What Are the Purposes of Openings and Closings

Openings and closings play important roles in communicating content and developing motivation to learn, often in large disproportion to their size. Recognizing this, many designers invest extra effort in designing these parts of a course.

The Purposes of an Opening

Openings to learning programs (and openings to sections within these programs) serve these key purposes:

• To engage interest in the topic

• To communicate expectations about the content, often in the form of course objectives but not always (another option, for example, would be to open with organizing questions)

• To communicate expectations about the learning experience (for example, how long will the course take? And how will learners be assessed?)

• To ensure that learners can use the technology underlying a course The specific content in an opening varies, depending on the type of course being taught. Usually, the required administrative content communicates expectations.

In addition, openings need to make a motivational appeal to learners, which does the following:

• Grabs the attention of learners

• Establishes their comfort with the content

• Builds their belief that they can master the objectives

That type of motivation usually comes from giving learners a brief taste of the content in the opening moments of the e-learning program—kind of like content hors d’oeuvres or tapas.

In addition to introducing learning programs, instructional designers also need to design openings for each class session of a multi-session virtual course or each unit of an asynchronous e-learning program. Because each session of a live virtual course is taken individually, and because units (often called modules) of an asynchronous course might be taken out of order or a long time after taking the introductory one, designers must pay as much attention to the design of the openings of individual sessions and units as they do to entire learning programs. Like openings to entire learning programs, openings to sessions or units must:

• Engage interest in the topic. But rather than introducing the general content of the entire learning program, the way that designers often engage interest in the content is by linking the content in the upcoming session or unit to the overall content of the learning program and, if possible, content already presented.

• Communicate expectations about the content—usually the objective(s) for the session or unit.

• Communicate expectations about the learning experience. In a session for a live virtual course, the most important expectations pertain to using the virtual classroom software. In a unit of an asynchronous course, the most important expectation is the anticipated length of the unit, so learners can figure out whether they have sufficient time to devote to the learning experience.

The Purposes of a Closing

Closings to learning programs (and sections within courses) serve these key purposes:

• To summarize the content presented, because this is the last opportunity for designers to communicate the content that they hope “sticks” with the learner after the lesson

• To assess the learner (formally or informally)

• To link learners to additional learning material, including the next program in the series (if the program is part of a curriculum) and other sources of content

• To provide reference material, including a glossary of terms used in the learning program, appendices with additional information, a bibliography of sources cited by the learning content, and a list of resources for further learning

The material presented is relatively similar among academic, training, and continuing education programs.