Creating an Effective Lesson

Creating an Effective Lesson
A lesson is a stand alone multimedia container that can be grouped with other lessons to build an in-person class or an online course. Lessons are incredibly versatile and allow you to add a wide variety of media content including:
  • Video
  • PowerPoint Presentations
  • Adobe Captivate files
  • Illustrated companion text
  • Test questions
  • Interactive projects
  • Preview content
  • Bios of the lesson author
  • Contributor bios
  • Preview content
  • Search Terms
 
When you build an in-person class or an online course, all of the content you create in the lesson will be seamlessly integrated into each class or course.
Step 1- Defining the Learning Objective
A lesson is a standalone lesson that should have a very clear learning objective for the students.  When you start planning your curriculum, break it down over a series of lessons that work together, with each lesson focused on a very specific learning objective.
 
When you create a lesson, define the key learning objectives for that lesson.  Let's say we are producing a curriculum to teach the basics of advertising, and we decide that we should break our curriculum over 6 lessons. our first step is to define the learning objectives for each lesson.
  • Lesson 1- Introduction to Advertising – In this lesson students will learn the primary forms of advertising through online, print, and broadcast mediums.
  • Lesson 2 – Understanding Your Audience – In this lesson, students will learn about demographics, psychographics, and the audience helps determine the message and tone of the advertising.
  • Lesson 3 – Delivering the Message – In this lesson, students will learn the top 5 most common ways of crafting a marketing message to reach the target audience.
  • Lesson 4 – The Advertising Process – In this lesson, students will learn who the key players are in today’s advertising industry from ad agencies and production companies, to ad buyers and distribution channels.
  • Lesson 5 – Costs and Pricing – In this lesson, students will be introduced to the rough costs of a national television ad campaign.
  • Lesson 6 – Charting Results – In this lesson, students will be introduced to methods for tracking ad success, and how to interpret the data.
Step 2 - Developing the Curriculum
Now that we've definied the learning objective objective for each lesson, we can now further develop the curriculum. A common and very effective formula for crafting a lesson is a three-step process:  Give an introductory overview of what the student will learn;  teach each of the points; provide an overview of what the student learned at the end.
 

 

 
 
 
1 - The Introduction - What You Are About to Learn
 
At the beginning of the lesson, tell the student what they are about to learn.  It’s best to simplify this into 3-5 concise bullet points.

“Hello, and welcome to “Understanding Your Audience.” In this lesson, we are doing to discuss:​
  • Demographics and how they impact your advertising message
  • Psychographics and how to measure the immeasurable       
  • And finally, how to use your audience data to shape an effective marketing message.

    So sit back and get ready for an exciting look into the world of advertising and how knowing your audience is the first step to crafting an effective campaign."
By establishing this “table of contents” for the lesson, your students know what to expect and where you are going in your curriculum.
 
 
2- The Lesson - The Meat and Potatoes of the Lesson
 
The bulk of the lesson should then be spent exploring these three topics. If you’re shooting a video, then divide the video into five chapters, or sections.  If you're creating a PowerPoint presentation, make each section clear and concise.
  • Chapter 1 – Lesson Introduction (What we explained above)
  • Chapter 2 – Understanding Demographics
  • Chapter 3 – Understanding Psychographics
  • Chapter 4 – Shaping Your Message for the Audience
  • Chapter 5 –Overview and Review
 
3- The Review - Reinforce the Learning Goals
 
The final section, the overview and review, is a bookend to the introduction that briefly summarizes what the student just learned.  For example,
 
“You can see how understanding the audience is critical to crafting a targeted marketing message. So in review, demographics are the measurable attributes of your audience such as gender, age, and geographic location.  Psychographics are more difficult to quantify, and are the analysis of your audience’s interests, hobbies, and likes.  And finally, knowing the audience will help you craft a campaign for which the style, pacing, even your choices of spokesperson will be influenced by the type of people you are trying to reach.  Understanding your audience is the first and most important thread that runs through the entire advertising process.  To know your audience is to know your customer; to know your customer is understand how to speak to them, and speaking their language is how you persuade them to buy your product. That is fundamental foundation of advertising today.  Thank you for watching this video.”
 
You can see how taking this approach will create a smooth, effective learning process from one lesson to the next.