When people think about eLearning courses, they often imagine something simple: plug in some information, hit “play,” and let the learning happen.

But eLearning isn’t one-size-fits-all. In fact, there are many types of courses you can create depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.

Whether you’re onboarding a new team member, upskilling employees, or ensuring compliance, understanding the different types of courses out there is key to creating something that truly works.

Here’s the thing: No matter how much AI power your eLearning tool has, you still need a clear purpose before you start building anything.

What do you want this course to achieve? Who is it for? Answering these questions upfront will save you time, money, and headaches down the line.

When you’re crystal clear on your goals, your AI tool becomes a partner in creating a course that not only delivers but makes an impact.

So, before you dive into designing your next training program, let’s break down the different types of eLearning courses and how each one can help you hit the mark.

1. Informational Courses

Purpose: Are all about giving employees the basic knowledge they need in a straightforward way. These courses help everyone from new hires to seasoned employees understand important concepts and procedures that are essential for their jobs.

Format and Content: The key to these courses is keeping things clear and simple. They usually include text, visuals like charts or images, infographics, and short videos. To make sure the information is easy to handle, the content is broken down into small, bite-sized pieces.

Ideal Applications:

• Company Policies and Procedures: Helps employees learn about the rules and how things work at the company.

• Product Introductions or Updates: Keeps teams up-to-date on the latest products or changes, which is especially important for those who deal with customers.

• General Awareness Topics: Covers big topics like cybersecurity basics or how to be more sustainable at work.

Example: Consider a course designed to introduce new hires to the company's mission and values, helping them understand the culture and ethical framework they are entering. Alternatively, a course on data privacy laws could be tailored to ensure that employees understand the regulations affecting their specific roles and responsibilities.

Tip for Creating Engaging Courses with AI: To make these courses more engaging, consider using an AI-powered eLearning tool. These tools can help organize your material into small, interactive segments based on what learners need to know. They analyze the content you have and suggest the best ways to present it. You can start by telling the AI tool what you want the course to achieve, and it will help you set it up in a way that's easy to follow and keeps learners interested. This makes the learning experience not only informative but also enjoyable.

Also read: Tips for Designing Courses Using an AI-Powered eLearning Tool

2. Instructional or Procedural Courses

Purpose: These courses are designed to teach learners how to handle specific tasks or processes, guiding them through each step methodically. They're ideal for showing how to complete tasks correctly and efficiently.

Format and Content: Instructional courses are meticulously structured to ensure clarity. They typically feature video tutorials for visual learning, step-by-step demonstrations, and thorough walkthroughs of each procedure. To make the learning experience interactive, these courses often incorporate elements like drag-and-drop activities and quizzes, which help reinforce the steps and ensure learners are following along effectively.

Ideal Applications:

• Training on New Software: Essential for bringing employees up to speed with new technological tools.

• Detailed Guides for Workflow Procedures: Helps standardize processes across teams or departments.

• Technical Task Tutorials: Crucial for safely and accurately managing equipment or complex tasks.

Example: Consider a course created to train sales representatives on a new CRM system. This course would not only demonstrate how to navigate the system through videos but also include practice exercises to solidify the learning.

Tip for Engaging Course Creation: To enhance engagement and effectiveness in these courses, consider adding interactive videos where learners can make choices that influence the outcome of the tutorial. This technique transforms passive viewing into an active learning experience

3. Scenario-Based Courses

Purpose: Are designed to boost critical thinking and decision-making skills by putting learners right in the middle of real-life challenges. They’re great for practicing how to handle tricky situations before facing them in the real world.

Format and Content: In scenario-based courses, learners dive into lifelike situations where they need to make decisions or solve problems. The training often features branching scenarios, meaning the path the course takes depends on the choices the learner makes. This interactive format keeps learners engaged and allows them to see the consequences of their decisions in a safe environment. 

Ideal Applications:

• Leadership Training: Perfect for helping upcoming leaders learn how to handle team challenges.

• Customer Service Skills Development: Trains staff on how to respond effectively to customer inquiries and complaints.

• Conflict Resolution and Workplace Etiquette: Teaches employees how to navigate and resolve workplace disagreements.

Example: Imagine a course designed for managers that simulates dealing with an underperforming employee. The course could present different strategies for addressing the issue, each leading to different outcomes based on the manager’s choices.

Tip for Effective Course Creation: To make these courses truly engaging and effective, consider incorporating interactive hotspots or discovery-based scenarios. These interactive elements can make the learning experience more immersive, allowing learners to uncover information and make decisions as they navigate through the training. Using an AI-powered eLearning tool can streamline this process significantly. By providing the tool with your course's goals, AI can automatically generate these interactive elements, crafting scenarios that are both engaging and educational.

Also read: Generative AI in eLearning: 7 Critical Don’ts for Course Creation

4. Knowledge-Check or Assessment-Based Courses

Purpose: Test knowledge and identify gaps through assessments or quizzes.

Format and Content: They typically feature a series of assessments tailored to test and reinforce learners' understanding and skills. These aren't just simple quizzes; they include a variety of interactive formats such as multiple-choice questions, drag-and-drop activities, practical simulations, and scenario-based questions that require active application of concepts. The idea is to engage learners in a way that truly tests their ability to recall and use the knowledge they've gained in real-world situations.

Ideal Applications:

• Certification Exams: Keeping professionals sharp and prepared for required qualifications.

• Pre-Training Assessments: Assessing existing knowledge to customize further learning experiences.

• End-of-Course Tests: Validating that the essential information has been mastered before moving on.

Example: Imagine a course designed for healthcare professionals who need to regularly update their certification in CPR. The course might include video simulations of emergency situations where they must choose the correct response to ensure they are ready for real-life scenarios.

Tip for Effective Course Creation: To make these refresher courses more effective, vary the types of interactive assessments to cover all aspects of the knowledge or skills being refreshed

5. Soft Skills Training Courses

Purpose: Improve interpersonal skills, such as communication, teamwork, and emotional intelligence.

Format and Content: These courses typically utilize engaging teaching methods such as videos, role-playing scenarios, and storytelling to effectively convey complex interpersonal dynamics. Interactive elements like reflection questions encourage learners to think critically about their own behaviors, while group discussions promote shared learning experiences and peer feedback.

Ideal Applications:

• Leadership and Management Skills: Crucial for individuals looking to lead teams and manage projects effectively.

• Team-Building and Collaboration: Ideal for enhancing cooperation and synergy among team members.

• Conflict Resolution and Active Listening: Important for improving communication and resolving disagreements constructively.

Example: For a course on improving active listening, you might see scenarios where a manager has to listen to a team member's concerns. The course could show a video where the manager interrupts often, followed by a redo where the manager listens attentively, illustrating the do's and don'ts of active listening. Learners could then engage in a role-play exercise to practice these skills, receiving feedback from peers in real time.

Tip for Effective Course Creation: Use AI-Based Avatars. Easily add dynamic and interactive AI-based avatars to guide learners through courses. Creating these avatars with AI tools is straightforward and can significantly enhance the learning experience. Avatars can act as instructors, participants in role-playing scenarios, or provide feedback, making the courses more interactive and personalized.

6. Compliance and Regulatory Training

Purpose: Ensure employees understand and follow legal and company regulations.

Format and Content: Compliance courses deliver straightforward, factual information and usually come with quizzes or assessments to check understanding. They're generally self-paced, allowing learners to absorb the material at their own speed, and are structured to meet specific regulatory requirements.

Ideal Applications:

• Workplace Safety Training: Essential for ensuring a safe working environment.

• Anti-Harassment Policies: Important for maintaining a respectful and inclusive workplace.

• GDPR and Data Privacy Laws: Critical for businesses that handle personal data, especially in regions where GDPR applies.

Example: Consider a course on workplace safety that doesn’t just tell but shows. Through interactive simulations, employees might navigate a virtual office filled with potential safety hazards, learning to identify and rectify risks as they go.

Tip for Effective Course Creation: Implement AI-driven chatbots using natural language processing (NLP) to answer learners' questions in real-time. This can be especially useful in compliance training, where employees might have immediate questions about applying regulations. A chatbot can provide quick clarifications, enhance understanding, and reduce the feeling of isolation in self-paced courses.

7. Microlearning Courses

Purpose: Deliver quick, focused lessons on a specific topic or skill. 

Format and Content:  Microlearning courses are short, typically 3–10 minutes per module. They use bite-sized content like videos, infographics, and quizzes to make learning fast and efficient.

Ideal Applications:

• Reinforcing Previous Training: Great for a quick review to refresh skills or knowledge.

• Quick How-To Guides: Handy for learning new tasks step-by-step without any fluff.

• Just-in-Time Learning for Specific Tasks: Ideal when you need to learn something right away, like before a meeting or during a project.

Example: Launch a suite of three-minute video tutorials, each designed to efficiently demonstrate a specific software update. Create these videos as standalone segments, empowering your team to choose exactly what they need to learn, exactly when they need it.

8. Storytelling or Narrative-Based Courses

Purpose: Engage learners emotionally by using stories to illustrate key lessons.

Format and Content:  Narrative-based courses integrate stories that mirror real-life challenges into the learning material, creating a rich, immersive experience. By presenting characters and scenarios that learners can see themselves in, these courses make abstract ideas concrete and actionable.

Ideal Applications:

• DEI Training: Perfect for exploring complex themes of diversity, equity, and inclusion through personal stories.

• Customer Service Best Practices: Helps illustrate effective communication and problem-solving strategies through customer interaction stories.

• Ethical Decision-Making: Uses scenarios to challenge learners to think critically about ethics in the workplace.

Example: A course might feature a narrative about a character facing workplace bias. This story engages learners by placing them in the protagonist's situation, where they must navigate various challenges and make choices that reveal the impacts of bias and teach strategies for promoting fairness.

Tip for Effective Course Creation:  Incorporate interactive decision points within the narrative where learners can choose what the character does next. This interaction not only makes the learning experience more immersive but also helps learners practice making decisions and see the consequences of their choices.

9. Performance Support Courses

Purpose: Provide just-in-time training that employees can access during work to solve specific problems.

Format and Content: Think of these courses as your personal mini-guides or quick-reference tools. They’re short, to the point, and usually mobile-friendly so you can access them right from your phone or tablet while you're working. No need to dig through lengthy materials; these courses get you the answers you need fast.

Ideal Applications:

• Quick refreshers on software functions

• Step-by-step troubleshooting guides

• Fast facts for customer service queries

Example: Imagine you’re a sales rep about to enter a meeting and you need a quick refresher on your product’s latest features. A performance support course could offer a three-minute video or a concise bullet-point list that provides exactly the information you need to go in confident and prepared.

Tip for Effective Course Creation:   Make these resources even more effective by using AI to create dynamic, searchable knowledge bases or FAQs. Employees can quickly type in a question and get immediate, accurate answers. Additionally, consider deploying AI-powered chatbots on your company’s internal platforms. These bots can interact with employees in real-time, offering instant solutions to common issues or guiding them through complex processes with ease. 

Matching the Content to the Course Type

Choosing the right eLearning course type starts with understanding the nature of your content and what you want your learners to achieve. From teaching step-by-step processes to fostering critical thinking or building interpersonal skills, each course type serves a unique purpose.

By rooting your course design in its purpose and aligning it with the nature of the content, you’ll maximize your training effectiveness and get the most out of your AI-powered eLearning tools.

Remember, the best eLearning courses aren’t just about delivering information—they’re about delivering results.