come up with a compelling thesis statement

The opening paragraph shows the depth of the writer’s acquaintance with the topic. Look at the expert tips below. They will help to learn how to write a coursework introduction to make the tutor want to read your entire paper.

What Is an Introduction?

The introduction of GCSE coursework is the opening paragraph that aims to interpret the central questions and purposes of the entire paper. It should have several elements to be effective. Those are:

• A hook sentence
• Background information
• Problem significance
• Solid thesis statement

Advice from our Experienced Writer

How to write an introduction to coursework? The quality of this part predetermines paper’s success. Look at some common mistakes writers do while working on the coursework introduction - try to prevent them!

Ignoring the prompt. Many students tend to neglect the tutor’s instructions. It is critical to read the prompt several times, highlight the main points, research question, rules, and grading rubric details.

Missing a plan. The prompt does not always say to develop a coursework outline. Without a plan for every separate section, it is impossible to write a flawless piece step-by-step. No matter whether you have to write a term paper, research paper, dissertation, or C3 coursework, get ready with the detailed plan. Once you understand how to write an introduction, it will be easier to develop the rest of the paper.

For those who need a helping hand in ensuring their work meets all the standards and deadlines, don't hesitate to buy coursework from trusted professionals.

Daniel Parker

is a seasoned educational writer focusing on scholarship guidance, research papers, and various forms of academic essays including reflective and narrative essays. His expertise also extends to detailed case studies. A scholar with a background in English Literature and Education, Daniel’s work on EssayPro blog aims to support students in achieving academic excellence and securing scholarships. His hobbies include reading classic literature and participating in academic forums.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

Related Articles

What Is a Coursework and How to Write a Paper: A Simple Guide

• Icon Calendar 18 May 2024
• Icon Page 2715 words
• Icon Clock 13 min read

Academic writing is an essential activity in higher education and comes in various forms. Basically, one of these forms is coursework writing, where instructors assess students’ level of understanding of a course during a semester. In this case, unlike other papers, coursework assignments evaluate students’ understanding of the course and not just a topic in the class. Moreover, various forms of coursework writing include essays, term papers, theses, dissertations, and report projects. Hence, students need to learn what is a coursework assignment and how to write such a paper.

What Is a Coursework Paper

College and university students undertake different kinds of academic exercises, with writing projects taking a significant portion. Basically, one of these exercises is the writing of coursework, an assignment that they submit at the end of the semester. Ideally, this kind of work assesses students’ understanding of a particular field of study within a single semester. In turn, instructors rarely require students to write a coursework assignment for things they learned during the previous semester.

Definition of a Coursework

By definition, a coursework assignment is an academic project that students undertake in the course of study and which they must submit before the closure of the semester. For example, such types of papers aim to evaluate students’ level of knowledge and skills acquisition, meaning the work contributes to students’ final grades. Ideally, coursework is what students learn during a semester, and such an assignment is meant to measure how well they have understood the subject matter. Moreover, students use reliable and relevant sources to study, examine and evaluate the chosen coursework topic. Therefore, a coursework assignment is very similar to other writing assignments, such as essays, reports, thesis writing, and dissertations.

Differences With Other Papers

In the course of their classes, students write different types of papers, including essays and reports. Basically, the major difference between coursework writing and these papers is that it assesses students’ understanding of what they have discovered throughout the semester. In contrast, essays and other papers assess students’ understanding of a specific topic, concept, result, or theory. Moreover, students may need to address an issue in their coursework that they might have addressed in an essay assignment sometime during the semester. As such, a coursework assignment is broader in scope than other papers.

Expectations

Like essays and other papers, a coursework assignment varies from one area of study to another. For example, there is a coursework for the English subject and another for the sciences. Therefore, students are expected to complete their coursework assignments according to their instructor’s or department’s instructions. In most cases, this expectation includes presenting the assignment in an essay format, where they select a title of their choice. Depending on the subject, some coursework assignments expect students to collect, examine, infer, and report data when answering a specific question.

When it comes to the grading of academic assignments, instructors look at how well a student has attended to all the requirements and expectations. For instance, these requirements include writing about a choice of themes or text excerpts in a given format. In this case, students must use an approach that they believe is likely to give them a higher grade, meaning an approach that helps them to answer the question methodically, logically, and critically by using relevant information. In essence, these are three dimensions for grading a coursework assignment.

Constructing a Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Write a Coursework Assignment

Like an essay, a coursework assignment takes a particular structure. Basically, students should understand the core components and make sure that they address them in their academic writing. In this case, the most significant issue for students is to ensure a logical flow of ideas. Moreover, developing a thesis statement is essential to provide high-quality essays with a guideline on focal issues. Primarily, these issues are the concepts and theories that the student has learned in a specific course during the semester.

Step 1: Preparation

Planning or preparation is the first step in writing a coursework paper. For instance, the essence of any form of academic writing is to measure a student’s level of understanding about a particular area of study. Since the coursework measures what a student has learned in a given course, it is paramount for each person to prepare well when executing the assignment. Here, learners have to choose a topic that they are comfortable with, one that they are passionate about. Additionally, they should generate ideas about their coursework by deciding what is relevant and what is not. In this case, the reasoning that guides this decision is the expectation outlined in assignment instructions. Lastly, students should understand their audience – consumers of their work or readers. Like any other assignment, the audience is course instructors. Hence, writers should ensure coursework satisfies a curiosity of readers.

Step 2: Setting Up

After preparation, students should set up the stage for coursework writing. Basically, the first preoccupation is to find sources relevant to the assignment prompt – those that are more likely to provide enough evidence and support needed claims. As students review credible sources, they should take notes to provide a strong argumentation in their coursework. Then, another activity involves deciding on the coursework outline, which should help answer the assignment prompt logically and critically. Lastly, learners should create an annotated bibliography, a summary of each source they intend to use as the basis of their arguments in the coursework.

Step 3: Writing the Coursework

After preparing and setting up the stage, students should start writing the coursework assignment. In this case, armed with notes taken during the review of reliable sources and the outline they have created, students should start with the first draft, where they develop a thesis statement. Basing all opinions and arguments on the thesis, writers should answer the assignment prompt methodically, logically, and critically. Moreover, the thesis statement should ‘hook’ the audience and make them interested in reading the substantial part of the paper – the body. In essence, the body is where students use all the evidence they have gathered about the topic, while the thesis informs the audience of what individuals have focused on in the paper.

Step 4: Wrapping It Up

It is normal for a writer to make mistakes when writing an academic document. For example, these mistakes include inconsistent arguments, irrelevant content, punctuation errors, and countless grammatical mistakes. Therefore, after completing the draft, students should read it through, at least twice, to identify these mistakes and correct them. Basically, the processes of correction include revising and editing the paper. Regarding revisions, students should give their work to a friend or mentor to read it through. In their feedback, these individuals are likely to point out areas where authors should make corrections for the paper to be logical and interesting to read. Concerning editing the paper, students should proofread their work to ensure it is free of spelling mistakes, punctuation errors, and other grammatical mishaps.

Step 5: Developing Body Paragraphs

The body paragraph of any academic text, including a coursework assignment, utilizes several features to make the paper logical. Basically, the first feature is the topic sentence that opens up each paragraph. Also, the purpose of this feature is to strengthen the central idea captured in the thesis statement. Then, the rest of the paragraph structure backs up this claim using evidence gathered from different sources. In turn, another feature is a concluding sentence, which closes each paragraph. For instance, the goal of this aspect is to connect the topic sentence with the thesis statement. Finally, another feature is transition words and phrases that help readers sense a logical flow of ideas throughout the paper. In short, writers use transitions within and between paragraphs to create a logical flow of information and ideas.

Step 6: Referencing Format and Peer Reviewing

Besides ensuring the paper is written methodically and logically, students should see that it meets the highest academic writing standards. In this regard, they should ensure it follows after a particular format – APA, MLA, Harvard, or Chicago/Turabian. In most cases, the assignment prompt dictates the format that learners should use. Moreover, the referencing format informs about the structure of the paper and the format of citations. In turn, another essential activity that students should perform is to commit the paper to peer review. Here, authors give coursework papers to distinguished scholars, such as a professor or classmate, to assess the validity and quality of information used, including sources.

Step 7: Writing the Final Draft of a Coursework Paper

After subjecting the first draft to vigorous scrutiny through revisions, editions, and peer review, students should start writing the final draft of a coursework paper. Basically, this draft should be thoroughly polished, meaning it should be free of spelling, punctuation, and grammatical mistakes, as well as inconsistent arguments and irrelevant sentences. Moreover, it should indicate an effective use of transitions in the body paragraphs. In short, the final draft is an improved version of the first draft because writers have revised and edited it and incorporated feedback from a friend, mentor, or professor. However, they still need to read through the final draft, at least once, to ensure it is perfect before submission to the department. In turn, if students note several mistakes, it means another revision is necessary. Hence, the student’s focus should be the content, organization of ideas, style of writing, and format.

Types of Coursework

Given that coursework assignments test students’ level of understanding about a course’s content in a given semester, it means that it takes several forms. For example, these include a term paper, a Master’s thesis, a dissertation, or a report project. Ideally, the coursework is an essential requirement for a student to complete the course successfully. It also means the coursework is essential to be awarded a degree. In turn, the only difference between these types of coursework assignments is that they take a different approach to examining and analyzing course content, with each subject taking a unique approach.

Coursework Writing Techniques

The dream of every student is to pass any assessment and attain a higher grade. In a coursework assignment, students can utilize different techniques to ensure they attain higher grades after assessments. As indicated earlier about the grading of coursework, learners should use an approach that they believe answers the assignment prompt methodically, logically, and critically. As a result, every technique they use must allow them to answer the question in a way that satisfies these three grading dimensions.

1. Compare and Contrast Technique

A compare and contrast essay technique is about analyzing two subjects, ideas, concepts, or theories by comparing them, contrasting them, or doing both. Basically, the purpose of answering a coursework assignment through this approach is that students must not state obvious things. Instead, they need to shed light on the subtle differences or unexpected similarities between subjects, ideas, concepts, or theories.

2. Cause and Effect Technique

A cause and effect essay technique allows writers to develop their paper’s body by analyzing the reasons for and the consequences of a decision, action, or event. When organizing a paragraph, students adopt a structure that allows them to arrange the causes and effects in a chronological or reverse chronological order. Alternatively, authors can present their arguments through emphasis, starting from least important to most important aspects, or vice versa.

3. Investigation Technique

An investigation technique involves undertaking an in-depth examination of a topic, idea, concept, or theory. Basically, this technique’s primary goal is to demonstrate that students have gained a thorough knowledge of the subject, which is indicated in their methodical, logical, and critical analysis and presentation of information. In this case, ensuring that research findings are interpreted and presented in an organized manner throughout the essay is critical. Ultimately, the technique enables writers to demonstrate their articulate understanding of the various viewpoints about the issue under investigation. 

How to Present Strong Arguments

For an academic paper to capture the audience’s attention and interest, students must not only develop a thesis statement but also ensure they use strong arguments to back up the central idea in the statement. Basically, the “they say, I say” technique is the simplest method to present arguments properly. In this regard, the information that the student uses in answering the coursework assignment prompt should be free of plagiarism. For instance, they need to cite sources properly. Then, another way to ensure that the writing is persuasive is to confirm that they have attained the required word count without counting footnotes, endnotes, references, and appendices. Ideally, selecting a topic that one is comfortable with and passionate about enables the writing to be high-quality in terms of argumentation. Also, students should discuss alternatives with their mentor or instructor. Finally, the thesis statement should not be complicated.

Major Mistakes in Courseworks

Students make different kinds of mistakes when writing academic texts. For example, a common mistake in coursework writing involves a scope, where students fail to focus on one area of the topic and instead try to be broad in their argumentation. In this case, the problem with this approach is that they waste space talking about irrelevant material, leaving them with little space to write about the core idea. Also, the solution to this problem is to develop a thesis statement that sets out the paper’s specific agenda. In doing so, students can realize every time they go off-topic.

Another common mistake involves colloquialism, where students use a language that is not standard for academic writing. Basically, this problem is particularly common with students who become excited about the topic and try to express their ideas creatively. Moreover, the problem is that the coursework shifts from being evidence-based to a document about the student’s opinion. In turn, the solution to this problem is to pick a topic that is exciting and critically discussed in the literature. As a result, they can identify several sources that discuss the topic to use as bases for evidence of their claims and arguments about the topic.

Sample of a General Coursework Outline

The coursework paper adopts a typical outline, as indicated below:

• Table of Contents
• Abstract or Executive Summary
• Introduction
• Body Paragraph(s)
• Reference list

Reason for Similarity of a Coursework Assignment With a Research Paper

Ideally, the outline of a coursework assignment is similar to that of a research paper. In this case, an abstract serves as a brief overview of a research paper and informs readers of the writer’s focal points. More importantly, the coursework outline has a body, where writers use different paragraphs to make an argument about the topic. Also, each of the paragraphs begins with a topic sentence and ends with a concluding sentence. Like research papers, body paragraphs of a coursework assignment serve to cement the writer’s claims and arguments, which are linked to the thesis statement.

Summing Up on What Is a Coursework Assignment and How to Write a Paper

A coursework assignment is among the writing assignments that students in colleges and universities undertake in preparation for their degree. Unlike other papers, this assignment assesses students’ understanding of what they have learned in a course in a given semester. As such, students must complete and submit it before the semester closes. Moreover, the different types of coursework include essays, term papers, theses, dissertations, and report projects.

Students should master the following tips when it comes to writing a coursework assignment:

• Choose an exciting topic and stick to it. Basically, students come across tons of exciting information about their topic. However, to avoid going off-script, they should focus on their core subject and avoid the temptation of using data that may prove irrelevant.
• Use evidence (quotes and statistics) selectively. In this case, relevancy is a significant indicator of a high-grade paper. As such, where students are not going to refer to some data directly because it adds no value to their argument, they should avoid dwelling on it in their paper.
• Cite sources correctly. When citing sources, students should note the standards of the format in use – APA, MLA, Harvard, or Chicago/Turabian – as each has a unique approach.
• Revise, edit, and proofread the paper. In turn, high-quality coursework writing should be free of inconsistent arguments, irrelevant sentences, and spelling, punctuation, and grammatical mistakes.

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How to Create a Course Outline [With Templates]

Table of Contents

Do you have a great idea for an online course but don’t know where to start? You’re not alone – getting started is the most overwhelming part of course design for first-time course creators, who struggle to put their ideas together and turn them into a well-structured course.

The solution to your problem is something as simple as a course outline.

Creating a course outline will help you overcome your mental block and start building your online course.

In this article, we will guide you through the process of designing an online course outline following instructional design principles. We’ll also offer you 18 amazing course templates to spark your creativity.

💡 If you are more of a visual learner, watch the following video on how to create an online course from Idea to Outline with Rachel Reclam.

Table of contents

• 1 What is a Course Outline?
• 2 How to Write a Course Outline Step-by-Step
• 3 Training Course Outline: How is it Different?
• 4 18 Course Outline Templates to Download

What is a Course Outline?

A course outline is a plan of the course that contains all the learning material, structured in the order you’ll use it in your online course. It can be in the form of a storyboard or a simple list.

A course outline usually includes the following:

• Essential course information like name & description
• The learning objectives
• Course requirements & prerequisites (if any)
• Learning activities per session
• Supporting learning material
• Milestones (assignment due dates, quizzes, final exams)
• Course schedule (if there’re any live sessions)

An outline is not just a tool to create an optimal learning path but also a resource to share with your learners .

How to Write a Course Outline Step-by-Step

Let’s go over the steps you need to follow when creating an online course outline:

• Step #1: Build a Learner Profile
• Step #2: Write the Learning Objectives
• Step #3: Break Down the Course Into Sessions
• Step #4: Choose the Learning Activities
• Step #5: Plan for Interactivity
• Step #6: Include Knowledge Checkpoints

💁 The LearnWorlds WorkBook will guide you through all the necessary steps, offering additional items you can go through.

Step #1 – Build a Learner Profile

How well you know your audience has a massive impact on student learning. The better you know the people who will be attending your course, the more beneficial the learning experience you can build for them.

A learner profile should include the following:

• Basic demographics
• Knowledge level
• Desired goals & pain points

Pre-assessments can help you determine the learners’ knowledge of the subject matter, while a survey can give you information regarding their demographics, their reason for taking the course, and potential roadblocks.

Step #2 – Write the Learning Objectives

Learning goals are broad, general statements of what we want our students to learn – they’re the end goal of the course, the bigger picture. For instance, if you’re teaching social skills, the learning goal is to improve the learners’ social skills. But that doesn’t really say much, right?

When creating your online course outline, break this broad goal down into learning objectives , which are specific and, whenever possible, measurable . So, in this case, ask yourself:

• What does improving social skills entail? What will learners be able to do after the course that they couldn’t do before?
• Carry out conversations with confidence.
• Make a great first impression.
• Master small talk.
• Feel more comfortable in a large group of people.

Write all these objectives and make sure to a) use them as a reference point when creating your content and assessments, and b) clearly mention them in your course description and syllabus.

Step #3 – Break Down the Course Into Modules

Now that you know the learning objectives, the next step is to break down the course into smaller learning modules, keeping in mind that you need to keep each module short and sweet and increase the level of difficulty gradually.

A helpful practice creating a topical outline of your course to organize subtopics under general topics. This way, you’re creating the backbone of your course, upon which you will create your course content. In the LearnWorlds’ Course Creation Workbook, visit pages 7-8 to see how to create a topical outline.

Step #4 – Choose the Learning Activities

What learning activities are you going to include in your course? Before choosing, think about the content you may already have and can repurpose . For example, you can use the highlights from a blog post to create PDF infographics.

Most importantly, before adding any activity to your lesson plan, think about whether it serves the learning objectives of the course. Anything that doesn’t directly support the learning objectives should be offered as additional/supportive learning resources.

Why? Because bombarding the learners with a mountain of videos, eBooks, and what have you will inevitably lead to cognitive overload .

LearnWorlds supports a wide variety of learning activities to choose from, some of which you can also sell separately as digital products , like:

• Interactive videos
• Audio files & podcasts
• Live sessions
• Self-assessments, quizzes & exams
• SCORM packages

Step #5 – Plan for Interactivity

Remember that what separates a great course from a good-enough one is interactivity. This single “detail” can skyrocket not only learner engagement but the effectiveness of the course, as it allows for in-depth conversations and meaningful connections.

If you can’t include real-time sessions, then at least make sure to build an online community , like a discussion group, where you will interact with your learners and enable them to communicate with one another and exchange knowledge.

Step #6 – Include Knowledge Checkpoints

Last but not least, make sure to include several assessments throughout the course and for different purposes. Let us give you a few ideas:

• Non-graded quizzes : to help learners refresh, practice, and test their knowledge “safely” without it having an impact on their final grade. Including non-graded quizzes will also help you identify learners who need extra support.
• Self-assessments and self-reflection journals : to enable learners to reflect on their learning journey and figure out ways they can improve their learning processes.
• Graded assignments & exams, like written or video submissions : to accurately measure learner knowledge and offer a certificate of completion (or CPE credits ).

Training Course Outline: How is it Different?

An online training course designed for employees, customers, or partners, like employee onboarding or customer education, is different from an online course addressed to a wide audience.

Goals are set based on company priorities and result tracking (on multiple levels we’ll explain below) is non-negotiable. Employee training is often mandatory and crucial. All this means that your outline might look a little different.

Assessment Evaluation

The first major difference is an assessment evaluation. If you are tasked with creating a training course, there are good chance the company hiring you has already assessed their training needs and documented them.

If not, you should perform an assessment evaluation and identify the training needs of the company. These are similar to learning goals and objectives but focus specifically on the people or departments requesting the training to improve specific deficiencies.

Adult Learning Principles

Training is addressed to adults. They might be coming with some industry or work experience and will be looking to implement their newfound knowledge and skills in their work. As such, they have different preferences and needs than younger students.

Adult learning principles will help you make training more relevant to their needs:

• Prefer self-directed learning
• Draw on life experience to assist with learning
• Willingness to learn when transitioning into new roles
• Immediacy of applying the new knowledge to real-life situations and problems
• Internally instead of externally motivated

Remember to make the training more practical, using real-world examples and allowing learners to draw from their years of experience.

Training Evaluation & Tracking

Lastly, evaluating the results is a huge part of training. More often than not, it’s the key stakeholders who will decide the course prerequisites and how success is measured.

For example, compliance training might include a specific number of video watch hours and a final exam with a passing score of 80%. It’s also possible that you should include a certificate to award learners at the end of the course.

You might additionally need to collect grades, assignments, or physical examinations. Some advanced learning management systems , like LearnWorlds, include a gradebook or reporting features you will need to meet these requirements.

Include evaluation activities such as exams, on-site testing, scenarios, or other forms of evaluations to the course outline for training, and plan on certifications or reporting requirements.

Your professional looking Academy in a few clicks

18 course outline templates to download.

The best way to create your own outline is to use a good example as a guide. Our team of experts reviewed LearnWorlds’ course creators and prepared 18 course outline templates based on the most popular course types.

Here is a sneak peek of the templates:

Assessment courses

These courses help you and your potential students assess their skills. This course type can also be used as a powerful lead magnet to gather students’ emails early in the process.

Presell courses

Presell courses serve as a storefront for an upcoming course . They can help you validate a course idea and build an email list of your potential students before officially releasing a course.

Orientation courses

An orientation course provides an overview of all your courses . They can build student engagement and interest. Don’t forget to add a walkthrough of your academy and the online community, as well as the instructor’s contact details.

Orientation courses can also help mobile app users onboard faster. Be sure to add an orientation-style course on your roadmap for user training!

Μini-courses

Mini-courses are versions of full-sized courses. Like presell and orientation courses, they serve as teasers that make students enroll in a course. However, in contrast to the other two categories, mini-courses provide real educational value : a full summary of what will be taught in the full-sized course.

Live courses

This course type includes mostly scheduled live sessions , which you can enrich with different types of material, like quizzes, discussions, transcripts, and downloadable PDF files. Live courses could also have office hours, during which learners can reach the instructor for questions, feedback, or support.

Workshop courses consist of a series of videos where an instructor demonstrates practical tasks while describing the process for the students to follow through. Workshop courses are usually about arts & crafts, painting, sewing, fitness, content creation, etc. You can also share top highlights of your event for your social media as part of your marketing strategy.

Professional training courses

Professional training courses aim to build knowledge, skills, and competence in a group of individuals or a team. Companies deploy employee training & development initiatives to improve employee performance, smooth out productivity issues, and enhance the soft skills of their workforce.

The “X days challenge” courses

Through an “X Days Challenge” course, an instructor guides the students through daily or weekly small achievements to reach a more challenging end goal at the end of the course. Deploying gamification gimmicks, like badges, is good practice in these courses, as they motivate and reward learners along the way.

A good example of a challenge course is “Create your first mandala painting in 14 days” or “Improve your sleeping habits in a month.”

Certification courses

Certification courses verify the skills and knowledge the learner has obtained in the course in the form of a (usually sharable and printable) certificate. They require learners to pass a final exam or perform a practical task demonstrating their skills. Certifications can be obtained from external governmental organizations or recognized entities.

Unsurprisingly, certification courses often have prerequisites and strict navigation; you can read more on the course navigation on LearnWorlds here .

Spotlight/Niche topic courses

Niche topics are created to teach particular skills . Instructors can create a whole academy with multiple niche courses and sell them in bundles to provide a more comprehensive learning experience while boosting their revenue.

Academic courses

Academic courses follow the traditional structure that higher education institutions follow . This type of course usually consists of an introduction to the course and its learning outcomes, a short test or discussion to assess pre-existing knowledge, and multiple lectures (live or video) supported by written learning material, like handouts.

Drip-feed courses

In a drip-feed course , you organize the timely release of your content (section by section) so that it doesn’t become available to your students all at once. This comes with multiple benefits, such as avoiding overwhelming learners , ensuring they learn at a reasonable pace that boosts knowledge retention , and preventing them from downloading the course content all at once and asking for a refund.

Conceptual change courses

Conceptual change courses create a learning experience based on storytelling. These courses don’t intend to teach a skill but rather challenge the learner’s mentality and open them up to different perspectives. Conceptual change courses don’t have a fixed structure.

Hybrid courses

Hybrid courses combine the benefits of online learning with traditional in-class learning offering the flexibility of the first and the opportunity for practice and direct communication of the latter.

Series of “invited talks” courses

Courses made up of invited talks from guest speakers who are experts in the course topic are particularly engaging. A typical course of this sort could include a series of live webinars with key insights sent out to participants in the form of an eBook.

Selling digital goods or extra services

Online courses are not strictly used for teaching. An online course can be a suitable wrapper for your digital product or service , sold either as additional or standalone offerings. For example, you might be an online coach who sells a package of inspirational videos and eBooks separately in a course.

💡 If you are selling digital downloads , be sure to check out our guide as well.

Bonus courses

Bonus courses are usually short and offer some extra resources to students. They typically contain scarce resources, like a PDG, an exclusive interview, an exciting webinar, etc. What makes bonus courses popular is that they add value to your initial offering. They’re usually promoted as being free, which makes them even more appealing.

Complementary to physical products courses

A complementary course offers additional material to a product you sell through your website. Such complementary content can be information about that specific product or guidelines about how to use the product, similar to customer education.

💁 You can download all of these templates for free in our downloadable pdf. Download the entire collection here:

Start Creating Your Course Outline

A course outline is the foundation of your online course. You’ll find that creating one will help you streamline the content development process and focus your energy on building your course instead of trying to bring order to the chaos.

Leverage the 30-day free trial and start putting together your course in your shiny new LearnWorlds academy.

Further reading you might find interesting:

• How to Teach Online & Earn Money: Definitive Guide
• SCORM 101: The Definitive Guide to Choose a SCORM-Compliant LMS
• How Much Money Can You Make Selling Online Courses?
• The 19 Best Employee Online Training Software Tools (A Comparison Guide)
• What is an LMS (Learning Management System)?
• How To Start A Profitable Online Course Business From Scratch
• The Essential Guide on How to Create Cohort-Based Courses

What does a course outline include?

A course outline should include a brief course description and the learning outcomes, outlining the topics that will be covered in the course in the order in which they will be covered. The outline can also mention a list of required and recommended readings you plan to include in the course, as well as assessments and exams.

What is the difference between a course outline and a course syllabus?

A course outline is a document that includes the basic components to be taught, such as learning activities, assessments, and evaluations of an online course. It is used to plan and organize the course creation process.

A course syllabus is built for the learner and includes all learning material (mandatory and optional), specific assignments, dates, grading standards, and rules of conduct & classroom policies defined by the instructor.

What is the purpose of a course outline?

The purpose of a course outline is to assist the instructor in creating and delivering the course by following a predetermined structure, planning activities, and creating the materials beforehand.

What are the benefits of a course outline?

A course outline helps the instructor avoid pitfalls while creating a course, from setting clear learning outcomes to including/creating the most suitable content, therefore speeding up the course creation process.

How do you write an outline for an online course?

To write an online course outline you need to follow these steps:

• Build learner profiles
• Write the learning objectives
• Break down the course into modules
• Choose the learning activities to include
• Plan for interactivity
• Include knowledge checkpoints

What are the components of an online course?

An online course might include the following:

• Video lessons
• PDFs, slideshows, and PowerPoint presentations
• Discussion forum
• Assessments and final exams

Androniki Koumadoraki

Androniki is a Content Writer at LearnWorlds sharing Instructional Design and marketing tips. With solid experience in B2B writing and technical translation, she is passionate about learning and spreading knowledge. She is also an aspiring yogi, a book nerd, and a talented transponster.

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How to Create an Online Course Outline | Complete Guide & Template

You have chosen your online course topic. Great! Now what? To create a winning course outline, you must encompass your course vision, details, and templates. Course outline sets the tone for the entire learning experience for the students and ensures they get the most out of their course.

A  well-designed course outline clearly defines what students can expect and how it can benefit them. Creating a course design template efficiently standardizes the online course outline and lays out a clear pathway for learning outcomes.

Wondering how to create a course outline that wins? Let’s explore all the key steps to create a winning course outline.

What is a Course Outline?

A course outline is a comprehensive document that includes information about the topics, objectives, and learning outcomes of a course. It is an essential tool that serves as a guide for both teachers and students during the course of study.

A course outline provides a roadmap for the students to stay on track and remain organized with their studies.

A clear and concise course outline acts as a framework for the assessment of student performance as they move through the course. You must know how to make a course outline that helps students construct and organize a learning flow in a sequential manner and provides a foundation before they enroll.

The Benefits of Having a Clear Course Outline

The purpose of the course outline is to support the learning process. A clearly structured course outline allows you to  promote your course online  with an organized roadmap for students. Let’s explore the key benefits of developing a clear course outline:

• A clear course outline provides a structure and logical order and help students and teacher stay organized.
• Explicitly outlines topics, concepts, activities, objectives, and resources for students.
• Promote self-directed learning, and allow students to complete their coursework at their own pace and take responsibility for their learning.
• Promotes student engagement to bolster learning and give them direction to track their progress

Key Elements in a Course Outline: An Overview

A course outline is an essential document for both student and instructor alike, as it ensures all objectives are covered and relevant information stated. While the course information and outline are filed away neatly in your brain, it is important to deliver in a format for students.

For this, you need to identify key elements in a course outline that are ordered in a way that sets out a promise for the student about their learning journey.

Let’s look at key elements in a course outline.

• Course Title & Information: Provides a brief description of the subject matter covered in the course.
• Course Objectives: Describes the broad learning outcomes for students.
• Course Content: Relevant material for students such as study resources, information, videos, assigned readings, and all other data sources needed for learning.
• Learning Outcomes: A statement that defines students at the beginning what they can expect, and what value they will gain as a result of taking a course.
• Assessment & Evaluation: Determines the extent of learning for students from the course and provides goals and outcomes. 
• Supporting Material: Information, and data not limited to lectures, study notes, and syllabus. It includes visual aid, images, diagram, external data resources, and access to journals, study guides, web-ready content, and educational software.
• Course Schedule: Classifies topics for a specific course that will be taught in each week/module in detail.
• Course Policies: Policies concerning attendance, assignment submission, re-submissions, participation, academic integrity, missed exams, recorded lectures, and other related guidelines.

For example, this Microsoft Word Basics course outline highlights all the essential information that relates to the course outline.

How to Create an Effective Course Outline in 7 Easy Steps: An Overview

Sorting through piles of content and creating an entire course outline by yourself can be overwhelming. Ask yourself questions such as what unique elements you can add.

What will make your course stand out from others? And what difference in your course can benefit the students?

At this point, think about how you can best sell your course. Even if it’s manageable, you can take help from an online course promotion agency to get started.

1. Explore the Topic: A Brief Overview

It may seem obvious, but only the best instructors know how to explore the topic in-depth from different sources and create a comprehensive course outline.

Begin the process early, and give yourself plenty of time to explore the topic. Careful planning and continual refinement can set your course apart.

Explore Books on the Topic

There is a wide range of books written on your chosen course. You can always refer to them. It can become your key to further dividing the course outline into modules and lesson plans.

For example, as an online course instructor, you can explore a range of books available online to create a comprehensive course outline.

Case Studies from Relevant Industry

Case studies are the most effective way to get students to understand the practical application of the skills and knowledge developed during a course. Include case studies of the relevant industry to make students learn facts from real-world situations.

Instructors can visit different websites including online resources, and universities websites to explore case studies on diverse topic areas.

For example, MIT Sloan Management School has provided real-life organizational case studies for the subject of Accounting and Finance.

Analyze Similar Online Courses

SOURCE: MIT Sloan Management School 

Learning objectives for your course can be a bit different from what others are offering, still, you can prepare the right material by examining different courses of similar subject areas available on online learning platforms.

For example, platforms like Udemy provide access to thousands of courses online, where you can look for similar course content. Here you can see 10,000 results for SEO Courses.

SOURCE: UDEMY

Search the Internet for High-Ranked Courses

Research, research, and research! The Internet is full of different online courses, make sure you go through some of the top courses on search engines to make notes about what you might want to add, or what can set your course apart.

Once you’ve sketched the outline, start putting the pieces together, considering  SEO strategies for an online course  to ensure it reaches the relevant audience.

For example, you can search “Python Development Course Online’ and Google will show results for the most high-ranked courses.

2. Defining Your Course Objectives: Setting the Direction

A clearly defined course objective will provide your students with an outline of what they can learn from the course. When defining your course objective, you must consider the learning outcome your target audience (students) wants to achieve.

Make sure objectives and learning outcomes are SMART, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Identifying Your Goals & Outcomes

When designing your online course creation template , firstly identify your goals and outcomes. It can also help your better sell course online to the right target audience.

Some questions to consider:

• Who are your learners?
• What they want to achieve?
• What different can you offer?
• How will your course benefit their learning?

Once you’ve answered these question, you can sharpen your focus and stay on track to create an inclusive course outline.

Aligning Objectives with the Curriculum Framework

It is equally important to ensure your course curriculum is aligned with the objectives. An aligned course curriculum ensures students reach the milestones outlined during the course module.

It can guide students to stay connected and achieve the desired learning objective from your online course.

Setting Clear & Measurable Learning Objectives

It can be achieved by identifying the level of knowledge necessary to achieve the learning objectives and precisely intending to accomplish the course.

Each learning objective involves a measurable outcome for the expanded growth of students with each module or lesson plan.

3. Outlining the Course Content

Constructing a course outline is an essential piece when designing any course. As an instructor, you can go through numerous course outline examples related to the topic on the internet.

The prerequisite and the co-requisite will establish a link and align students with the outcomes mapped out in the shape of course content.

Dividing the Course into Modules or Units

Dividing your course into modules and learning units is always the best choice as it creates a sequence of course content. It can help students identify under what module or unit knowledge will be demonstrated and the criteria for performance.

Modules or units support students throughout the course, as they help them organize the assessments, and learning activities.

Arranging the Content in a Logical Sequence

The logical sequence in online course content refers to all forms of delivery that will be used, including videos, lectures, readings, case studies, explanations, and assessments. It may sound simple, but it isn’t easy to set up and arrange online course content.

• Sit down, draw objectives
• Define learning outcomes
• Create draft course outline 
• Get curriculum organized and planned
• Finalize assessments

Estimating the Time Allotment for Each Module

While there is no exact formula to calculate the time allotment for each module, it can take about 3 days to 2 months to create course modules, depending on the complexity of the course.

Defining the Learning Outcomes for each module

Learning outcomes for each module clearly define students with statements that demonstrate content from the start till the end of the course. Module-level learning outcomes showcase the complete learning process and experience that students will undertake by enrolling in this course.

Deciding on the Appropriate Teaching Methods for each module

Once you’ve set out the course objectives and goals, it’s time to decide on the most appropriate teaching methods. As an instructor, you need to employ different teaching methods for a balanced provision of lecture delivery.

However, it’s always better to ask yourself certain questions before making the decision. For example:

• Who are the learners?
• What is the objective of the course?
• What are the gaps you’re fulfilling through this course?
• What resources students will require during the course?

4. Content is King: Building the Core of Your Course

High-quality course content helps you build credibility and gain the trust of students. Until students see potential in your online course, they’re not likely to opt for it. Make sure your content is designed to create an impact, attract students and generate profitable leads. 

Well, only focusing on the content can certainly help you achieve relevance for the students, but  marketing affiliate programs  for online course promotion can increase your reach and conversions.

Without any doubt, we all know that Google loves quality content. Thus, you must exactly know what it takes to get in the good graces of search engines and rank on the first page.

Conducting a Comprehensive Content Audit

Now that you know  how to create an online course outline , you need to systematically review all the content that you have organized for the course.

The content audit enables you to closely review the content, instantly optimize the quality of content and align it with the course objective that you’ve already defined.

You can conduct a content audit by undertaking following steps:

• Define the course metrics
• Measure inventory of your content
• Analyze the organized content
• Draw up a clear action plan

Choosing the Most Relevant Topics to Cover

When it comes to topic selection, it can be tricky. Some course instructors struggle to organize relevant topics in their course outlines. A fail-proof online course requires an efficient  content marketing strategy  to arrive at a coherent outcome.

Here are five pro tips you must keep in mind while choosing the most relevant topics to cover in an online course:

• Choose topics that attract the right number of students
• Choose topics that provide clear direction for learners
• Choose topics that sets the pace for learning
• Choose topics that engage more learners online
• Choose topics that impact the course significance to make it relevant

5. Incorporating Supporting Materials

Supporting materials and resources are significant for learners, as they assist them throughout the course. Commonly available supporting materials for your online course include textbooks, software, reading materials, videos, and recorded lectures.

Choosing the Right Format for Supporting Materials

It’s time to learn how to create a course outline that includes the right format of support materials. Your supporting materials must engage the learners, and offer ease of use, meeting their ability to perform the course tasks.

As an instructor, you need to make sure that the format for supporting material is audient appropriate, and offers all relevant information they will need throughout the course.

Integrating Supporting Materials into the Course Outline

Supporting materials such as examples, narratives, definitions, statistical data, facts & figures, and testimony are significant for the learners and must be integrated into the course outline.

Relevant supporting materials in course content emphasize the learner on the outcomes and enable them to believe in the course. 

Including Assessments and Evaluations in the Outline 

Assessments and evaluation plans in online course outline template sets out a standard for the learners and helps them determine whether or not the goals, of course, are being met as per their requirement.

It can also help learners to improve practice, develop reflective habits, and meet the standard learning outcome of the course.

6. Types of Content for Creating A Course Outline

It’s no wonder that online courses consume less energy than face-to-face teaching, but you need to pick the  right course content to sell  a great learning experience.

You can produce content for online courses in more than one format, usually, the one preferred by students. 

Now let’s take a deep dive into the types of content an online course outline must include.

Lecture Content

Lecture content refers to the information and topic that you plan to teach the learners.

1. Online Lectures: As an online course instructor, you can deliver lectures online, in real-time, and in form of recorded videos.

2. Text-based Content: Designing course content with a text-based approach ensures a better understanding of the subject matter, and provides explanations for every topic. It can be in form of study notes, case studies, research papers, and other text-based materials.

Reading Material

Reading material refers to anything designed for the purpose of being read by the learners. It can be in different forms, depending upon the objective and goal of the course.

1. Textbooks: Online courses can include e-textbooks for student study reference, and in-depth understanding of the topic.

2. Online Articles: Including online articles in the course outline extend learning options for learners and provide comprehensive information on the topic.

Multimedia Content

Multimedia content refers to any content that utilizes a combination of text, images, visuals, videos, and audio to deliver lecture.

1. Videos: The most commonly used multimedia content format by online course instructors is videos. As an instructor, you can pre-record lectures in form of videos or deliver live lectures in video format.

2. Audio Recordings: It is one of the most efficient ways to deliver course content to students, as they get greater flexibility to process information at their own pace.

3. Interactive Activities: It helps learners retain information faster, and develop communication skills. Immersive and engaging interactive activities along with other learning formats can drive more engagement, and attention, and promote retention.

Assessments and Evaluations

Assessments and evaluations refer to the diagnostic tools that focus on the learning of individual students during the course. Evaluation can determine the extent to which the learner has been able to achieve pre-defined course objectives and goals.

1. Quizzes: It provides a quick and informal assessment of the knowledge of the learners. The result of quizzes determines whether the student has been able to comprehend the course content and where the gap exists.

2. Exams: To improve the learning and ability to retain information, exams serve as the most efficient way to evaluate the learning outcome.

3. Group Projects: Online courses often include group projects to ensure learners can develop teamwork, collaboration, analytical thinking, and critical analysis skills while tackling conflicts and managing project tasks.

7. Planning for Assessment and Evaluation to Measure Success for Student

Assessment and evaluation are the heart of the learning process. There is a lot more than what you think when it comes to testing the knowledge and skills students have gained throughout the course.

To assess and evaluate the learning from your online course, you can set clear criteria and clarify expectations from the students. Learning from online courses can be measured through:

• Percentile ranking
• Standard scores
• Completion progress

Tips for Crafting a Successful Course Outline: Overview

When you are creating an online course to sell online, you must create excitement, curiosity, and engagement among the students whom you plan to target.

Fortunately, there are steps that you can take to create content for an online course, and put together a winning course outline. Establish a uniquely crafted course outline and  build a sales funnel  for your online course.

Read on and get ready to craft a successful course outline.

Keep it Organized & Structured

Keep your online course outline interesting for the students, provide a piece of solid course information, and define a clear roadmap with outcomes. Keeping it organized will help students know what to expect and get prepared for it. 

Test the Outline

Make sure you validate your online course outline before the final launch. Refine your course outline by answering the following questions yourself:

• If I were the student, would I have paid to enroll in this course?
• What pain points does it address for the learners?
• What outcomes learner expect after completion of course?

Most importantly, go through other online courses to understand the offerings in the market, and make your online course unique.

Selecting the Right Tool for Your Course

Teaching tools are vitally important to help you stay more organized, and make your course easier for learners. Numerous tools can make your course delivery fast and efficient, but you need to evaluate the options that fit best with your course requirements.

It doesn’t matter how you’ve organized everything for your online course until you’ve finalized the right tools. 7 high-demanding course tools include following:

• Google Docs
• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Note
• Cloud Outliner

Frequently Asked Questions:

How do you write an outline for an online course.

Step 1: Understand the topic

Step 2: Understand your target audience

Step 3: Define learning objectives and goals

Step 4: Organize your core content

Step 5: Select online course delivery methods

How do I evaluate and refine my course outline as I create it?

• Review course outline from student perspective
• Assess information covered & materials
• Justify the learning outcomes
• Align learning objectives with course content

How do I keep my course outline up-to-date and relevant?

• Explore the topic
• Stay relevant and accurate
• Define content types
• Validate your course outline
• Optimize content for learning

Final Words

It’s time to put all the wisdom that you’ve gained from here to practice. You’re on your journey to create a successful online course outline to deliver a great learning experience for your students.

Ensure you develop engaging and enticing online course content that excites learners to enroll and generate more sign-ups. Remember, the most important part is to stay relevant, organized, and focused on a topic and make it easier for learners.

I'm Manno, the founder and lead marketing strategist at Think Orion. My role revolves around assisting online education providers in crafting and implementing effective go-to-market strategies, while also guiding our team to bring these strategies to life. With a deep commitment to marketing principles, I often emphasize the importance of research, positioning, and messaging. I'm passionate about uncovering significant opportunities through innovative and creative ideas.

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Video Transcripts: Course Paper Template: Downloading and Using the Template

Course paper template: downloading and using the template.

Last updated: 11/14/2020

Visual: The words “Walden University Writing Center” and the Walden University Writing Center logo on a blank page of a notebook with a pencil. The slogan “Your writing, grammar, and APA experts” appears. The screen shifts to present the words “Course Paper Template” with the title “Downloading and Using the Template” underneath.

Audio: Music plays.

Visual: The Walden University Writing Center webpage “Walden Templates: General Templates” is open in a browser window. The screen scrolls down to show Undergraduate Course Paper Templates and Graduate Course Paper Templates.

Audio: The Writing Center provides course paper templates for undergraduate and graduate courses. There are a few versions of the course paper template—without abstract, with abstract, and with advice. You can use whichever template fits your needs. For this demonstration, I will download the course paper template with abstract for graduate courses.

Visual: The cursor clicks on the link that reads, “APA Course Template (7th Ed.).”

Audio: To download the template, click the link. Your web browser may prompt you to open or save the template. Choose the option to save the Word document to your computer.

Visual: The cursor moves to the Downloads icon in the web browser and clicks to open the file. Microsoft Word opens on the screen with the template title page. The cursor moves to “File” in the upper left hand corner of the screen and then clicks on “Save As.” A pop-up window appears for saving the file. The cursor moves to the file name and types in “Paper Assignment 1” and then choose the Documents folder for the location. The pop-up window disappears and the template title page is visible again.

Audio: Check your downloads folder or search your computer for “Course Paper Template” to find the file if your web browser does not provide you a pop-up link to the file. You may also check the downloads area in your web browser.

When you first open the file to work on an assignment, you may wish to “Save As” immediately and rename the file as well as choose a different location on your computer.

Some students find it useful to use the template as a guide for formatting their own Word documents. Others prefer to write their assignments in a separate Word document and then copying and pasting the text into the template. Our recommendation at the Writing Center is to write directly in a clean copy of the course paper template for each assignment.

The template shows you the formatting requirements you need to follow for your coursework assignments as well as examples of APA-formatted title pages, abstracts, headings, and reference entries.

If you find that the template’s formatting is changed or becomes corrupted and you cannot fix the errors, you can always download a clean version of the template from our website and start over. The template is available to you as a tool and is meant to save you time and give you guidance, so use it in whatever way makes the most sense to you.

Visual: The email address [email protected] appears on the screen.

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How to write a hook, how to do footnotes, how to write a 5 paragraph essay, how to write an opinion essay, how to write a synthesis essay, coursework writing tips.

There are elements of coursework that resemble or are constructed to run along the lines of laboratory work, other kinds of experimental work such as polls, surveys, and other observational studies, or can include scientific research in subjects such as the sciences, where it is difficult to prove the coverage of material through exams.

Steps to Carry out Successful Coursework

• Carefully select a topic and decide on the goal of your coursework. Make sure you understand all the requirements of your coursework, as well as the topic itself. When choosing your topic, try adhering to the rule of the golden middle: choose a topic that is not too hackneyed (because writing coursework on the same topic everyone does is pointless), but which is also not too specialized and under-researched (because you will need sources, and it is better that you are able to find them easily). Narrow the topic down, if it is possible—make sure there is only one way to understand it, and that it articulates your subject in a clear way.
• Consult with your teachers, especially with the teacher who is supervising your coursework. Ask his or her opinion on the topic you have chosen and for some possible advice on how to narrow or improve it. Teachers may give you a hint on whether your topic is promising and perspective, where to start your research from, what difficulties you may encounter, and so on.
• After you have decided on the topic and your goal, create an approximate plan of your coursework’s structure. Different colleges and universities may have different requirements for coursework structure and contents, so you should figure it out before you begin the process of planning. It is not final yet, and later you will correct it, but at this point you need this plan to have a point to start from.
• Decide on research methods. Depending on your topic, methods may include experiments, observations, polls, comparisons, analysis, and so on, along with standard methods such as studying resources on the subject. Check these methods with your supervising teacher.
• Figure out where you can find all the needed information, gather the equipment necessary for your research methods, and do the research. While researching, make sure to take notes. Also, check your coursework structure plan and make corrections, if needed. Your notes should be easy to read and navigate.
• Based on your structure plan and your research materials, create an outline of your coursework. Basically, an outline is a more detailed version of a structure plan. After you create it, craft the first draft of your coursework.
• Keep working on your draft unless you make it look like a final copy. Consult with your supervising teacher as often as possible.
• Before submitting your coursework, make sure to proofread and edit it. Also, you should check all the data in it for accuracy, consistency, and credibility.

Topic Selection

Proper topic selection accounts for a large portion of your academic coursework—therefore it is important to make a reasonable and balanced choice. There are several ways to pick a suitable topic. Sometimes a consultation with a tutor may help you narrow down your subject to a certain topic. However, it might happen that you will need to decide on your own. To do so, move from universals to particulars. Brainstorming and mind-mapping techniques will help you.

Define the field for your future research; say it is American literature—then decide on a school: romanticism, realism, decadency, Beat, and so on. For example, you can choose Beat literature, and one of its brightest representatives, Jack Kerouac. Keep on narrowing the subject down: choose one of his novels—let it be “On the Road.” Now, think over problems, characters, events, and relationships described in the novel. After you have finished with all the procedures as previously stated, your topic for the coursework on American literature might sound like, “The Personality of Dean Moriarty as Freedom Personified by Jack Kerouac.”

And finally, remember, that successful academic coursework can be written only successfully if the topic is of interest to you.

Key Points to Consider

• The research phase is crucial for any coursework. Anytime you feel like making a shortcut or try to skip this phase and get down to writing, do not do this. On the contrary, you should aim to gather as much data from different resources as you can; this includes books, journals, websites, results of experiments, and so on. Therefore, you should dedicate about 60% of your time to researching.
• The content of your coursework should be based on accurate, relevant, and credible information. All the data you use in your coursework should be aimed at proving your research hypothesis, or thesis statement, and the paper itself should be a deep analysis of the topic.
• Usually, students procrastinate as long as possible, and rush into writing coursework in the last week or two before the due date. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons why there are usually so many mistakes and typos in coursework. Sometimes, typos and inattentiveness can become reasons for you completely negating the whole argument of your paper. So, to be on the safe side, make sure to reread your paper before you submit it; also, use MS Word, Google Docs, or other similar text-processing software to be able to notice mistakes easier.
• Make sure your coursework is easy to read and to comprehend. Use subheadings: they are a good way to mark semantic transitions within the text. They also break the text into smaller chunks, making it more reader-friendly. Use transition words to clearly show how the ideas, arguments, and evidence in your work are connected. Mind the length and structure of your sentences; long, complicated sentences are harder to understand, but short sentences do not let you fully convey your thought. Also, you should make sure the words you are using are precise and accurate, and that you fully understand their meaning.

Dos and Don’ts

Common mistakes.

• Not allocating enough time for research. Although this is the most crucial step of writing coursework, many students tend to try to shortcut it and get down directly to writing.
• Not proofreading or editing enough. This is important, because sometimes the cost for making a mistake is too high. Overlook a simple “not” in the concluding and summarizing part of your coursework, and your entire argumentation may be denied or ruined.
• Submitting your coursework exactly on the due date. This way, students often deprive themselves of time they could use to double-check the paper and correct the mistakes.
• Missed citations, improper formatting, gullible statements, excessive simplification (or, on the contrary, complication) of the text.
• Not making the text reader-friendly.

Now that you have acquainted yourself with the basic academic coursework writing tips and rules, you can check out our academic coursework samples to link theory with practice.

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Samples for Coursework Writing Tips

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How to Write Coursework: Pro Tips for Students

Table of contents

• 1 What is Coursework?
• 2 Types of Coursework
• 3.3 Conclusion
• 4 Coursework Writing Rules
• 5 Coursework Writing Tips For College Students

Coursework is a major component of studying that requires so much attention and effort to write. Students often need to present a massive amount of pages, do experiments, practice their public speaking skills, use the help of teachers, analyze data and discuss it, present information and do so much more if they wish to deliver quality coursework before the deadline.

Before writing, you need to know all the requirements and standards for your coursework as it helps to make the process of writing more successful and achieve the required results that you can demonstrate to the teacher and present in the class.

When writing a coursework paper, you should take into account the advice of your teachers and other senior students who have such experience. This helps to work faster and make the process of working more efficiently so you get better results.

What is Coursework?

Coursework is an academic paper that shows how a student knows and understands what he or she has learned during the course. It can be based on a science project or other experiments and includes as much data as stipulated by the requirements.

Every paper has specific formatting and structure. Students should select a topic and thesis before writing the main sections, they also should outline the main structure and only then create the content for all sections.

The topic and thesis, size of work, and the subject and objectives of coursework can be very different. That is why students need to know their requirements even if they have made and read many similar papers before. Coursework papers are usually also checked for plagiarism and grammatical correctness using such tools as plagiarism checker free by PapersOwl.

Types of Coursework

The first thing you need to know here is that there are a few different types of these assignments. In order to know how to write coursework, you need to understand each type. Below we have explained them in detail so you will be able to learn the basics in no time and apply these to your writing. Keep in mind that the differences are massive. Hence, you will want to understand this part of the task as much as possible.

• Analytical essay This is a very common option, and it involves 3 sources that are connected. They are connected by the same theme. You can pay close attention to the spoken, written, and also multimedia sources that are important to your topic. You also need to target a specific audience in order to produce more detailed and accurate writing.
• Essay that has supportive commentary Here you will need to find one piece of the media element. It can be watched or read from the source. Then you will add your own details and specifics that are related closely to the English language.
• Creative paper paired with commentary The goal here is to produce a paper that reveals your skills and your knowledge when it comes to addressing a specific audience. Your paper needs to imitate the style of the assigned piece.
• Analytical study This is a very appealing and one of the simplest options here. A student will have to pick, or he will be given a piece of work. His mission is to analyze it in detail. The goal is to see how well the student has understood the piece. Teachers will evaluate terminology, details, and specifics used in the writing process.

If you are looking for assistance with writing your coursework, PapersOwl offers a convenient coursework writing service that can help you to get the best results quickly. Coursework writing can be challenging and time-consuming, but with the help of our experts, you can be sure that you will receive a high-quality paper. Our team of experienced writers has been thoroughly trained to provide you with the best coursework writing service available.

Steps of Writing

These tasks are complicated, so you will need a lot of time, and you need to know how to write each section perfectly. This is something we will reveal below. Keep in mind that you must conduct proper research, which is more time-consuming than any other paper requires. You need a lot of time to produce a proper paper of this kind as well.

how to write a coursework introduction? The best thing to do is to start with a hook. It is one sentence designed to catch the attention of the readers. You can use a joke, a fact, statistical data, or something else.

Then, you will have to briefly mention what you are going to discuss in the sections below. You can check coursework examples and learn more about this step. It is that important. Some students prefer completing it as the last part of the task.

All coursework assignments will have body sections where you need to present all your facts and data. This is the most important part here. Keep in mind that you need to have a single paragraph explained in detail, and you need to make sure each section is well-written, has no mistakes, and is directed.

The latter means that you will be focused on one point and explaining the point. Once you are done, move to the next paragraph. This is something we can see mandatory with related articles as well. One of the common mistakes is mixing the facts you want to reveal.

How to write a coursework conclusion? In this environment, you will need a strong conclusion that is done in a proper manner. You need to conclude the paper by revealing the specifics and what you have discovered. Do not introduce new elements here, and don’t try to stay positive and negative about the topic. Be direct and try to write a strong conclusion that will make readers wonder.

Writing coursework can be a daunting task, but Papersowl is here to make the process easier for you. Our team of experienced writers is ready to help you create exceptional coursework that will help you achieve your academic objectives. At Papersowl , we are committed to providing reliable and high-quality coursework writing services. We understand the significance of submitting well-structured and high-quality coursework, and our aim is to help you get the best possible grades.

Coursework Writing Rules

You need to check what the teacher wants of you and what results you need to show him or her. You are able to discuss the main points with your teachers until you understand them and know what to do. However, be careful and do this only when you really don’t have any idea what to do.

A good topic helps you in writing all the other sections of your paper, you should choose the topic that interests you and motivates you to go forward. This is a way to make the work go quickly and make the process more exciting for you.

• Don’t copy the work of other students. You can use literature and other sources if you cite them correctly in your paper because copying other papers can be easily recognized by systems for finding plagiarism.
• You should also use words and phrases that are common for scientific work. There are websites and other resources that you are able to use to check the grammatical correctness of your papers, be sure to revise and edit your work several times before publishing.
• The main sections of your work should support your topic and thesis given in the introduction. You can use many ways to present data such as text, numbers, tables, graphs, etc. From time to time, you need to return to paragraphs you have already revised and check for mistakes.
• There are usually specific terms for writing coursework. That is why your work should be planned so you are able to finish it yourself or use service “ complete coursework for me ” online. It may require more time than you think so the earlier you start working, the better it would be for you.
• To get the data you need, you can use different types of sources. Look for information in brick-and-mortar and web libraries, and browse specific databases. You have to cite all the sources you use in the appropriate sections of your coursework.

Coursework Writing Tips For College Students

There are ways to complete your coursework fast and get the results you need. If you use these ways from the start, you can do less and get more. Experienced students know them and use them when working on all their studies and projects.

• Planning your work is crucial if you also have other activities and have to spend time on other courses, make a schedule of activities by starting writing the introduction to the main presentation. You should ensure you have a few days to check and edit your work, even if you think it is ready for publishing.
• Organize your workplace in a way that you can learn with no distractions. You can learn at home, in the library, and even in parks, but choose the places where you won’t be distracted and can work on your paper with excitement. You should also relax a little bit to make your writing clearer and check the paragraphs you have created.
• Discuss your paper with other students who are assigned to write their coursework papers. Sharing experiences can help do research well and write more legible and interesting papers. You can also read papers from other students to understand the correct knowledge and data presentation.
• Use such services as Google Drive , cloud databases, etc., as it helps you access data from different devices and not worry. You can use the services for storing your texts and tables, images, and diagrams, and there is also a system for reviewing texts and adding comments.

When writing coursework, students show what they have learned during the course. This is a process that requires a lot of attention and research. Coursework should be checked for easy readability and understanding, free of grammatical errors and plagiarism.

Students need to know the requirements and what they need to create. The structure and formatting of the work should also be considered before writing the main sections. To learn more, students can read ready papers and check the coursework of experienced researchers.

This process could be difficult and require a lot of effort, but there are ways to make it easier. In a productive workplace, planning, and scheduling, and using different sources can help to have less effort and get what you need in a shorter timeframe.

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Guidelines and steps for writing a coursework | Tips for good writing

What is a coursework and why to write a coursework.

A coursework is a written or practical work done by student in form of thesis, dissertation, project or paper as a part of course. This is often an essential requirement for being awarded a degree and counts towards successful completion of the course. A coursework is assessed by class instructors or by other teachers in the school. Many students cannot clearly define what is a coursework. In a nutshell, at the “A” and GSCE level , a coursework is written in the form of projects or essays. There are few guidelines and good practices which should be followed while writing a coursework. Perfect examples of a coursework include extended essay, field studies, practical activities, design studies and internal assessment test set. Conversely, each coursework have differing objectives from one course unit to another. In addition, a coursework may incorporate work for which the experiments, topics, themes or parameters of a project or essay have been designed by the teacher, or specified in the syllabus, or selected by the students themselves. Therefore, a coursework is presented in a form of a research assignment meant to reflect the understanding of topics and concepts by the student. Students can handle their coursework either at school under the controlled conditions in class sessions, and/or as homework.

Coursework writing varies from one subject to another as the need differs for each subject. For example, an English coursework differs from a geography coursework. Whereas the former requires the student to present coursework in an essay format where a student has to select a title of their choice. Whereas the latter highly focuses on collecting, and examining, inferring and reporting data, answering a certain geographical question. For example, in English coursework, a student is often assigned to choice of themes or text excerpt to write on a format of their choice. One can either employ a comparison approach or the cause-effect method. Conversely, coursework in subjects, such as geography coursework, requires scholars to conduct investigations. For example, students can explore on the desert features, river formation or usage of social facilities such as halls, schools and hospital and report the findings.

Some rules & guidelines for writing a coursework

So how to start a coursework? Just like any other academic piece, there are some rules and guidelines that determine what makes a coursework good and exceptional. It is significant for scholars to consider all the following points for writing a coursework to score good grade and avoid having their paper disqualified:

• Students are not allowed to seek help from the instructors or from fellow students unless it is a group coursework or instructed. Though, an instructor is only permitted to deliver directions on how to handle a coursework paper as well as pointing out specific areas that are critically checked by examiners.
• Students should avoid plagiarism. It is a rule that is considered as a serious academic offense if committed. Under this rule, a student is expected to submit an original work written and not copied from other source. This is checked by using various softwares that checks for plagiarism. Therefore, students should make sure there work is their own words by signing a declaration asserting that it is your own piece of work. Buying coursework is also an offense if it is discovered.
• Also, a student has to confirm the word count on their paper to ensure it has the instructed word limits without the consideration of the appendices, references and footnotes.
• Students have to be keen and careful when they are selecting the topics to avoid writing on a wrong topic that is not covered in the coursework. A topic already covered should also be checked or discussed with concerned faculty before writing.

 All these rules are constantly restated in coursework prompts and rubrics to ensure one does not derail and violate them when they are figuring out on how to start a coursework.

Deciding good topic for a coursework

The capability to choose a good topic to write on is a vital skill in coursework writing. All the work and efforts will revolve around the chosen topic. If given the liberty to choose, then the topic should be something you would love to write about.

• Sometimes instructors can assign you to handle a specific topic, but often, as a writer, you are required to develop or select a topic that interests you is the one you may enjoy writing about. For example, you may decide to settle on a topic from either an area you understood well in the syllabus or from an area in the course that you enjoyed.
• However, before deciding on your topic, you need to examine whether you can control, measure and change the topic by conducting a fair taste. It is advisable not to select topics that appear ambiguous or which have a wider scope as it might affect the developing of a precise thesis statement, as they make it difficult to reach the word limit as well as failing to satisfy the topic. Also, students are allowed to seek guidance and assistance on choosing suitable topic to write in a situation where you are not sure on what to write about. For example, you can check previous assignments done by other students to get idea about their approaches on particular topics.

Steps for writing a coursework

• Before writing a coursework, a student has to plan based on duration and the materials needed and as instructed in coursework tips. Concerning the deadline, a student must not wait until the last-minute for the paper to start writing. Last minute rush in completing a paper can cause students to make common grammar mistakes that will affect their final grade.
• Deadlines are normally indicated in all the  coursework assignments and a student has to understand when the deadlines are due for the final assignments as well as time for submitting a first draft for comments from your teacher.
• Proper time planning will spare you plenty of time to make corrections based on teacher’s remarks, as well as creating time for final editing and proofreading.
• To achieve this, you have to set up your own deadlines that are far or within the actual deadline to ensure you complete your coursework writing in time.
• Research is about collecting significant and supporting literature from both primary and secondary sources. You will be required to collect data and know methods of data collection as a part of this step. Conducting surveys and preparing good questionnaires will be a much needed skill in many cases.

• The actual writing of your paper commences after gathering sufficient data that will do justice to the topic.
• Student has to write down the paper structure before writing. Though, the outline provided in the essay instructions where students are expected to follow.
• A standard essay format comprises of an introduction, body and conclusion.  In particular, structure planning in important for big projects, because there is a likelihood of having disorganized and waffling writing since it entails a lot of information to convey that needs to be arranged. This has a significant impact on your data analysis and presentation.
• Consequently, one has to perfect their writing abilities to produce a high quality paper that bases around the standard essay format. For complex projects in science, you need to be more analytical and interpretive to get the accurate inferences of the data collected in your writing.
• In addition, you look for a quiet and conducive environment that is free from unnecessary distractions to earn the greatest concentration required for thinking and writing. Switching off TV  and logging out from all social media accounts help in reducing external distractions.

Supporting Materials – deal breaker for writing a coursework 

Supporting materials are defined as the evidencing materials that are included in the writing to reinforce the theories explained. For example table, graphs, charts, and images are mostly applicable and relevant in subjects such as geography and sciences. Supporting materials are written in the appendix part of a paper to avoid cluttering of information in the main part of the paper. For instance, the coursework focus is survey oriented, you could put the raw survey responses, survey templates, questionnaires, in an appendix and present the analysis and discussions in the main body of the coursework.

Finalizing Your Coursework

The steps on how to finish a coursework is easy as it necessitates one to edit their papers prior to the submission. Prior to the submission, students would have time to proffered and confirm features such as word count, word choice, grammar errors, spellings as well as the punctuation mistakes. It is advisable to carry out a manual proofreading as the modern spell checking and grammar checking software can overlook some common mistakes. Importantly, a student is required to include in-text citation according to the writing style used. A well-written coursework is thought-provoking, enjoyable for the reader and enhances the reader’s knowledge.

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What is Coursework: Updated Guide for 2024

Coursework is the most significant part of academic writing that requires so much time and effort. You should consider the guidance of your teachers and your seniors who have similar experiences in writing a coursework. This makes the process of working faster and more effective, which leads to the best outcomes. This guide will help you to understand what coursework is and how to write coursework effectively, based on expert tips from our coursework writing service team.

What is Coursework?

Coursework consists of all basic assignments given to students to evaluate their level of understanding. It includes many types of assignments, such as essay writing, research papers, discussion boards and written reports. To get excellent grades and grade point averages (GPA), students must understand the basic concepts of their courses. Coursework is difficult to define, even though it is usually important to complete a specific program. This kind of assignment can be completed in a wide range of formats. 

Importance of Coursework

Coursework is the most common type of assignment that teachers give students to understand their level of learning on a specific topic or subject. Moreover, it shows how well a student understands and uses the topic in various contexts. Through coursework writing, students may improve their research abilities, increase their understanding of a subject, develop their analytical skills, and apply the knowledge they have discovered to use independently. Furthermore, students learn to summarize the topic with key arguments and then draw conclusions by learning how to write coursework . 

Types of Coursework

Five different types of coursework are given to students:

Analytical Coursework

Analytical Coursework presents a thesis statement or claim and demonstrates how to study different things. It usually focuses on the literary style of the text rather than the synopsis.

Supportive Commentary

Supportive Commentary helps students to create a single piece of media writing. Coursework should be written in an experimental mode, such as written, spoken, or multimodal. Students must also include a supporting statement that contains all the information and aspects. 

Journal Coursework

Writing journals for coursework is regarded as an act that promotes casual writing as a regular activity. This can take many different forms and is useful for multiple purposes. It can be both creative and personal. In order to organize their thoughts, compose their ideas, and respond to them, students are always expected to keep journals as part of their coursework.

Analytical Study

Analytical study is the process of sharing an analysis of the chosen work and how it relates to the relevant material. It also shows how well the writer understands the entire process of writing. Students should use proper vocabulary and must maintain word consistency. Also, understand the structure and format of writing.  

Commentary and Creative Writing

In commentary and creative writing coursework, students are asked to generate creative content that reflects the tone or style of the assessed text. It also helps to share comments to support the knowledge. Additionally, the major purpose of creative writing and commentary is to demonstrate knowledge, test skills, and engage the target audience through various languages.

Coursework Writing Tips

There are some key points that you should keep in mind while writing coursework. 

It is the worst possible scenario for any kind of academic writing assignment. Today, the internet has tons of relevant information, and professors become rigorous in the context of plagiarism. Your own words should be used in all writing! Use the advised citation style and make references list if you choose to include quotations from the sources. Claim that it is your own project and sign the declaration.

Keep in mind the precise guidelines for the coursework's length. Specify whether the references, appendices, and footnotes are counted as part of the word count.

Browse the possible topics. Try to pick a relevant coursework topic that is similar to the subject of the upcoming exam if one will be held on it. 

Get Help from Tutor

Never ignore your teacher's advice; ask for their guidance on your topic. Also, to learn more, ask questions, but remember they may only read the first draft once and give general suggestions.

Perfect Coursework Writing Structure

The precision required for coursework writing depends not only on the writing process but also on the design. Even if you produce a stunning and thoroughly researched paper for the professor, poor design will still result in bad grades. We have chosen the most significant components to build a flawless coursework structure for you after reviewing many coursework standards. The structure consists of the following main components:

Introduction or Opening

The first step is to write the coursework introduction after choosing a topic. This introduction section needs to be extraordinary to catch the reader's attention. Make sure to include all essential details, and keep it brief or precise. 

Include any background data about the topic you have chosen. Write down your goals as well. This section should contain your thesis statement. Also, write the introduction in such a way that it serves as the reader's guide.

Main Body 

Your hard work and dedication will be reflected in this section. In the body section, you should add every minute detail you discovered on your research journey. Additionally, this section will be written in the past tense with an informative tone. 

Readers may find research findings boring because they are just stats and figures. Therefore, this section should include appealing tables, graphs, infographics and charts to make it interesting. Mention each statistic as it is; do not change any findings. 

Summarize your whole coursework in this section. The conclusion needs to be short while covering all the details. You might mention the essential takeaways from the coursework.

How to Write a Coursework: Step-by-Step Guide

This step-by-step guide will walk you through how to write coursework effectively

Research is the most crucial part of any writing project. A lot of effort and time is required, but it is worthwhile because it serves as the core of your work and helps establish and defend your point of view.  You can find the necessary information from many primary and secondary sources. Always double-check the information you get online because not all of it is reliable, and some of it can be out of date. Make notes on each source you consult while researching, including the definition, quotation, or information you discovered. Make a table with citations or links to web sources. It is also very helpful to utilize such a table while writing the bibliography section.

Planning 

At the planning phase, it is advised to make a rough outline of your coursework, decide which information you will add, and what points you should add in each section. Making a plan first and then sticking to it is very helpful.  For example, create a table and include all steps of your work with the dates when you want to work on them. This is a fantastic method for time management and a great way to quit delaying things so you can finish them before the deadline.

Drafting 

It could be challenging to write the initial draft of a lengthy article. However, there isn't much you can do about it. In this scenario, the sole piece of guidance that is appropriate is to start writing. Once you start putting together your coursework, you'll observe that there aren't a lot of differences between your paper and other typical written assignments. The section for which you have the most information should come first. These academic papers are never written according to the structure's order. The opening portion of your paper is where you can begin writing because it is more general than the rest.  You can pick out some interesting, pertinent coursework examples or reports to discuss in your writing so your reader will better understand the issue you are gradually focused on. You can go on to terms and situations that are more precise after acquiring the background information.

The last step is to edit and polish your document. While proofreading, it's crucial to focus on consistency problems, stylistic errors, and grammar and punctuation errors.

Many tools, including Grammarly , are available to help you with grammar. You should use these tools because you might miss some errors. No software can help you fix your writing style and logical structure mistakes. However, you can turn to a team of expert writers and editors for a high-quality editing service and a properly polished document.

Verify the word count and formatting specifications provided by your educational institution. Before submitting your work for review to your professor, you should also allow time for the editing phase, so plan accordingly.

Formative vs Summative Coursework Assessments

Formative assessment assesses students' understanding of a subject by offering them practice in essay creation and structure which can also be beneficial for tasks like term paper writing . It assists students in evaluating their strengths and weaknesses and focuses on areas that require improvement. Moreover, formative assessments help instructors in identifying students' areas of difficulty and taking prompt action to resolve issues

Summative assignments, on the other hand, evaluate students' knowledge at the end of the semester. Summative assessment includes mid-term exams and final-year project. When completing courses, it is vital to understand the type of review you are submitting to. If you understand the coursework meaning and finish your assignments on time, you might obtain an A+.

Get Coursework Help from Experts

If you want to write your coursework successfully, follow all the steps mentioned above. If you still have difficulty writing coursework, you can get academic writing help at our essay writing service  with one click. We have a group of experienced writers who can offer you timely, cost-effective coursework help online. 

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How to Write a Coursework ✔ Tips by Academic Experts

Writing coursework is a unique task, but it’s also extremely common. Students must work on this assignment every year, but they inevitably face problems because coursework simultaneously functions as an essay, dissertation, and research paper. It borrows elements from different academic tasks and helps determine your final grade, so it’s important to do everything correctly. Because of academic pressure, it might take months to get everything together, and you’ll have to apply much effort to succeed. But don’t worry; our thoughtful guide will show you how to deal with it. You can buy coursework online if your time is already short, but if you’re ready for intense work, study the tips we developed!

Coursework Definition and Its Types

What is a coursework? It’s an academic task involving written and practical elements that seek to demonstrate a student’s knowledge of the subject. In every case, it comprises extensive research, and the coursework grade will play a decisive role in your final performance assessment. The point of this assignment lies in encouraging students’ critical thinking and boosting their research skills.

After fulfilling every part of the task, students gain invaluable experience that is bound to facilitate their future studies. Depending on their subject, they might face coursework of different types. Writing, practical study, and experiment are the three most common options. We’ll discuss them in more depth below so that you know what you should expect.

Explaining Three Main Types of Coursework

Writing a coursework means creating something between an essay and a dissertation. It’s the simplest and the most common coursework type that can take a variety of shapes across different disciplines. For instance, if someone is studying Literature, their professor might give them a list of questions that they’ll need to answer in a written format, explaining what made them think this way and justifying their position with arguments. They might also give you a specific topic that you’ll need to explore. Learning how to write an introduction and performing a literature review would be essential here: you’ll rely on other sources and your personal interpretations to create a complete picture of your subject. Your faculty will expect to see logical links between ideas, a documented research base consisting of credible sources, as well as your thoughtful observations.

What is academic coursework practical study? This is a more complex type of work. Imagine that we study History. Our topic entails establishing how the portrayal of women evolved in China. We’ll have to do theoretical research consulting other relevant sources, but the focus will be on practical elements. Choosing forms of art depicting women through the ages and finding and selecting excerpts from ancient literature about them would form the basis of our knowledge and insights. 

So, when working on your coursework, do practical research that comes from you and your unique effort. This is similar to the experiment type: the only difference is that with the latter, you’ll have to focus on a practical part in particular. Choosing your area of research is vital: you need a hypothesis, a focus group you could use as a sample, and a special research design. You could interview people, send questionnaires to them, observe them, etc. In both tasks, your professor will value your original insights and the thoroughness of your research.

Facts that Might Earn You an Automatic Falling Grade

Another crucial element students must know is the examples of coursework violations. Everyone wants to avoid it for obvious reasons, but not everyone succeeds. Plagiarism is the first and worst issue. It may ruin everything you’ve worked for. Some faculties use softer approaches: they have a threshold of about 10% plagiarism. Their coursework will be deemed original if their students don’t deviate from this norm. But other professors might fail you even for one uncited claim. That is why you must use plagiarism detectors before submitting your work anywhere. Also, pay attention to claims people don’t know about and which you use in your coursework. For example, if you claim that women wore only dresses in China in 1200, you’ll need to point out a source from which you got this info. Ask your parents or friends if they know this information: if the answer is no, make a citation.

Word count within your coursework essay is also important. If your professor told everyone to write 2000 words, yet you wrote 1500, they might fail you either entirely or partly. Take your time. Writing more isn’t a good idea as well.  Sure, it might win you more points for effort, but some professors won’t be happy with having extra work, and your grade will suffer. Select a good topic that corresponds to your subject and academic level. To be safe, get approval from your supervisor in advance because there is nothing worse than wasting months on work that will bring you nothing but failure. If you worry too much or the assignment is too important, and you think you lack time or knowledge, know that TopEssayWriting is aware of all these nuances and is willing to take care of it. Get the best essay writers for hire , and they’ll craft and perfect your coursework by the day you need it. Unlike students, they have extensive experience, and they’ll guarantee solid original research, appropriate word count and topic, as well as perfect formatting.

A Plan of Writing Coursework for Students

You know coursework definition already; you have heard about its types and nuances they entail. But how to write this kind of project? We’re going to list all relevant steps and describe them. First of all, take a look at the image below. It features a summary of each step. You can save and use it whenever you need it; share it with friends who might struggle with their coursework, too.

• Choosing a topic: look for inspiring ideas online, consider your sphere of interest, or consult your professor to pick the best topic.
• Research and collecting data: use Google Scholar or any other academic database to locate relevant academic articles, books, or websites. They must be credible.
• Organization:  Analyze and categorize your findings.
• Developing outline: create an outline listing the major topics you plan on working within each of your paragraphs.
• Making the first draft: write an initial version of your paper by relying on your draft and briefly explore all ideas from it.
• Editing coursework: edit your coursework and flesh out your points until everything looks perfect.

But now, let’s review each stage of writing coursework thoroughly.

Step 1: Knowing What Topic to Choose

Selecting a strong topic is one of the guarantees of success. If you like it, if it’s relevant and has a lot of materials dedicated to it, you’ll enjoy doing research, and your professor will likely enjoy reading it. Some tips for making a good final choice: consult your supervisor if you have a trust-based relationship and know they’ll welcome it. If not, try online lists. There are plenty of them — in fact, we’ll offer you three potential topics right here! Just ensure your topic is broad enough to warrant lengthy research and avoid trite ideas. No one wants to hear about capital punishment, abortions, or marijuana because these topics are incredibly overused. Check these examples out.

1) Effect of Crowd Behavior on Victim Blaming

This example of coursework topic is interesting because most people can relate to it, plus it offers a wide territory for research. Everyone was a victim once in some minor or major way. Did you feel like you were blamed for something that happened to you? Or perhaps you felt inclined to blame someone when learning about what they experienced? The area of crowd behavior is also fascinating. Twenty people can be decent and law-abiding, but they can do horrifying things when put together. Why is that? Explore both topics, combine them using logical links, and enjoy many articles that could guide you.

2) Should There Be Any Regulations Concerning Fictional Content?

This coursework example is intriguing because it concerns a relevant topic. There is an increasing number of people who think that watching TV shows about murders or unequal relationships might automatically make viewers murderers and abusers. Take one or both sides of the issue; research them, their history, and examples of bans on fiction in the past; you could also choose any perspective from which to view it, be it legal, ethical, philosophical, or even religious.

3) What Strategies Can Help a Small Country Win a War against a Large Country

The value of this topic is its relevance. The war in Ukraine demonstrates how a large empire cannot defeat a small country. Ukraine is far from winning, so explore the current situation and past examples involving similar circumstances. It could be interesting and educational both.

Step 2: Starting Your Research

Doing research is a crucial step in coursework writing. Once students pick a topic, they must find sources that will help them explore their subject and make strong points. We suggest using both primary and secondary sources. The former include raw materials like interviews, memos, or reports; the latter are typical research articles with second-hand information. You can easily find a big collection of diverse sources on Google Scholar or in your college library. Just ensure that your chosen source is credible. If it’s a blog by an enthusiast, stay away from it. Wiki is a big no since any person can edit it. Check if the article has DOI, use websites with .edu or .gov, and rely on books published by academic houses. Remember that the fresher a source is, the more its relevance increases. Some professors insist students shouldn’t use articles older than 3 or 5 years.

Step 3: Organization

Take notes as you research or make a table with sources you’ll use, might use, or won’t use. It’ll help keep your research process organized. This organization is crucial as it allows you to categorize your findings, making it easier to reference them later. By sorting the information into different themes or arguments, you can identify areas where you have enough data and areas where further research might be needed. This step also helps in avoiding redundancy and ensuring that all your sources are relevant and contribute meaningfully to your argument. An organized approach to your research not only streamlines the writing process but also ensures a well-rounded and thorough exploration of your topic.

Step 4: Working on an Outline

What is coursework outline? It’s a short summary of key points that will be present in your essay. First, deal with technical elements: make a timeline of when you’ll be doing what. If you have four months to complete your coursework, dedicate month 1 to research, month 2 to outlines and drafts, month 3 to writing, and month 4 to final polishing. Having a schedule always helps stay on track. You’ll also need to structure your outline properly. Here is a potential overview of its structure:

• Introduction: include your thesis and sketch your topic’s background here.
• Literature Review:  Summarize the current state of research on your topic.
• Methodology: describe how you collected data and what samples you used.
• Main Body:  List the main ideas or arguments—present data, quotes, or examples to support your points.
• Analysis & Discussion: Interpret and analyze the results of your research.
• Conclusion: make recommendations for future research
• References:  List all sources cited in your coursework in the appropriate format.
• Appendices:  Include any additional material like charts, graphs, or raw data.

Adding just a few lines would be sufficient here. This outline will come in handy more often than you think: it will remind you whenever you forget what you want to do.

Take nuances of your formatting style into consideration, too. APA, for example, requires a title page and an abstract. This is how to reference a claim: “King Valluar died in 1444, leaving a record number of 214 children behind (Foster, 2022).” Add a page number when using a direct quote like this: (Foster, 2022, p. 13).

Our suggestion: stay strictly on topic. Understand its final point, break it into major points, and make every section in an outline concise and clear.

Don’t forget about additional elements — preparing them at this stage could boost your productivity later. Some topics require visual illustrations or the presence of tables. Include them. Cite them, make sure they are readable and have good quality; if you’re making them yourself, double-check them repeatedly.

Step 5: Creating the Draft

Start your academic coursework by consulting your outline. Introduction is particularly important as it’s the first section your readers see. Make it engaging by starting with a hook, an intriguing claim guaranteed to secure people’s interest. It could be a controversial claim, a powerful statement, statistics, etc. 

Introduce the topic background and explain what you’re trying to achieve by writing this coursework. After this, it’ll be simpler to move toward the next sections. Don’t feel compelled to develop every point to perfection: brushing against the most important aspects would be enough for now. Keep your structure clean; don’t make paragraphs longer than 200 words. Cite sources in each paragraph at least once, preferably more often.

Step 6: Starting Editing Rounds

Read your draft. Identify its weak spots and correct them. It is time to do it if you didn’t develop your points properly. Keep expanding paragraphs until you reach the required word count, and everything feels complete. Cut the pieces you consider less relevant if the word count is too long.

With this done, check your coursework again for grammar, formatting, and style. Eliminate typos, catch instances of informal language usage (contractions, phrasal verbs, slang, etc.), and compare your formatting to a template. Remember that you could edit paper online with professionals. Our editing service is affordable and accurate, and our experts could give you content and/or proofreading assistance, combing through your text and removing every problem in it.

Exclusive Tips Based on Our Writers’ Personal Experience

As you probably figured out by now, our writers have seen numerous coursework examples in their work. Their years-long experience speaks for itself. We surveyed them, and they identified the three most widespread mistakes students made in their coursework and gave three pieces of advice.

• Failure to follow instructions. It seems like such an obvious thing, but no, multiple students keep treating their instructions inattentively. If professors asked them to explore 5 points, many explored 3 or 4; if they asked to write 3000 words, some wrote much less or much more than that. Finally, some students don’t understand their prompt, research the wrong topic, or not performing the kind of study they were asked to do.
• Lack of coherence. Only some people are good writers. Students often need to be more balanced between ideas erratically, skipping over connections or not elaborating on their point.
• Technical issues. Grammar or formatting mistakes, typos, or informal words are parasites that often slip into students’ texts without them noticing it.
• Re-read your prompt several times. Even if you’re confident you understood everything correctly, better be safe than sorry. Re-read instructions slowly, lingering on each element.
• Ask for help if needed. It doesn’t matter what’s wrong: if you cannot finish your coursework but you want plagiarism free papers of the highest quality, consult experts. They’ll help you.
• Don’t worry about seemingly losing time. Some students think that writing outlines or drafts is redundant. Yes, they might take time, but you’ll save it because you’ll spend far less time on actual writing. Create a solid preparatory base for yourself.

Create Well-Crafted Coursework and Secure Your Success

You know how to define coursework, what types exist, how to protect yourself from a bad grade, and which steps to follow to write a great project. Apply this knowledge in your studies! Start working on your coursework step by step, creating section after section and polishing each until even the strictest professor feels impressed. If something is amiss, contact TopEssayWriting ASAP and formulate your request. We are here every day and each night, serving students and connecting them with the best writers. Order personalized coursework examples, ask us to write a chapter or the entire work, demand editing or grading. Our services are always open to you. Get even more knowledge and succeed in your writing!

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Definition of coursework

Examples of coursework in a sentence.

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'coursework.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

1890, in the meaning defined above

Dictionary Entries Near coursework

Cite this entry.

“Coursework.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coursework. Accessed 19 May. 2024.

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What Is a Course Outline?

As you can see, this outline is laid out as a simple Excel spreadsheet and includes several tables. Let’s look at each point of the training course outline in detail.

• Description. To provide a complete picture, there should be an overview of each lesson in which you would briefly explain what that lesson is about. All the descriptions together will let you see at the very beginning if a module looks complete or lacks some important details.
• Learning objectives. You also need to define what a learner should know or be able to do after completing a lesson. Having a learning objectives in mind, you’ll not only be careful about selecting the theoretical content, but it will be easier for you to decide about activities that will let your learners better achieve their outcomes.
• Content types. A good course is not just a simple set of slides with text and images. It should provide an engaging learning experience that can be created by using various kinds of content in a mix: videos, infographics, interactions, and many others. Mention them all in your course outline.
• Practical tasks. As stated above, you can’t rely only on text, so don’t forget to incorporate role-plays, drag-and-drops, hotspots, and other interactive activities in your lessons to let your learners practice their skills. You also need to add all these activities to your course outline.
• Assessments. You want your learners to retain the information longer and see how much they understood during the training, right? Then you can’t do without assessment in your course. Consider which lessons will include assessments or whether you find it relevant to create a comprehensive quiz at the end of the training module.

• Timing. Adults are busy people who have a job, children, parents, pets, etc. It’s crucial for them to be able to plan and manage their time efficiently. That’s why adding timing for each lesson is a must. Keep in mind that a lesson should not be longer than 10-15 minutes. 

How to Create a Course Outline Step by Step

Let’s say you’re tasked with creating a time management course from your boss and are even provided a learning analysis — the audience has been explored and the training goals have been identified. Once you’ve reviewed the goals with your boss and have gotten their approval, you can proceed to map out your future course. Here’s how to create an effective course outline step by step:

Step 1. Explore the topic

You shouldn’t conduct thorough research at this stage, you just need to see what kind of information is available on your topic. Here are a few resources you might find helpful:

• Study the material provided by SMEs. Subject matter experts are your most trustworthy resource but it’s likely you haven’t connected with them at this stage yet and no aids have been provided. But if possible, try to get any possible material from SMEs. Perhaps they have video recordings, PDF manuals, or at least notes they used when hosting training face to face.
• Explore books on the topic. Chances are there are a lot of books written on your course subject. Collect a selection of books and check out what kind of information authors provide. Books typically have multiple chapters that respectively comprise discrete themes. They can be your key to further splitting your course into modules and lessons. But if you use books as a source, make sure to cite them in your course.
• See references. If your content is not highly specific, you’re likely to find similar courses on the Internet. For example, check out what platforms like Udemy , Lynda.com, and Coursera offer. You certainly can’t just copy their courses, but you can use their structure for inspiration and idea generation.
• Search the Net. Examine what search engines rank on your course topic and make notes about what you might want to add to your course.

Step 2. Decide on training modules and lessons

As you begin to plot your online course, think about how to guide your learners toward it’s end goal. Brainstorm ideas on what a learner should know to achieve it and put them in the correct order. This way, you’ll divide your course into modules . Then think about what should be covered in each module and break it down into lessons. It’s also worth seeking help from your SME and taking a closer look at the books you’ve already selected and course references. 

This is an example of how you might want to divide a course on setting up purchase orders into modules: 

There’s also another way to split your course into modules. You can take the end goal and break it down into learning outcomes that learners should attain once they complete a course, as in this example:

In fact, if you set up the learning objectives correctly, it will be extremely easy for you to map out the course. Just keep the objectives in mind and split the topic into respective training modules, as in the example below:

You can go further and break each module into smaller lessons. 

Step 3. Write learning objectives and descriptions for each lesson

If you’ve followed the second route, when mapping out your course, you already have learning goals and objective s in front of you. Just put them down next to your modules/lessons. If you went the first way, think of the desired outcomes that learners should achieve by the end of each lesson.

To make learning objectives more actionable, and thus tangible and measurable, be sure to add action verbs, as in this example:

Also, provide a description of each lesson — just a couple of sentences. It will be great if the description not only covers the topic but also translates the value that a learner will gain from a lesson. That way, you’ll turn your description into an exciting logline that you can put on the slide with the lesson title. It will engage your learners and encourage them to take the lesson.

Step 4. Define the content types 

Now that you’ve broken your course down into modules and lessons and identified learning objectives for each one, it’s time to decide how you can help your audience achieve these learning objectives. In other words, you need to consider what type of content and interactive tasks you’ll provide in each lesson so your employees can remember the information better. 

For example, if you want to train your merchandisers on how to arrange goods in a supermarket, you would provide slides with the theory on the subject, add a demonstration video on how to place items on the shelves, and finalize this with drag-and-drop activities so employees can practice their merchandising skills. And if you want your sales professionals to be able to handle customer objections, you’ll definitely need to add a role-play to your online courses. 

So, the bottom line is that to create an online course, you need to support the theory with media and practical tasks. But keep in mind that your hands-on activities should be consistent with the knowledge and skills you want your learners to obtain.

This means that you can’t offer a role-play simulation to factory workers if you want them to learn how to operate specific machinery. But a role-play will be a perfect solution for the learners that need to develop their communication skills, like learning how to provide feedback to an employee. 

Below, you can see exactly which eLearning content types you can use in your course:

Let’s take a look at some of them in greater detail. You can create all these content types with the iSpring Suite authoring toolkit , even if you have no tech or design skills. 

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Fully-stocked eLearning authoring toolkit for PowerPoint. No training required to start!

Interactions

Interactions are an engaging way to present your learning material. They can help you show the history of your company, product development stages, transaction cycles, and much more. In the example below, you can see an interactive catalog that includes various kinds of cheese. It was created specifically to acquaint employees with the products offered by the company.

To check your learners’ knowledge and provide them with even more opportunities for practicing skills, compliment your courses with interactive quizzes. Try to use a variety of question types to make a quiz even more effective and fun, as shown in this demo:

Drag-and-drop activities

The abovementioned drag-and-drop tasks require learners to drag a piece of text or an image and drop it in the corresponding place. To see how it all works, check out the demo below — learn whether you can sort the food into healthy and unhealthy items correctly:

Hotspot activities

Hotspots are really engaging tasks that require learners to mark a specific area of an image. Learn how good you are at geography. Can you find Zambia on the first try? 

Role-play simulations

If you want your employees to master their communication skills in a safe-to-fail environment, with no chance of ruining a deal or damaging relationships with a customer, include role-plays in your course. For example, this role-play is designed to train car sales staff to use tact, know-how, and just a bit of assertiveness to seal the deal:

Step 5. Show your course outline to stakeholders

As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, it’s much easier to redo a course at the stage of building an outline than after you’ve created a scenario, or even worse, designed the course. That’s why, after the draft of your course outline is ready, it is a good idea to provide it to SMEs and a customer for review. Once it’s approved, you can start working on a course scenario and eLearning storyboard . 

Training Course Outline Template

To make the process of creating an course outline easier for you, we’ve created a template that you can easily customize according to your eLearning project.

Tips for Creating an Effective Course Outline

Here are a few more helpful things to keep in mind when creating a course outline. 

Consider other course elements

Modules and lessons are the core of any online course. But there are several other important elements you need to consider. If needed, you can also include them in your course outline.

• Welcome slide. This is where you will add your course title and description.
• Learning objective slide. It will list the learning objectives of the course.
• Navigation slide. This will let you set up your main navigation menu. It’s where you will list your modules and/or lessons so learners can move around from one to another.
• Summary slide. It will sum up the content presented in the course and highlight key learning points.

If you build courses with an authoring toolkit like iSpring Suite , creating these slides will be a breeze. The software comes with the built-in Content Library that provides access to hundreds of preset slide templates. 

Use the tools to enhance the course outline

Some people can map out a course with just pen and paper or by playing with stickers, but it’s easier to edit and customize your course outline digitally. You can use anything from to-do lists to note apps. 

Most people put their ideas in Microsoft Word or Excel documents, as they’re simple and clear for everyone. If you prefer brainstorming using stickers, opt for mind mapping tools like Miro or free Coggle.

FAQ on Creating a Course Outline

Let’s take a brief look at several frequently asked questions about creating a course outline.

Who should I involve in mapping out a course?

Creating an course outline is entirely a course developer’s job, but as mentioned above, you should involve your customer and SME in this process. Moreover, you need to discuss the outline with your stakeholders at least twice — at the initial stage, when defining course requirements, and once the draft outline is ready. 

Why should I mention learning objectives, content types, assessments, etc. in the course outline?

Of course, you can simply break down the course into modules and lessons. However, you should keep in mind that a well-prepared outline is only half the job. You know what each lesson will be about, what outcomes your learners should achieve, and how they will master their skills. What’s left is collecting the content and putting it together with an authoring tool.

Final Thoughts 

Getting in the habit of creating a course outline will help you build more effective and engaging courses and streamline the development process. If you still haven’t downloaded the course outline template, get it now for free . Are you looking for a powerful authoring tool that will let you create eLearning courses in no time? Then try iSpring Suite for 14 days without spending a cent.

Fast course authoring toolkit

Create online courses and assessments in record time.

Content creator:

Helen Colman

She enjoys combining in-depth research with expert knowledge of the industry. If you have eLearning insights that you’d like to share, please get in touch .

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What is Coursework

First of all, you need to understand what is coursework and how to write it. When one is writing a coursework, they have to do profound research that will reveal their knowledge base. A coursework may consist of design studies, field work, projects, long essays, and other kinds of work. Depending on the particular course, it can be performed in a number of ways. You need to write a coursework not only to show what you know about a particular subject and enlarge your knowledge base but also to prepare yourself to deal with the work you will need to perform in the future.

The Oxford Dictionary defines coursework as the type of practical or written work performed by a student and assessed by their professor. Hopefully, it makes the coursework meaning clearer for you.

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Why coursework is necessary and who assigns it.

Now when you know what is coursework, you also have to understand why it is needed. Usually, a student's mentor or teacher assigns coursework as it is a part of the course structure. Writing a coursework is important since it helps the student reflect on what they have learned from the given course. Realizing the coursework meaning, one can understand the material better and see how their knowledge can be applied in various situations. This type of work also reveals the student's way of thinking and helps them learn how to express their thoughts. Coursework has an utterly diverse nature. A student's instructor can ask them to perform it in a written way and work on an essay, term paper, or thesis (this form of coursework is the most widespread). A coursework can also be done in a more creative way; for example, a student may be asked to create a sculpture. At times, taking a test is preferred by the instructor. In some cases, several types of coursework can be combined into one. Choosing a specific type or a combination of types depends on the course. Whatever the kind of coursework is, it always requires being evaluated. The student's mark will be based on their understanding of the topic, creativity, as well as on the innovative aspect of their work.

How to Perform the Most Important Types of Coursework?

Even understanding the coursework meaning, students have mixed feelings on it. Some of them like to do research, learn new information, and write about the results, while for others, it seems to be an unnecessary task, or even a burden. Whichever opinion is true for you, being a student, you will still have to write a coursework at some point. For this reason, you need to know how to do it successfully. Below you see the list of rules and guidelines that will make this task easier for you.

Read these steps carefully and make sure you follow them as they will help you get started.

Coursework that requires writing:

• Carry out superficial research on the topic of your coursework.
• Settle on your topic.
• Work on the structure of your coursework.
• Make a summary or an abstract and confirm it with your instructor.
• Conduct profound research to find all the information you need.
• While writing, keep on researching the topic more.
• When you are done, check your coursework for plagiarism.
• Make a reference list.

To make sure that your coursework features a good content that is clear and easy-to-understand for your reader, work on the structure of your work. Check out if you maintain its consistency, use relevant information, complete your topic, and make it look concise.<

Coursework that requires to create a model, sculpture, or artwork:

• Find a design or concept you like.
• See how it can be applied to the area of your study.
• Think about what you want to create and decide on the scale of this object.
• Decide what kind of materials you need to finalize your work.
• Find everything you need for creating your artwork.
• Make sure that you have a mental image of the result and make a rough sketch of it.
• Begin working!

Key points you should consider:

• Originality - You need to be sure that your topic or idea is original. It is an extremely important point you have to keep in mind from the very beginning of your work. Numerous researches are being done by numerous people, so you have to make yours stand out.
• Need - Your coursework should be able to answer certain questions or find solutions. For that, it has to identify the key problems and help the reader understand them clearly.
• Uniqueness - Both your topic and your content have to be unique. Make sure to avoid plagiarism and never copy information from other sources. Conduct surveys or prepare questionnaires to add originality to the content of your coursework.
• Your input - This aspect is very important. When working on your coursework, you need to reflect on your topic a lot and understand how you can apply it. If you do it, the purpose of writing a coursework is served. For this reason, do your best to make as much input in your work as possible.
• Outcomes & future applications - Even if you have worked hard and put a lot of effort into writing your coursework, it can turn out to be a failure in case you do not show useful outcomes. Therefore, you need to provide a well-made analysis of the information you used. Make a well-structured conclusion for your topic and talk about the way it can be researched further.

If you keep all these points in mind and follow the guidelines, you will certainly write a good coursework.

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What is Coursework?

Table of Contents

Definition and Meaning

So what is coursework? Coursework is an integral part of the educational process, which refers to written or practical tasks that students perform during educational courses. These assignments are typically evaluated and contribute to the final grade or mark. The coursework definition, especially the term “curriculum-mandated” signifies that instructors are required to assign coursework within certain guidelines. This aspect of academic work is crucial as it extends learning beyond the traditional classroom setting.

While some coursework may involve practical tasks conducted within the classroom, a significant portion is often completed independently by students, such as in their homes or dormitories. Notably, certain colleges in Texas are adopting policies that mandate a minimum of 20% of writing coursework to be completed in class, under the supervision of educators. This approach ensures the authenticity of students’ work and provides an opportunity for direct observation of their writing skills.

Additionally, it’s common for students to access previously submitted coursework online, serving as a resource for their own assignments. However, when utilizing such materials, it is imperative to thoroughly rewrite and adapt the content to maintain originality and avoid plagiarism.

Types and Examples of Coursework

The many faces of coursework.

So, what is coursework? Coursework isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of deal. It morphs to fit the subject, the course, and the learning objectives. Here’s a snapshot:

• Essays and Written Assignments. From reflective pieces to extensive research papers, these are staples in humanities and social sciences.
• Lab Reports and Scientific Research. Science and engineering students often get hands-on with experiments, followed by detailed reporting.
• Art and Design Portfolios. For the creatives, it’s about showcasing their artistic journey through portfolios.
• Group Projects and Presentations. These emphasize collaboration and communication skills, common in business and management courses.
• Fieldwork and Case Studies. Especially in disciplines like anthropology or marketing, where real-world application is key.

Examples in Different Fields

• Biology Coursework. Might involve a lab-based investigation into a specific biological phenomenon.
• Literature Coursework. Could be an analysis of a particular literary work or a comparative study of multiple pieces.
• Computer Science Coursework. Often involves coding projects or developing software solutions.

Importance and Objectives

More than just grades.

What is coursework? Coursework is about more than chasing an ‘A’. It’s an integral part of the learning process. Through coursework, you:

• Develop Critical Skills. Like research, analysis, and problem-solving.
• Apply Theoretical Knowledge. It’s your chance to use what you’ve learned in a practical context.
• Prepare for the Future. Whether it’s further academic pursuits or the professional world, coursework lays the groundwork.

Educational Objectives

Graduate coursework, in particular, is designed to deepen expertise in a field. It’s less about memorizing facts and more about developing a sophisticated understanding of complex concepts.

Challenges and Strategies

Common roadblocks.

• Time Management: Juggling multiple assignments can be overwhelming.
• Understanding Requirements: Sometimes, assignment briefs are as clear as mud.
• Maintaining Academic Integrity: The line between inspiration and plagiarism can get blurry.

Navigating the Coursework Maze

• Start Early: Procrastination is your enemy. Begin as soon as you get the assignment.
• Seek Clarification: If you’re not sure, ask. Better safe than sorry.
• Use Resources Wisely: Libraries, online databases, and even study groups can be goldmines.

Helpful Sources

• Cambridge Dictionary
• Merriam-Webster
• Can you attend two colleges at once ?

Final Thoughts

In a nutshell, what is coursework? Coursework is an indispensable part of the academic journey. It’s where theory meets practice, where skills are honed, and knowledge is deepened. As education continues to evolve with technology and changing societal needs, so does coursework. It adapts, transforms, and continues to play a crucial role in shaping competent, well-rounded individuals ready to take on the world. So, embrace your coursework – it’s not just a stepping stone to a grade, but a pathway to learning, growth, and success.

Create Your Course

How to plan an online course (templates & tips), share this article.

Learn the top things to do when planning your course, and download the free templates in each section to put these concepts into action.

Creating an online course is a pretty huge undertaking. It’s a bit like building one of those super complicated pieces of furniture from IKEA — sure, you could just pour out all the raw materials on your living room floor and try to figure out how everything fits together as you go. But it’s oh so much easier if you have a plan to guide you.

Unfortunately, there has never been a set of instructions for planning your online course.

…Until now! (Ta-da!)

Introducing: Your First Course by Thinkific . Now, you can now follow simple step-by-step instructions to plan, create, and launch your first online course. And thankfully, it’s much more easy to follow than some of the maddeningly-hard-to-decipher illustrations from IKEA…

With the right plan in place, you can make sure you’re creating your course in an organized and strategic way. You can tick the right boxes to make sure your lesson plans are engaging, your students are interested, and (perhaps most importantly) your time isn’t being wasted. The foundation of every great online course starts here — with these five simple steps.

Related: 10 Steps To Creating A Wildly Successful Online Course

5 steps to plan your online course (with templates)

If you’ve been scratching your head trying to figure out how to get started planning your course, this is a great place to start. Keep reading to see some of the top things you should do when planning your online course, and be sure to download the free templates in each section to put these concepts into action…

Define your audience

Choose your course topic, build your course outline, structure your lesson plans.

• Design your course storyboard

When you get an idea for a new course, it can be tempting to jump ahead to start planning your lessons. But before you get into the nitty gritty of all that, the first thing you’re going to want to do is define exactly who your course is going to be for .

Why bother defining your audience first? Because this will help you avoid the common mistakes that new course creators tend to make: creating a course that nobody actually wants to buy. By having a clear definition of who your ideal students are and how you plan to help them, you can be sure that you’re creating something valuable (and not just wasting a big ol’ bunch of your time).

Knowing your audience will not only help you sell your course — it will also help you pick the right topic, design the right type of curriculum, and craft the most effective type of lesson plans. In the words of Mike Gospe…

“Whoever understands the customer best, wins.”     Mike Gospe, Author, “ The Marketing High Ground ”

If you have an existing audience

Let’s say you already have an audience of some kind. Whether it’s a social media following, a list of email subscribers, a group of YouTube subscribers, or customers of your business. The first thing you’re going to want to do in this case is to begin to collect information about them.

There are two main types of info you want to seek out:

• Quantifiable insights : These are demographic data points that you can verify, usually using analytics. Try to learn the basics, such as their age, location, gender, and what pieces of content or products they’re most interested in.
• Qualitative insights : These are more in-depth insights around their needs, wants, likes, dislikes, struggles, and interests. You can collect these by randomly selecting some of your customers and sending them a survey or by getting on a Zoom call with them and conducting a short interview. It’s a bit more effort — but the insights will be worth it!

You can use these insights to build a quick profile of what your audience looks like and what their main paint points tend to be. This will be very important for you later on as you start to plan out the rest of your course.

Download the free Audience Research Survey Template to make your own survey.

If you’re seeking a new audience

On the other hand, plenty of creators start out without any existing audience. That’s okay — you just want to make sure you know which type of audience you’re seeking out and how it is you’re going to be able to reach them. 

Think about where your target audience likes to hang out and try to get a sense of what methods you’d be able to use to communicate with them. Try to reach out to a few individuals within this community to discover your target audience’s goals and problems:

• What results are they hoping to achieve? 
• What steps do they need to take to get there? 
• What do they struggle with most?

Create a persona for your ideal student

Using the information you collected, you can start to create a customer profile of your ideal student. This is what you’ll use as your north star as you move through the rest of the course planning and creation process. Whenever you run into a tricky spot or a difficult decision, all you’ll have to do is look back at your ideal student and ask yourself: is this something that they would want?

It helps if you think of them as an actual person. So rather than having to plan a course for potentially hundreds of nameless and faceless people, you can just focus on pleasing this one individual.

Need help defining your audience? Use this workbook to start crafting your customer profile and build a snapshot of your ideal student. Get prompts for defining key characteristics, fears, wants, aspirations, and more.

Here, you’ll find three templates for to help you define your ideal customer persona .

Launch your online learning product for free

Use Thinkific to create, market, and sell online courses, communities, and memberships — all from a single platform.

Next, you’ll need to decide on a course topic . This sounds deceptively easy, but you’ll want to carefully consider exactly what you want to teach based on your specific areas of expertise, life experiences, and skill sets.

It’s not just all about you though — look back at the ideal student persona and ask yourself where your specific niche of knowledge can best help them. What type of course content can you offer that they would find undeniably useful?

You’ll probably have a few different ideas for courses you could create. So how do you narrow it down to the best possible topic? Ask yourself which idea you’re the most passionate about, which one fits your expertise the best, and which one lines up most ideally with your audience’s problems.

Create a “transformation statement”

It’s pretty rare for students to purchase an online course for the pure sake of knowledge. Most of the time, the reason someone actually hits the “Buy” button is not because of the information they’re hoping to get, but because of the transformation they want to make.

You’re not going to be selling the learning. You’re going to be selling the outcome of the learning.

For creators, marketing funnels should begin with that first transformation. That’s why we like to think of them as something different: Transformation Funnels.  When your marketing funnel moves students through a transformation, then you can sell through teaching.

Related: The Best Educators Are the Best Sellers (They Just Don’t Know It Yet)

So it can be helpful to identify right from the top what that transformation will look like. This can be a super useful exercise to go through when you’re deciding on a course topic. If you have a few candidates, try creating a transformation statement for each of them and see which one sounds the most appealing. 

What’s a transformation statement? It’s simple — all you need to do is replace the bolded words in this sentence with ones that apply to your course:

•  My course on TOPIC
• … will help AUDIENCE to LEARNING OUTCOME
• … so that they can  TRANSFORMATION .

If you’re offering a practical course (say, how to learn Excel) then this transformation statement is easy enough to write. But it even works for more conceptual courses. For example, here’s how a creator like KRS Astrology might create a transformation statement for their course on Vedic Astrology Simplified:

My course on Vedic Astrology helps people interested in spiritual knowledge to learn how to read the stars and planets using Indian astrology so that they can become more grounded within the roadmap of the universe .

Writing a transformation statement can help you better focus your course content so that you’re always serving the main goal or goals your students want to achieve.

Downloadable: Topic & Positioning Workbook

Looking for a workbook to help you choose a course topic? This interactive guide can help you hone in on your best ideas and position it for a specific target audience.

Of course, a transformation won’t just happen right away for students once they purchase your course. There will likely be a number of steps they need to take along the way in order to get there.

That’s why it’s helpful to break down the learning journey into milestones. This will give you a better idea of how much content you need to create, and help to direct the focus of your lesson plans and curriculum.

So to build on the KRS Astrology example from above, creator Kapiel Raaj might start to list all the different skills that students might require in order to get a basic understanding of Vedic astrology. This might be things such as…

• Foundation of Jyotish
• Basics Terminology
• Degrees of Planets
• Zodiac Signs
• Understanding the Birth Chart
• Groups of Houses

Once you know the milestones that students need to learn, you’ll have a better idea of how long your course needs to be and how much work you’re going to need to put in.

Downloadable: Content Plan Workbook

At this point in the planning process, you have an overall idea of what your course is going to accomplish and what learning milestones you want students to hit along the way. The next part of the process involves breaking down each milestone into an individual lesson plan.

You can do this using a Google Doc, whiteboard, or a trust notebook and pen. But it might actually be easiest to hop right into Thinkific to start structuring your lesson plans in there. You’ll be able to create a course skeleton to help you visualize what your course will look like when it’s complete, right in the platform.

And while every lesson may require a different structure, you can use the following general format to hit each milestone…

Part One: The High-Level Lesson

In the high level lesson, you’ll want to cover anything a student needs to know BEFORE jumping in to get their hands dirty. This part of the chapter should focus on the WHAT and WHY before you get into the HOW.

High-level lessons cover the following:

• Any required concepts the students need to understand
• Definitions and other need-to-know details
• Anything you can’t show or talk about during a demo

Part Two: The Hands-On Lesson

In the hands-on lesson, you should be covering how you can put your high-level knowledge into action. This stage isn’t necessary in every course, but it can be a great way to make your course more interactive and useful for students.

Cover the following:

• Demonstrate the how-to portion of your course
• Try and show how you can get one task done

Part Three: The Formative Assessment

At the end of your teaching comes the testing. Typically, you don’t want to give an exam that’s overly tough to complete — you’re just trying to confirm your students are learning. This is key for long-term retention and engagement.

Consider the following when creating a quiz:

• Limit the questions to be about what students just learned
• Ask questions that are easy to recall the answer to
• Make assessments non-graded and explain answers

Part Four: The Learning Aids

After the high-level and hands-on teaching, you should include a learning aid or resource that helps them put their knowledge into action. A cheat sheet, worksheet, workbook, or template can work well here.

Consider the following:

• A reference guide for relevant information
• A community for the student to work on learned skills
• Resources that make the student’s work easier

Downloadable: Lesson Plan Template

Want a handy reminder of how to structure your online lessons? Check out this free guide that includes all the information above, plus additional resources on how to structure your course introduction and conclusion.

Related: How to Use Backwards Design To Create Your Lesson Plan (Template + Steps)

Design your lesson storyboards

By this point, you already have a pretty solid plan for your online course. (In fact, I’d wager that you have a better plan than 95% of other course creators!) But there’s one additional step you can take if you’d like to be extra prepared for creating your course content: a storyboard for each lesson.

Because only a lucky few people are able to simply hit record on their camera and “wing it” when it comes to teaching. For the rest of us, it’s important to have a solid idea of what you want to say and how you want to say it . That’s where instructional design models and storyboarding comes into play.

These are proven ways of teaching effectively that have been scientifically tested and backed by researchers. You can borrow from some of these storyboard templates to make sure your lesson plans are engaging and memorable. For example…

Storyboard Template 1: Bloom’s taxonomy

Bloom’s taxonomy is one of the most well-known storyboard templates. This is a hierarchy of steps that students can go through in order to learn a new skill or concept. It goes: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, creating.

You can apply this hierarchy to any of your lesson plans in order to make them more effective. So you can start out by helping them remember a concept, then give them a chance to demonstrate their understanding and apply it in actual situation.

Storyboard Template 2: 9 Events of Instruction

Another design model you can follow for your storyboard are the 9 Events of Instruction. This process splits learning into three stages that you can apply to any online lesson or lecture.

According to this storyboard model, each of the nine events are vital to creating a positive learning experience. So you can’t just “present the instruction” (event 4) and hope for the best — you need to take students through each of the events in order to properly prepare and follow-up with them before and after each lesson.

Storyboard Template 3: 70-20-10

One final storyboard template I’d like to mention here is the 70-20-10 approach. These numbers refer to the different ways people learn, and how much weight you should assign to each of them. The three different categories are…

• 70% of knowledge comes from experience, experiment, and reflection.
• 20% of knowledge comes from working with others.
• 10% of knowledge comes from formal, planned learning.

In most online courses, creators tend to focus on the 10%. But according to this model, you would give your students more value by giving them opportunities to work with others (perhaps by attaching a learning community to your course) or experiment and reflect on the course materials.

Downloadable: 7 Instructional Design Templates

To learn more about these instructional design storyboard models and four others, download our free template. You’ll get info on when to use each storyboard template, how to apply them to your online course, and how to test whether they’re working.

The best way to create an online course? Stick to the plan.

It’s always overwhelming when you first start working on a new online course. But with the right instructions and plan in place, the actual act of creating the content for your lessons and getting it ready for launch will be a snap. (*snap fingers noise*)

If you’re looking for more step-by-step instructions on the rest of the course creation process, be sure to check out the free guide at Your First Course by Thinkific . And if you’re interested in getting started right away, you can always sign up for a free account on Thinkific. Now that the planning is done you can get started on the fun stuff — bringing your course to life!

Try Thinkific for free , or take this free course on Creating Your Curriculum & Content .

Colin is a Content Marketer at Thinkific, writing about everything from online entrepreneurship & course creation to digital marketing strategy.

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• 10 Instructional Design Models For Creating A Winning Online Course
• 50+ Online Course Ideas (Plus 4 Steps To Refine Them)
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Celebrating 150 years of Harvard Summer School. Learn about our history.

Your Guide to Conquering College Coursework

Getting good grades in college can be a lot tougher than in high school. For many students, it requires building new skills and establishing new habits. Learning those skills now—before starting college—will help make your transition as easy and as successful as possible.

Mary Sharp Emerson

The transition from high school to college is a big one. Meeting new friends, living on your own, and creating your own schedule are just some of the new, exciting challenges that await you.   

In the excitement of starting a new life on campus, college coursework can sometimes become a second priority.

However, adjusting to college coursework is often the biggest challenge of all. Even the best students may be surprised at how difficult college courses are. The subject matter is more complex. The workload is larger. And instructors’ standards are higher.

Mastering college-level courses requires a new level of independence, advocacy, engagement, and time management.

You can prepare yourself to succeed before you even get to campus. Identifying the skills you need, and building those skills into established habits, will help make your transition to college academics, and college life, easier, less stressful, and more successful.

Be engaged in your college coursework

College courses require your full attention and active participation.

And the more you engage with your teachers, teaching assistants, and classmates both in and out of the classroom, the easier it will be for you to succeed in that class.

The importance of active listening

Active listening is one of the most critical parts of engaging in a course, according to Gina Neugebauer, assistant director of Harvard Summer School’s Secondary School Program.

“Professors and teaching assistants can tell if you’re actively listening. They notice if you’re taking notes and making eye contact. They also notice if you’re distracted by your phone or computer,” notes Neugebauer.

Active listening means not checking your social media accounts or texting friends during class.

It also means really giving the instructor and your classmates your full attention.

It sounds easy in theory but it takes practice. It can be tough to not think about all the work you have or your next party. But the more you work on actively listening, the easier it will be to not get distracted and miss important information in class.

Different ways to actively participate

Beyond active listening, there are many ways to participate in a course. And you can tailor your level of engagement to your personality and comfort level.

“It’s all about gauging what you’re comfortable with,” says Neugebauer.

“You may not be the person who raises their hand all the time but you actively respond to online discussion posts, for example. You may not feel comfortable talking in front of hundreds of students in a large lecture hall but you take advantage of TA office hours and email the instructor with questions.”

But don’t be afraid to push yourself if you aren’t someone who usually speaks up in class.

It’s ok to start small. Work on raising your hand in small seminars or discussion sections. As you gain confidence, you’ll find it gets easier to answer questions and share your opinions.

Build independence and advocate for yourself

In college, you are responsible for your own success. You will need to advocate for yourself and know when—and how—to ask for help. That requires a level of independence that you may not have needed in high school.

The good news is that instructors and teaching assistants want to help you.

“Instructors, on the whole, enjoy hearing from you. And they’d rather hear from you right from the start, rather than have you struggle on your own for three weeks,” says Neugebauer.

If you have a question about an assignment, send your instructor an email. Are you upset about a grade you got on a recent test? Visit your instructor or TA during office hours to discuss what went wrong and how you can improve.

But remember, says Neugebauer, professors are busy and you are only one of many students.

“Your email should include your full name, what course you’re taking, and a brief description of your question or concern. And you cannot expect an answer at 2 a.m. because that’s when you’re studying. When you reach out to an instructor, give them 24-48 hours to respond.”

And remember, always be respectful and non-confrontational.

Challenge yourself in a college course. Get a sneak peak at college life.

Explore summer programs for high school students.

Don’t be afraid to seek help

If you have excelled in high school without extra help, you might be tempted to persevere on your own.

In college, Neugebauer points out, asking for help is the norm.

“Once you get into your undergraduate program, you’ll find that almost everyone has, at some point, asked a TA for extra tutoring, gone to a tutoring center, or a writing or math center for extra help. It’s part of the learning process of an undergraduate program,” Neugebauer says.

Colleges have a variety of support systems in place to help you succeed.

TA office hours are a great place to start if you find yourself struggling with a specific concept or assignment. Peer tutoring programs enable you to learn from students who have been through the course themselves. Academic coaches can help with more general study tips or exam-related stress.

The key is seeking out help proactively, before you get too far behind. As the courses become more difficult, catching up becomes increasingly difficult.

Build time management techniques

Balancing everything that comes with life on a college campus can be difficult for many incoming college students.

“The biggest challenge we see facing high school students who are trying to adapt to college life is overcommitment. Students want to engage in every activity, a full course load, and even sometimes a part-time job. They don’t schedule enough time for self-care, quiet time, doing laundry, and plenty of study time. All those things take time,” Neugebauer says.

Good study habits and time management are key to avoiding the stress that comes from getting overcommitted.

Neugebauer recommends getting into the habit of keeping an accurate and up-to-date calendar.

“The best thing I can recommend is a calendar, such as Google Calendar. Use it to schedule everything: your class, your lunch time, time at the gym. It may seem counterintuitive, but work on scheduling literally everything, even sleep.”

Be sure to include assignments, tests, and other deadlines, as well as office hours for your instructors, TAs, and academic coaches.

Use your calendar to block off dedicated study time. And once you schedule it, stick to it! Avoid the temptation to procrastinate or use that time to hang out, play video games, or scroll on your phone.

Your calendar should also include dedicated time for self-care.

Regular mealtimes, good exercise habits, and a full night’s sleep are not only critical for your physical and mental health. You’ll also be surprised at how much they contribute to your academic success.

Challenge yourself as you engage in college coursework

Getting outside your comfort zone is a critical part of preparing yourself for the exciting challenges that await you in college.

“Being uncomfortable allows for growth. It means saying to yourself, ‘this is new. I want to try it. I want to see how it feels.’ This is all about adapting to a new environment but also examining yourself as a person,” says Neugebauer.

Taking on a new challenge—regardless of the ultimate outcome—builds resilience, mental toughness, and confidence, all of which you will need to succeed in your college courses.

But, warns Neugebauer, it’s also important to know your limitations.

“That uncomfortable feeling should be manageable. It should be a challenge but not so challenging that you feel panicked and wake up in cold sweats every night. It should be something that gets you a little nervous but also excited about what you’re involved in every day.”

However you decide to challenge yourself, it’s never too early to start if college is in your future. The sooner you start identifying and mastering the skills you need in college, the better prepared you’ll be to succeed right from day one.

Spend your summer at Harvard!

About the Author

Digital Content Producer

Emerson is a Digital Content Producer at Harvard DCE. She is a graduate of Brandeis University and Yale University and started her career as an international affairs analyst. She is an avid triathlete and has completed three Ironman triathlons, as well as the Boston Marathon.

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How to Write a Course Description: Examples & Templates

February 13, 2023

For something that’s usually only a bit longer than the average tweet, a course description is a surprisingly powerful marketing tool. In fact, your course descriptions are one of the last marketing messages students see before they click “enroll.” Short but important, these can be tricky to write. That’s why we’ve put together some course description examples that will hook students and make your job easier.

Along with sharing our list of best practices, we’ll dissect a series of examples so you can see exactly what works and why. Use these course description templates to make creating your course catalog a breeze! 

Course Description Example 1: Get Students “Hooked”

Open every course description with a sentence that “hooks” the reader and then conveys the essential information in an accessible and engaging way. A hook can be anything that captures the prospective student’s attention or encourages them to keep reading. 

These can take a variety of forms, including:

• A callout to a specific audience.  Example: For a class on poker strategy, your “hook” could read, “ Calling all card sharks for this 4-week class that will transform your poker game as you learn how to read your opponents, spot tells, understand game theory, check-raise, bluff, and more.” 

Hooking the attention of your ideal student is important, but it’s just part of what a strong first line can do. You can pack a lot of information into this one sentence! 

Course Description Example 2: Keywords, Keywords, Keywords

Keywords help search engines find your course descriptions, which helps students find them too. When you write a course description, try to use the words a student is likely to use to search for courses on that topic. Use a tool like Semrush or Moz to do some keyword research. Find keywords that you can target and build your course description around those terms. 

But don’t go overboard. Remember that course descriptions are supposed to help the student, not just fit an algorithm. Use the keywords that make sense in context and relate closely to your program. 

Here’s an example of a course description that uses keywords effectively: 

Course Title: Breaking and Baking Bread

Course Description: Not your average bread baking class, this 6-week course shares the joy of making bread from scratch by breaking down the essentials of a great starter and giving expert tips about yeast and flour. You will bake breads such as sourdough, rye, brioche, challah, ciabatta, and popovers while learning about oven heating, mixing, kneading, fermenting, egg washing, and more. Your guests will clamor for the bread basket at your kitchen table and luxuriate in the smell of warm bread in your home after you become part of the ancient tradition of bread baking . 

This course description uses variations on the keyword “bread baking” to optimize for SEO. Try to use your selected keyword in the course title. Include three to five relevant keywords in the description as long as it sounds natural to do so.

Course Description Example 3: Outcomes Over Operations

While instructors tend to focus on things like course mechanics, lessons, and assignments, prospective students are more interested in what they’ll gain from taking the course. Will they earn a certification? Will they be a member of a group? Will they have a new skill to put on their resume? 

Use the course description to tell students about the outcome, such as:

• A formal certification 
• An advanced understanding of the topic
• Access to an exclusive group 
• A tangible skill or experience
• A portfolio 

The outcome should be closely related to the class topic and something that the student is likely to value. For example, a course on finance might promise students a personalized plan for reducing debt while a course on fashion might help students define their own style. Outlining these outcomes helps the student recognize the value the course will bring to their life. It can also set your courses apart from others on the same topic.

Here’s an example of a course description that focuses on the outcome:

Course Title: Finding Your Voice Through Songwriting 

Course Description: Make music that expresses your true self in this 12-session class that studies wordplay, poetry, and phonics to help you write lyrics that resonate. You’ll write and workshop two full songs and perform one at the final class meeting so you can experience the full process of songwriting , from ideating and conceptualizing to drafting, editing, revising, and finalizing. You’ll break down classic songs, mix melodies, and learn how legendary songwriters mastered their craft to gain a new appreciation for the art of making music. 

This description outlines several outcomes:

• Writing two full songs
• Experiencing the full process of songwriting

Each of these might be useful to the student on their own, but together they make for a unique and valuable course.

Course Description Template

We’ve covered a lot of examples, but let’s cut right to the heart of the matter.

A template that works for nearly every course description looks like this:

Course Title: Topic + Intended Audience (or) Topic + Outcome

Examples:  

• Topic + Intended Audience: Mindful Parenting for Busy Parents
• Topic + Outcome: Storytelling Through Portrait Photography

Course Description:

Sentence 1 hooks the reader by including the important information in an accessible, interesting way. 

Sentences 2-4 tell students what they gain from taking the course and include keywords. 

Sentence 5 tells students how to register. 

You can add a few more sentences if you need extra space to truly explain your outcomes and course structure. Just don’t get too lost in the details. If you do need to provide a lot of supplementary information like materials lists or policies, consider adding those as an attachment students can download and review. 

Here’s an example of how a course description comes together. 

Course Title: Make Your Home Garden Grow

Course Description: (1) Whether you have a green thumb or a brown one, this 8-session class will teach you how to grow and maintain an indoor garden of peperomia, snake plant, philodendron, English ivy, hoya, pothos, and calathea. (2-4) No matter the size of your space, you’ll create a thriving forest of greenery and gain access to a virtual gardening library which includes a comprehensive care spreadsheet for 200+ common houseplants, a guide to watering, an encyclopedia of perennials, and a manual for pruning. With a live online class format, you’ll get to work in your own garden space while learning about soil composition, sun exposure, seed germination, pest control, tool care, and more. (5) Register now!

A course description like this moves students to want to register. So make it simple for them to do. CourseStorm makes course registration simple and seamless. Add registration links directly to your course descriptions so students can go from interested to registered quickly and easily. Contact us today to get started or start your free trial now.

Nic is skilled in scaling start-up edtech and education organizations to growth-stage success through innovative marketing. A former journalist and copywriter, Nic holds a postgraduate certificate in digital and print publishing from Columbia University School of Journalism's publishing course.

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