Course Creators Weekly #32 🗓 February 1st, 2021 - Building Cohort-Based Courses

A super insightful conversation between three folks behind the flagship cohort-based courses Building a Second Brain and Write of Passage.

Here are some actionable tips, but as always, listen to the episode to learn more!

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  Let alumni students lead and mentor their own groups, in their own way
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  Let students pick their own mentor groups—all about ownership + belonging
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  Encourage live interactions—far more energising than async communication
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  Let students start their own interest groups—huge for them + stronger community
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  Understand how the size of your entire cohort affects individual group dynamics
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  Cap your cohort size and raise the bar to create stronger communities
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  Help students find each other and make new connections, e.g. breakout rooms
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  Create engaging interactions—change things up frequently throughout sessions
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  Help students feel at ease with vulnerability—alumni students can be role models
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  Try making your course less about you, more about the students and the mentors
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  Have an email list—don't create courses or products unless you have people waiting
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  Build a repository of content you can draw from by summarising what you consume
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  Look to other industries for lessons you can draw from and apply in your own niche

This is a mega thread of 120 tweets and sub-threads () from Andrew Barry. There's no way I can summarise it like I usually do, but I'll break it down and share some individual pieces in future editions of CCW. Here are some of my takeaways:

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  Learn about basic learning concepts, e.g. pattern recognition, spaced repetition, etc
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  Adopt a beginner's mindset—talk to true beginners, answer questions and take notes
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  Learn about group learning, and how to design a transformational group experience
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  Focus on outcomes and transformation, not simply transfer of knowledge
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  Let students uncover answers for themselves—you don't have to cover everything
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  Understand the ingredients of learning: time, motivation, feedback, practice, review
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  Create opportunities for students to learn from mentors only a few steps ahead
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  Learn about memory, the different types of it, and how they affect learning
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  Clarify your students' prior knowledge, use that to remove irrelevant content
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  Provide opportunities for students to interact with you for feedback and support
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  Organise your content to allow for shorter bursts of learning over a longer period
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  Connect with students on an emotional level to capture their attention

I think that's enough for now… As always, click the link to learn more

If you want to create a course that students FINISH (not every course needs to be), here are some things to think about:

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  Focus on impact for individuals, not scale
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  Go for high-touch learning with coaches, not low-touch passive learning
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  Create a synchronous learning schedule with baked-in accountability
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  Experiment, observe the results, and adapt to evolve and improve
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  Set expectations and filter out those who aren't a good fit for your course