Course Creators Weekly #33 🗓 February 8th, 2021 - Why course completion rates are the wrong metric

Last week, I shared an article on designing courses for near-perfect completion rates. I also shared a caveat: not every course needs to be finished, not necessarily at least. Funnily enough, Ryan Gum posted a Twitter thread on this very topic, at around the same time I scheduled the newsletter!

• 
  Remember that students buy courses for the transformation, not for the information
• 
  Treat completion rates as a "proxy metric"—I'd say, a guide
• 
  Focus your efforts on your students' success
• 
  Talk to students throughout their journey to make sure they're getting results

• 
  Make student transformation your central pillar—build everything else around that
• 
  Design for learning by doing, together with others—that's how people learn best
• 
  Create intentional and meaningful human-to-human interactions
• 
  You don't need fancy tools to create transformational courses at scale
• 
  Teach something you're passionate about—like any business, it's a lot of work

• 
  Switch things up every few minutes—we've evolved to notice and react to changes
• 
  Put students in breakout rooms for group discussions
• 
  Ask questions, get students to post in the chat or unmute to speak
• 
  Learn to be an entertainer as much of an instructor, in equal parts
• 
  Adapt your approach to the size of your cohort—the dynamics are different
• 
  Vary your pace/style: Fast and slow, loud and quiet
• 
  Don't just tell—ask questions and lead students to answers
• 
  Create opportunities for students to meet and interact, e.g. discussions, projects
• 
  Ask simple ice breaker questions in the first 5–10 minutes (e.g. last thing you ate?)
• 
  Split content into more slides to speed up the perceived pace of the lecture