🗣️Transcript
Well hello there! Welcome back. I’m really excited to get into this latest lesson with you, which asks the question: What Makes a Course “Completable”?
Here’s what you’ll learn:
- Why an online course is like an aerial obstacle course
- The three “pillars” of highly completable courses
- The role of community in student success
As you’ll come to learn, I love a good analogy, so let’s use one to set up this lesson.
On a recent family holiday I went on an “aerial adventure” with my son – a kind of obstacle course up in the trees. Here’s a photo of a similar course (that’s not my family by the way!)
You make your way from tree to tree via different structures like rope walks, climbing nets, wobbly plank bridges and even zip lines.
Now, it’s all perfectly safe. You’re clipped into a safety wire the whole way around but to get to the end you have to conquer all these different obstacles.
And it’s designed for a wide range of ages and abilities.
Some kids are super confident and blast around the course like they were born in a tree. Other kids take it more slowly and need a little bit more support.
Fortunately, instructors are on hand to give a little side coaching, like “Try putting your foot there and your hand over there”. Or to offer some encouraging words like: “Hey you’ve got this. You’re nearly there!”
It also helps that other kids are doing the course at the same time. They can encourage each other and celebrate when someone reaches a specific point. Or share tips for getting past a particular obstacle.
Everyone’s taking the same journey, but their needs are a little different. Some are completely self-sufficient and some need more help and encouragement.
So how does this relate to online courses? You may be joining the dots already. The various rope walks and nets and bridges provide the structure for getting people from the start to the end of the course. Those are like your course content.
If any of the obstacles are too hard or the gaps between them are too big, people will give up and turn back.
The climbing instructors who give expert help and encouragement when people get stuck, well they’re like you playing the instructor role in your course.
If they aren’t there when they’re needed, or don’t give the right advice, people will get stuck.
And all those climbers helping and motivating each other as they navigate the same obstacles, they’re like the other students on your course engaging with their peers.
Without those people the journey could feel lonely and less enjoyable.
That’s why I find it useful to think of your course as being supported by three pillars:
- Content – the digital assets in your curriculum
- Coaching – the on-demand help you provide (if any) to get people unstuck
- Community – any community element to keep them engaged and motivated
Now you don’t need all three pillars to create a successful online course – you can just have the content. How much of each pillar you provide will depend on your specific goals.
But having your course be more than just a collection of digital content will inevitably make it more “completable”.
For instance, If you take a 100% self-study course that’s already getting decent student results and you add some extra help from its creator, it’ll get even better results. That’s just common sense.
Likewise, if students feel like they’re part of a community united by the same goal instead of working in isolation, they’re more likely to stay motivated.
By the way, the support “dimension” from the previous lesson is really a combination of the coaching and community pillars. They’re both ways to provide more support.
Now, many course creators will prefer their course to be as passive as possible, meaning it needs little ongoing involvement to run.
If that means offering no extra coaching and no community component, that’s fine. Just understand that these are both ways you can boost the performance and perceived value of your course.
By the way, providing student coaching doesn’t need to be too burdensome. It could just mean holding a monthly group Q&A call to answer any student questions.
Of course, you can go further. You can offer individual or group coaching sessions with more support and extra accountability. And price your course higher to reflect the extra attention.
What about community?
Well, it isn’t essential, but a little goes a long way.
At the simpler end of the spectrum you could just have a private Facebook group where students can chat and you pop into a couple of times a week to say hi.
At the other end you could have a full-blown “gamified” membership community with challenges, leaderboards and regular content updates.
But the point isn’t to make these decisions right now. It’s to start thinking about how you ultimately want your course to look. Because it will affect the decisions you make along the way.
One last thought on this whole support piece.
Be prepared to provide more support the first time you launch your course. You won’t get everything perfect the first time, and a little support will help students navigate any unintentional gaps in your content.
Once you’ve fine-tuned your course, you can dial back the support in later versions if you want.
That’s all for this lesson. I’ll see you in the next one!
↪ Footnotes
Courses that do have some kind of interactive support are less likely to be subject to something called digital sales tax. The rules are fuzzy and vary from place to place but it’s something to be aware of and do some research for yourself.