Course Creators Weekly #44 🗓 April 26th, 2021 - Everyone has an online course in them

Courtland Allen talks with Marie Poulin, Andrew Barry, and Ali Abdaal about online courses, with lots of golden nuggets, especially if you're just getting started!

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  At scale, there's an entire team behind top courses—you don't start at the top
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  Running your course live can help you iterate faster, and easier vs. pre-recorded videos
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  People gladly pay for transformation; do them a favour by selling to them—it's not evil
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  Higher prices lead to more committed customers, less handholding, and fewer refunds
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  Focus on actionable outcomes for your students, not topics that you want to teach
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  Demonstrate credibility by highlighting repeated patterns of your own success
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  Ask students what success looks like for them and check in with them regularly
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  Always start with a beta pilot—it'll help you shape your course through feedback
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  Nail the 3 P's of TOCs—personal meaning, peer-to-peer learning, prompts to action
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  Don't just teach the tools—teach what the tools allow people to do
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  You don't have to be an expert to teach—in fact, it's often better if you aren't
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  Not an expert? Teach what you wish you knew three years ago—someone needs that
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  Don't compare yourself to someone miles ahead—they started where you are today

"Community without learning is hanging out with friends."—Wes Kao

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  Help students connect and trust each other, quickly and deeply—the sooner the better
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  Start off right and build a positive culture by promoting model behaviour from day one
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  Put just enough structure in place, but prepare to pivot as the community reveals itself
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  Be prepared to build community around unfamiliar topics for a wide range of personas
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  Build community, but ensure it enhances the learning experience, not detract from it

Andrew Barry presents 6 steps to design a narrative structure for your online course:

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  Hook: capture people's attention by sharing a personal story, quotes, facts or stats
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  Signpost: present the milestones—where people are, where they've been, what's next
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  Sensitise: stay on brand, creating a familiar feeling with fonts, images, colours, music
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  Elucidate: fancy term for explaining complex concepts—use analogies and stories
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  Reinforce: repeat a single idea or a concept over and over again in different contexts
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  Conclude: link everything back to the first hook