You Don’t Know What Your Students Don’t Know: How to Improve Your Online Course Delivery

Recently, we were talking with a client about their recently-launched hybrid-style course and how students were progressing. One of the things that struck me was their frustration with some of the fundamentals that their students didn’t show up to the course with—but they assumed their students would already possess.

It is one of the most difficult things in teaching continuing education courses (more on that and what it means in a moment). Unlike at a university, you do not have the power of requiring prerequisites; your students are self-selecting into your course. Which is mostly fine, but it does mean that as an instructor (because you are an instructor now) you have to be ready to be nimble and have solutions so you can deliver a high quality experience for your learners.

Before we get started, let’s talk a little bit about continuing education and why, yes you fit in that catagory even if you are not teaching at a college, trade school, or extension office.

For me, one of the most democratizing trends of online education has not been the traditional university offering free courses like Coursera etc. Instead, it has been the ability of people—entrepreneurs like you—to share their expertise outside of the traditional gatekeepers of education.

When done ethically (and we all know of a charlatan or two who are selling magic beans and not much else) this growing knowledge base has allowed people to learn things they mightn’t otherwise been able or imagined themselves doing.

For example, I think about all of the art classes that are available that you can take without stepping into a studio, and it truly is amazing that you can learn SEO from someone doing it daily and have the real-time knowledge to pass on.

I come at this with the perspective that making money off of this is not a sin, but there is an onus and responsibility on you, the teacher, to deliver value and quality.

It is, admittedly, an idealistic perspective that most people want to deliver ethical, practical, up-to-date and high quality offerings (as you can guess, I have good reason to not be on social media often).

If enough of us strive for this standard in online courses, we can make an impact.

In my years running a professional/continuing education program, I found that while many students do indeed have an idea how their experiences match with a course, there are always a fair number who wildly overestimate their ability and a few who grossly underestimate their ability and both are tricky to handle. I am going to focus on laying the foundation for better choices from those who might enroll and mitigation techniques before a class starts and when it is going.

The primary objective for you when planning your online course is to seriously think about what methodologies you use and what paradigm you are teaching from.

While it may seem obvious to you that the foundational knowledge that you had when developing your skills, ask yourself: Are your students going to have that same baseline as you when you teach?

One of the simplest ways to communicate what you are doing is to say in your description, “hey you do need some familiarity with (whatever)” and lay out a few concepts they should know.

Furthermore, you should definitely have a syllabus or class plan you are sharing with your students. To not do so, is disregarding your responsibility as an educator.

It is imperative to protect yourself (and your learners) with a clear plan of what you are delivering. It really does make the learning environment better for your students and allows you to fend off people demanding more that what you planned. Having clearly defined goals for each module/section is really helpful for learners. Even recording a short video explain what they are before the beginning of the online course and with each section gives a map for students to follow.

If you notice that when people inquire about your offer you get comments such as, “I really want to take this but I don’t really know [blank],” you can get creative in tackling this problem.

Depending on your time and how quickly you can credibly give enough of the basics (if you need diesel skills and the person has never worked on an engine before, something like this doesn’t work), offer a quick workshop or video to get people up to speed. I believe that your time and knowledge are always worth something, so I recommend charging for it, versus the free “masterclass” funnel model, but you should have a good understanding of what your audience is capable of handling.

What happens when you have done all of this and you realize that your students are still missing key pieces of background information to be successful in your online course?

There are a couple of options when your online course students don’t have the knowledge they need to succeed in your program:

1. Since we do live in a world where we are not tied down to a classroom, you can offer a video getting your students up to speed if that is reasonable or recommend additional reading or video materials from other people, explaining that this will allow them to get the most out of what you are offering.

2. You can add some additional lessons into the sessions you are teaching. In some ways, this is more difficult for you, the instructor, requiring adding steps and complications to your well thought out plans.

A bit of a storytime break: When I was working in adult arts education, we had a new instructor for a mid-level painting course. This person was an amazing artist and was incredibly successful in teaching undergraduates. After the first night of their continuing education course, they came to my office upset that their students did not having the drawing skills that were required how they planned on teaching.

The recommendations for taking the course were a level equal to completing an introductory painting class, which everyone in the class had done. In the undergraduate classes this was not a problem, all the students came with the same foundational program.What I didn’t realize was how important in their methodology of teaching that this painting class required drawing, which many people had, but not nearly all.

The solution we came to was starting each session with adding a bit of drawing lessons into the normal instruction. Not ideal way for them teach intially, but they were able make it work. It became one of the most popular classes that we had, and my mother-in-law who was a student in it still talks about how much she loved the teacher.

What if someone is incredibly far behind the minimum knowledge required for your online course and they still signed up anyway?

Another quick story: I once offered a welding class with a clear list of things that you need to be wearing for everyone’s safety (we’re dealing with fire and molten metal here!). Of course, someone showed up in flip-flops, t-shirt and shorts. They were kindly asked to leave and refunded. Most times it is less headache to refund and move on.

Here’s a key lesson: An unprepared student can cause chaos for everyone. (This is true even for self-paced courses.) The goal of the instructor is to have as much learning and it is amazing how one person can derail the most well adjusted group.

Finally, what if the person is far too advanced for your online course?

This, to me, can be really tricky—there are, in my experience, a good number of people who like to come in first place even they are riding a motorcycle in a bicycle race.

They can be harmless and add to the course, or they can be giant time sinks who want extra attention and frustrate people who are less advanced. It is on the instructor to watch the communication and not allow them to derail your class, again this is an opportunity to show someone the door or work with them on how the can constructively be a part of the group.

If your course has no direct instructor contact, watch carefully that they don’t dominate your course Facebook group or learning forum—this is a tricky thing where they can become the only voice in these asynchronous forums, so stop it before it becomes an uncomfortable situation.It’s the same thing that happens in an in person classroom, translated to an online experience and it makes everyone pretty miserable!

There are also the people who are incredibly competent who show up to a course not believing in their own abilities. This is an opportunity to give them a pep talk and push them to get the most out of themselves. I have offered people to move places in higher level courses if they cannot see that in themselves. Like the overconfident person, some people really get a lot out of feeling successful even if they should be at a higher level.

Let us know if you have any questions in the comments and carry on teaching!