Course Creators Weekly #48 🗓 May 24th, 2021 - First principles, pillars, and brain dumps

Andrew Barry takes us behind the scenes of creating the curriculum for On Deck Course Creators.

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  Think in first principles: reflect, deconstruct, reconstruct
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  Start by defining pillars and high-level buckets of knowledge—these are milestones
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  Brain dump a list of topics under each pillar—this is ever-changing, so keep iterating
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  Define the steps on the learning journey—consider your constraints, especially time
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  Treat the learning journey as a story arc (e.g. following the Hero's Journey)
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  Pull topics into each step, adding more topics if necessary—also, some may repeat
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  Make sure to define learning outcomes + prompts to action for each topic/lesson
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  Jot down your ideas and thoughts for each lesson—use it to produce your content
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  For each lesson, consider stories and examples, worksheets ideas, breakouts + more

Check out Andrew's video for more details, and to see how he does it in Notion!

Rohit Malhotra talks with Wes Kao about online courses. They actually talk about a lot more than making them accessible.

Here are my biggest takeaways—as brief as I could make them!

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  Learn sales, marketing, and copywriting—as a creator, it's your job to convince buyers
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  Build a community + environment for people to learn together by producing real work
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  Be deliberate about community-building, e.g. attract "weird in the same way" people
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  Be the guide in your students' transformation journey—let them be the heroes
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  Don't get hung up on production value—people value transformation + community
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  Design the student experience around your students' unique needs—and your own
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  Iterate—your first course doesn't have to be perfect as long as it delivers value

On pricing

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  Realise that people often underpay and overpay based on their perception of value
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  Understand what your ideal target audience finds juicy, valuable, urgent and important
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  Consider what your product is being compared to—not just courses but all alternatives
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  Given enough credibility, the only price cap is people's willingness and ability to pay

On completion rates and student outcomes

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  Optimise for student outcomes + long-term transformation, not short-term inspiration
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  Completions matter too—transformation won't happen if people drop out too early
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  Transformational learning can be hard, painful and discouraging—design for that
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  Put systems in place (e.g. accountability groups, coaches) to encourage perseverance

On standing out with spiky points of view

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  Stand out by sharing opinions you truly believe in, but not everyone will agree with
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  Check out CCW #46, or Wes' original article to learn more about spiky points of view

On the future of education

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  Unbundling of education has created new possibilities, e.g. self-directed learning
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  Physical proximity is no longer a limiting factor
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  Portfolios + proof of work > degrees + credentials

There was so much more I had to drop for sake of brevity (yes, I know.)

Check out the video for more details, examples, and a few book recommendations!

Marie Schacht, Will Mannon, and Ish Baid talk about altMBA, cohort-based courses, and the future of education.

Here are my biggest takeaways:

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  Consider grouping people by timezone—caveat: you'd need a fairly large cohort
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  Use project prompts and peer-to-peer learning to scale + encourage accountability
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  Be clear about the time commitment you need from students—communicate it early
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  Encourage students to block off time for group meetings and coworking sessions
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  Educate students on how to give valuable feedback and ask insightful questions
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  Create a generous culture by encouraging and celebrating the act of giving feedback
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  Enable students to build new relationships—happens organically, but you can boost it
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  Create a space for students to reflect and share daily progress, #buildinpublic style
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  Always be iterating—operationalise what works, experiment, improve, repeat