Tracey Teaches Online Courses and More

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Welcome to another episode of Course Creation & More, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of online course design. In today's episode, we tackle the fascinating topic of the science of effective online course design. Have you ever wondered why some online courses excel in captivating learners while others fall flat? Well, the answer lies in the principles of educational psychology. Join your host, Tracey Lewis Stoeckel, as she unveils the 5 key principles of educational psychology that can transform your online courses from mundane to transformative. From knowing your audience to incorporating active learning strategies and providing timely feedback, Tracey shares valuable insights on how to create engaging and meaningful learning experiences. So, if you're a course creator looking to take your online courses to the next level, this is an episode you won't want to miss. Stay tuned to Course Creation & More for all you need to know about creating courses that educate, inspire, and transform. Let's get started!

Storytelling is a potent tool for learning because it aligns with key principles of cognitive psychology and educational theory. Here's a brief explanation of why storytelling is such a powerful instrument for facilitating learning:

1. **Engagement and Attention**: Stories have a unique ability to capture and sustain learners' attention. When we're engaged in a compelling narrative, our brains release dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and motivation. This heightened engagement ensures that learners are actively focused on the content.

2. **Contextualization and Relevance**: Stories provide a meaningful context for information. They place facts and concepts into a relatable narrative, making it easier for learners to connect new knowledge with their existing schema (mental frameworks). This contextualization enhances comprehension and retention by anchoring information in a relatable and memorable way.

3. **Emotional Connection**: Storytelling evokes emotions, which can significantly impact learning. Emotionally charged experiences are more likely to be remembered, and the emotional context of a story can help learners better understand and remember complex concepts or ethical considerations.

4. **Visualization and Imagination**: Stories encourage mental imagery. When learners visualize the events in a story, it activates the brain's sensory areas, making the content more vivid and easier to recall. This imaginative process fosters a deeper understanding of the material.

5. **Narrative Structure**: Stories often follow a structured narrative arc with a beginning, middle, and end. This framework provides a logical sequence that mirrors the process of problem-solving or decision-making, helping learners grasp complex ideas by breaking them into manageable parts.

6. **Identification and Empathy**: Learners can identify with the characters or situations in a story, allowing them to put themselves in the narrative. This fosters empathy and a deeper connection with the content, as learners can relate their own experiences to the challenges and triumphs of the characters.

7. **Retention and Recall**: Stories are inherently memorable. People tend to remember stories much more effectively than isolated facts or statistics. This makes storytelling an excellent tool for long-term retention and recall of information.

8. **Application and Transfer of Knowledge**: Stories often present real-life scenarios and dilemmas. This enables learners to see how the knowledge or skills they're acquiring can be applied in practical situations, promoting higher-order thinking and transfer of knowledge to real-world contexts.

In summary, storytelling taps into our cognitive processes, emotions, and innate sense of narrative structure to create an immersive and effective learning experience. By leveraging the power of storytelling, educators can enhance engagement, understanding, retention, and application of knowledge, ultimately creating more meaningful and impactful learning experiences for their students.

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In this episode, Tracey talks about the mistake that course creators make of thinking of a course topic based on what they want to teach versus what their ideal client NEEDS them to teach.  She talks about why people buy, the importance of knowing where it hurts, and how to bling up your thing to make sure it gets attention.

To see the framework Tracey describes at the end of the episode, visit https://traceyteaches.biz/knowing-what-your-ideal-client-needs/

In this episode, Tracey poses the argument that teaching is selling and challenges the belief that you can create passive income products (courses) to avoid selling.  She also explains how we sell constantly so there is nothing sleazy about it.

To find out more about Course Creator College and to get in NOW for only $1 visit https://tracey-teaches.mykajabi.com/offers/rgzqSyGK

Sorry about the sound quality.  This orginally was a FB live that I shared in my private FB group at www.traceyteaches.biz/bestgroupever.  

I thought it was too good not to share.  If you've ever been scared of putting yourself out there, please know that you are not alone.  I have created at least a hundred online courses and I am still afraid of putting my own out into the world.  Fear is normal.   In this episode I also talk a bit about the "Secret Sauce" and how I want to start giving it away instead of hoarding it, and I introduce my signature course creation strategy, the TEACH Framework.

One of the biggest mistakes that course creators (and all business owners for that matter) make is not being crystal clear on who they serve.  In this episode Tracey talks about what an ideal client is, why it matters, and where to find yours.

She also offers her mini-training Getting Unstuck FREE for a limited time at www.traceyteaches.biz/unstuck  Promo Code: April

Check out www.findingyourbestself.com/leggings for buttery soft leggings and free shipping!

Need more clarity, or want to be a part of a community of business owners creating info products?  Go to www.traceyteaches.biz/bestgroupever

Welcome back to the Tracey teachers course creation and more podcast.

We've already talked about a few of the top mistakes that course creators make. And in my very first episode I explained that the first mistake that you can make is to not get started. During the podcast I introduced my tool for helping you choose a platform for your program. I created an interactive quiz that allows you to take your skill set, your audience’s needs, as well as some other key indicators into account to help choose a platform that might be best for your business.  So many course creators think that the very first thing they need to do is choose a platform.  And I know for a fact that this decision can be overwhelming and burdensome because it's happened to me.   But sometimes people use the platform dilemma to just get started.  And that’s no good for anyone.

So today when I'm going to talk the mistake of putting  your course platform too high up on your list.

It is definitely not the thing you need to conquer first.

As always I am sporting my favorite leggings from Leggings Army.  Today I am wearing an awesome butterfly wing pattern.  If you want buttery soft leggings that hold up, in colors and patterns that you choose, and for around $17 with free shipping, you should check out www.findingyourbestself.com/leggings. And in doing so, you will be supporting the podcast.  So thank you.

Now, back to the show.

The biggest problem with putting your platform first is that there are so many variables that could hold you up. If you are agonizing over what platform you're going to use, or waiting until it's feasible in your budget to get the platform that you want for your course, or if you are feeling like if your platform is not set up you can't start making content; all of those things will hold you back from actually getting started which I already said is the number one mistake you can possibly make.

So do you need to have a platform in order to start creating content?  You certainly don't! There's absolutely no reason why you cannot create all of your content storing it in Dropbox or wherever until it's all finished and then upload it to wherever you're going to teach from. Do you need to have a platform in order to market your course? Nope not really and in fact you don't need a platform to host your course at all especially when you are young in your business just getting started with info products. Many entrepreneurs have been very successful at hosting their courses without ever using a platform like Thinkific or Teachable or Kartra or Member Press or Kajabi or any of the other seemingly endless options of platforms out there these days.

Back in the old days because remember I'm old before all of these platforms popped up and before online courses became $4 billion per year industry we still had online courses and training programs.  They were delivered through email. This is still a viable way to create and market online programs. You can sell your current course, create video content, and then deliver it to your audiences emails on a predetermined schedule. Many entrepreneurs use Facebook and this way, you set up a check out at somehow or accept payments via email through Paypal, and you give your purchasers access to a private Facebook group. Inside that group is where you post your videos or hold your question and answer session's or whatever type of content you're going to offer and you never have to host any of that content anywhere else.  Total hosting expense: $0.

I think in the rush to be one of the cool kids and to have a shiny course with all of the bells and whistles we make things more complicated than they need to be.  And more expensive.  Can you sell just as many seats in your course with an email course as you can with one hosted on a popular platform.  I’m pretty sure you can.  After all, it REALLY isn’t about the bells and whistles of the platform (unless your ideal client is very rooted in that), its about making sure you deliver the outcome that they have paid for.  We are going to talk more about how we do that in a future episode but I guarantee you that the platform is not a part of that equation.

Are online course platforms awesome? Of course, they are, and one of the reasons I love Thinkific is because I'm able to build my sales pages right in the software they work together seamlessly and there are no tech headaches. But the platform question should not be holding you up from creating your online course.  I repeat, the platform question should not be holding you back from creating your course.

And I'll leave you with one other thought. One of the questions that I ask in my opt in quiz where I help you choose the platform that might be best for your business is what sort of content you're creating for your audience and what are your audiences preferences. I think a common mistake is choosing a platform based on prestige or the recommendations of friends or something else and not choosing that platform based on if it's really going to be the best platform for your students.  After all they are the ones who have to use it, right? We load all of the information in the back end and then we're pretty much done, it's your student that has to use it and navigate that platform in order to get the outcome that you've promised. So it stands to reason that it might be best to create your course and then decide what platform to host it on.  Even just saying that out loud kind of gives me the heebie-jeebies because I really like to create my content and then watch it sort of come into shape as I'm loading piece by piece into the platform and I am religiously use Thinkfic, it just works best for my brain and is the best in terms of navigation for my students from any platform I have found.   But if you're not sure what your course is going to look like when you're just initially getting started and you're feeling like you need to choose a platform so that you can actually start conceptualizing what your course is going to look like I really think that you're putting the cart before the horse.  It makes more sense to have a very clear concept of what your course is going to be before you choose the platform that will be best for your students. Other things to consider are your course budget, your projected sales and income from your course and many other things.  Subjects for another time.

If you would like to chat more about platforms I welcome you to join the community at Becoming a Course Creator FB group. You can find the group by visiting www.traceyteaches.biz/bestgroupever.  I look forward to seeing you inside.  Thanks for listening! Want to learn more about using Dropbox to store your content? https://db.tt/pIAG8aSs