Course Creators Weekly #37 🗓 March 8th, 2021 - How long should your course be?

I shared this video from Janelle Allen in the very first issue of CCW, but that first issue was different. I wasn't writing my own summaries yet. A recent subscriber reminded me of this common question so I thought I'd bring it back, with a summary!

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  Your course should be as long as it needs to be for your students to achieve their goal
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  Start with the outcome, and walk backwards to determine the steps to get there
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  Brain dump your content ideas first, look for patterns and chunks to organise later
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  Avoid trying to be perfect—start with an imperfect live pilot, take feedback and iterate

Here are the 3 P's of a Transformational Online Course, according to Andrew Barry:

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  Personal meaning—give assignments that force students to reflect on their motivations
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  Peer to peer learning—create the space for students to interact + exchange feedback
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  Prompts to action—design activities for students to learn incrementally through doing

Watch the video for further explanations and detailed examples!

The mistakes, and what you should be doing instead:

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  Trying to build a business that helps everybody; start narrow and focused on a niche
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  Starting with a website + branding work; start by helping just one person get results
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  Thinking of passive income too early; build an active business first, automate later
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  Chasing an arbitrary financial goal; find the number you need to live the life you want
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  Thinking money-first; serve people—money is the byproduct of how well you do that