How to Plan Effective Lessons for Your Online Classroom
A well-designed lesson for online teaching helps promote student learning, retention, and engagement. Whether you are creating learning material for your remote learning students or designing an online course for a potential target audience, the following lesson practices we have listed below will help you do it successfully – by creating something that meets the needs of all students. 
Understand Your Students
One thing that sets apart an online course from an online classroom is the audience. 
In your virtual classroom, your audience is made of students you know well and they are generally of the same age and circumstances. As you are already aware of their learning patterns, strengths, and weaknesses, it’s easier for you create a lesson to suit their needs. 
In case you are not, you can start by evaluating their existing knowledge with a quiz, or simple quick activity like a concept map. 
/Concept Map Template
(Duplicate the above and share it with your students to work online. Use synchronous editing to collaborate with them in real-time and in-line comments to leave feedback)
However, those who take an online course can come from anywhere in the world, speak different languages, and have different reasons for learning the subject you are offering. Therefore, taking that extra time to really examine who your audience is, can help you design a course that will offer true value to them. 
Set a Clear Objective for the Lesson
A clear objective is essential to stay focused throughout the course-plan of your lesson, and it should be emphasized to your students at the very beginning to help them stay on track.
The objective of your lesson should focus on what your students will be able to achieve at the end of it. For example, it may be to help your students learn a new skill or learn about a new concept. To set a clear objective, try starting with “I want my students to be able to…” 
This will simplify the process of specifying the content, as what should be included in your lesson is what will eventually help your student achieve the defined objective.  
Incorporate Visuals, Visuals, and More Visuals
Retaining the attention of students while teaching to a class face-to-face is hard enough. How can you make an impact when you are not even there? 
Research has shown that humans tend to remember 80% of what they see while only 20% of what they read and 10% of what they hear, which is why visuals have an important role to play in teaching, especially when it’s done online.
A few ways you can incorporate visuals into your lessons include; 
Replacing written instructions with videos. Instead of emailing them a document explaining something, create a quick video explaining things. You can add captions and transcriptions (which students with hearing disabilities would find useful) to your videos to provide guidance and to highlight important areas your audience should remember. If you find it too time-consuming to create a video or if you are in a rush, you may be able to find a relevant video that already exists on the internet. A few places to look include 



Geographic

Graphic organizers are another great way to both simplify a complex concept and grab your students’ attention during the lesson. A comprehensive list of graphic organizers for reading, writing, comparing, etc. can be found in our List of Graphic Organizers for Teachers and .
Use an online whiteboard. In class, you can always rely on your / blackboard to sketch out or diagram an idea when it’s too complex for words. With an , you can do the same. is widely used by educators in their online classes for this purpose; it’s infinite online canvas, access to shape libraries for over 50+ , and pre-made templates let them easily visualize what they need for their lesson. Additionally  with its in-app video conferencing you can literally host the class in Creately itself while collaborating with students on the same canvas with synchronous editing.  
Presentations are great visual tools for engaging students in class as well as online. While you can explain an entire lesson using a presentation, you can also use it to assist highlight important facts, during your online lecture. You also have the option to create narrated presentations with a tool like .
Make use of visual props during an online lecture. Props can vary from flashcards to real-life items that you can find in your home. For example, if you are teaching about different types of nutritional food, you can definitely find a few props in your home. 
Keep Your Teaching Modules Short 
Timing is crucial in online learning.  
A lengthy online lecture may easily disengage the student and make it harder for them to digest information. Therefore it is important to keep things brief and interesting. 
Use a variety of into your lessons/ course as we discussed above. Visuals will help simplify difficult areas that would otherwise require you to talk at length