How to create a WOW online cohort learning experience (Part 1)
Four main elements of an online cohort course
There are a few days left until the start of our Writing On The Net course's Cohort #4. We are very excited to launch a more updated version of our course!!
As we wrap up the process of preparing for the course, I would like to share the process of building our online cohort learning experience, starting with the 4 main elements of a cohort course in this post.
Context
For context, I am building online, creator-led courses. Our courses serve as a bridge between creators and their audiences.
Let’s look at the wants and needs of both sides.
For creators whom I work with
What do they want?
They want to monetize their expertise and love for certain topics
They want to connect meaningfully with their audience, their tribe, their community
What do they lack?
They lack different sources of brand deals that align with their topics and/or values
They lack a learning designer who can help them structure their content into a coherent course
They lack space to connect with their audience in a more private, close-knit way
For learners whom I work with
What do they want?
They want to get insights and knowledge from the creators they follow
They want to connect with other learners in a community
They want to challenge themselves
What do they lack?
They lack spaces to have direct access to the creators
They lack a community of people who share similar values and interests to give them motivation and inspiration for them
They lack the time and energy to learn on their own
As a designer, I work with creators to turn their content into online courses and work with learners to ensure they have a satisfying learning experience.
We are currently working with online knowledge creators but we are also open to see who else can benefit from our online learning frameworks.
Now, let’s look at the 4 main elements of an online cohort course.
4 main elements of an online cohort learning experience
The 4 main elements are:
Content: What kinds of content are we delivering to the learners?
Experience: What kinds of transformations are we delivering to the learners?
Community: What kinds of community are we designing for the learners?
Digital Environment: What kinds of digital learning environments are we holding for the learners?
Let’s dive into each of the above elements.
Content
A learner often comes to the course with a specific problem they are trying to solve.
For example:
They are struggling to get started writing online
They are struggling to take notes effectively
They are struggling to manage their finances
What they expect from the instructor are effective frameworks and methodologies to help them solve their problems.
These frameworks and methodologies need to be:
Curated and structured: Learners want the instructors to provide a well-structured package of knowledge to help them solve their problems.
Specific, unique to the instructors: A lot of knowledge can probably be found somewhere on the Internet. Learners want to understand specifically how the instructors, or the creators they have been following, have applied and what specific results they see.
Essentially, it all comes down to the fact that learners want to solve their problems quickly and effectively.
Experience
Having good content that solves learners’ problems effectively is enough to make the learners satisfied.
However, being able to create an experience that transforms students beyond content will elevate the learners’ experience.
What do I mean by an experience?
Let’s look at an example.
I am currently building a course with Long ( who writes
) on knowledge management.In the planning of this course, we interviewed a few of his followers to better understand the problems they are facing with note-taking and knowledge management.
Here are some of the raw data from these interviews:
"I have a hard time retrieving things from what I've learned."
"I have stored information somewhere but I cannot remember where the information is."
"I don't really understand what I've noted down."
"I am limited in my ability to use tools to take notes and visualize notes."
"I have a problem with building a learning habit and maintaining my discipline."
From these raw data, we can see that most of his followers have a hard time:
Remembering where they took note
Filtering the information they consume
Retrieving the notes they already took
Learning for themselves
Managing digital tools
If we stop at content, the course will consist of Long’s frameworks and methodologies to capture notes, organize notes, retrieve notes, and turn notes into their own knowledge.
Great.
But not WOWWWW.
What does it take to make it WOW?
To make a wow and transformational experience, we need to look beyond the apparent problems that the learners share with us.
Perhaps underlying these problems are certain fears and mental barriers:
Stress and anxiety toward the volume of information coming their way
Fear of not good enough
Limiting beliefs about their learning ability
Overwhelmed by the number of tools and complexity of tools
Lack of self-discipline
Lack of self-awareness about what they really want, what really matters to them, and the impact of limiting beliefs
Lack of content is one thing. But most of the time, what really stops people from starting and keeping up with their learning process is the lack of confidence, self-belief, motivation and the will to get started.
These fears and mental barriers might come from the cultural and social contexts that they are in.
In Long’s case, the design questions for experience beyond content might be:
How can we make learners feel understood, accepted, and cared for in this course? Building connections and community can help address fears and limiting beliefs.
What daily/weekly rituals or reflections can we build in to help learners become more self-aware? Journaling and peer discussions could strengthen self-knowledge.
How can we encourage a growth mindset and celebrate small wins? Help learners see learning ability as something they can develop over time.
What elements of gamification could we add to make the experience fun and engaging? Badges, levels, challenges, etc. boost motivation.
How can we make learning tools simple and intuitive? Simplifying complexity addresses overwhelm.
How can we inspire purpose and meaning in learning? Linking it to life goals and values boosts willpower.
These questions go beyond the concrete frameworks and methodologies of note-taking and knowledge management that Long wants to share with people.
To sum up:
Designing for experiences means designing for transformations.
Designing for experiences requires designers to look a bit deeper beyond the technical problems that learners face.
Experiences push learners to get a bit uncomfortable, challenge themselves, and thus achieve personal transformations beyond just content absorption.
Community
We don't stop at creating learning experiences. We create community-driven learning experiences.
This is the signature element of our courses: Community.
We don’t stop at individual learner’s transformation.
We want to rethink and rebuild a certain culture of learning expanding from specific topics. We want to create communal transformations.
We understand that fears and limiting beliefs don’t just exist in one individual learner. Many people have shared emotional struggles around learning certain topics.
Solving our own problems and going through a tough transformation alone is really lonely and hard. Thus, we want to create community-driven learning experiences where learners learn and grow together.
Digital Environment
After figuring out the content and community experience, we will think about the spaces where the learners interact with content, with the instructors, and with each other. In the context of online learning, spaces are most of the time digital ones.
In a cohort learning experience, we will ask questions such as:
Where do we want learners to gather to learn content?
Where do we want learners to discuss asynchronously and synchronously?
Where do we want learners to interact with instructors?
Where do we want learners to share their learnings?
We will use these questions to pick the right digital tools and the right way to use these tools for our learning experience.
Why do we use Discord over Facebook Groups?
Why do we use Notion over Google Docs?
Why do we use Butter over Zoom?
What are we trying to help learners achieve with these tools?
Tools never come first. What we want learners to do and how we want learners to interact comes first.
Here is a board I made to explain the online learning experience framework that I use in my work. The framework includes questions I ask myself as a designer for each element of the course. You can access the full board here.
What do you think of these elements? Are there ways you think I can better explain any of the elements above?
Thanks for reading 🙌