One of my main goals in creating the Course Design Formula® has been to relieve the stress many experts and entrepreneurs feel when creating an online course.
Can you relate?
Why creating an online course can be stressful:
The way most people go about creating an online course only adds to the stress.
What most people do is jump in right away creating content, without a clear plan as to what content even needs to be in the course to begin with.
It's natural and intuitive to start that way.
You're an expert on a topic and you want to teach people about it, so you start creating content based on your subject matter expertise.
What's wrong with that?
What's wrong with that is that it doesn't work.
In order to set up a course in a way that's effective, stress-free, and leads to the results you want
you need to use LEARNING DESIGN EXPERTISE,
NOT SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTISE.
If you use learning design expertise to set up the course structure, you'll then have an elegant, clear container you can use to share your subject matter expertise.
The container (course structure) will make it clear what needs to be in your course, what should be left out (or put into a different course you can create at another time), and in what order.
And just like that, your stress is gone! Pouf!
When you use learning design expertise, rather than your subject matter expertise, to create the STRUCTURE of your course,
you ensure that the course is going to engage your course participants
and help them achieve the transformation you want to provide.
Suddenly it becomes clear:
If you're feeling stressed about how to structure your online course, here are a few suggestions:
What if you've already created a course (either on or offline) and now want to revise it?
The same rules apply to revising a course as to creating a new one, but it's harder to see those rules at first.
It's only logical, after all, to revise a course by starting from what you've already created (your existing content) and then thinking about how to make it better, in a kind of editing process.
This is like taking concrete that's already been poured out and hardened,
and trying to chip away at it to change its shape and form.
It's much easier and less stressful to instead go back to the original intention and purpose behind the course, create the ideal mold for the shape you want the finished product to take, and pour the concrete all over again.
In this metaphor, the mold represents the course structure and the concrete is your content.
Chipping away at hardened concrete in an attempt to reshape it:
Pouring fresh concrete into a new, perfectly shaped mold:
Whether you're creating a new course or revising an existing one (either from online, or off),
the Course Design Formula® helps you go with the flow
of how people can best achieve the transformation you want your course to provide.
If you want to master the formula so you can use it to create any course you envision, for the rest of your life, the best way to do that is to take the Course Design Formula® Master Course. Enrollment is limited and by private interview only. I'm interviewing now and taking reservations for the June 2021 cohort, so if you're interested, email me at Rebecca@learnandgetsmarter.com and we can schedule a time to talk starting in March.
If your focus is on setting up a specific course or online academy, from scratch (or revising an existing one using the "fresh-mold-pouring" method I wrote about above), you can schedule a free strategy session to discuss your project and set up a coaching schedule so you can work with me to get your course designed. Again, I have availability starting in March... this is a process that requires advance planning, so we can create a smooth, enjoyable and stress-free experience for you as a course creator and for your course participants as learners.
You are always welcome and invited to join us in the Course Design Formula® Community Facebook Group, and on Saturdays on Zoom at 9 AM Pacific/ 12 Noon Eastern for the Learn and Get Smarter community meeting, where we talk about how to use our expertise and our online courses to help ourselves and others survive and thrive in these challenging times. I look forward to seeing you there!
Come to the Learn and Get Smarter community meeting... Saturdays at 9 AM Pacific/ 12 Noon Eastern on Zoom
We're focusing on how to use our online teaching practices and online businesses to help ourselves and others survive and thrive during these challenging times.
