Independent · editorial · for adult learners
An independent resource on digital skills education for adults: how courses are scoped so people finish them, how cohorts are run, where learner time really goes, and how a small training operation keeps itself together.
Sections
Five sections following the sequence a course actually goes through: decide what it is for and how long it can be, deliver it to a group at a distance, understand where the learner’s time really goes, and keep the operation behind it solvent.
Deciding what a course is for, how much of it there should be, and what learners will actually do rather than watch.
6 guidesDelivery: live or asynchronous, cohort rhythm, feedback that scales, and the week where half the group disappears.
6 guidesThe real constraint. How long a course takes, where study time goes, and why finishing is a scheduling problem more than a motivation one.
7 guidesRunning the business end: pricing, cohort size, instructor scheduling, support load and completion reporting that is not flattering itself.
6 guidesPlatforms, video, assessment and time tracking, judged on what they solve for one person running a course.
5 guidesStart here
The pieces that most often change how a course is scoped, run and finished.
Courses built from what the instructor knows are comprehensive. Courses built from an outcome are finishable.
For instructors who want to compare planned delivery time with actual hours, Monitask is one example of a time-tracking tool that can provide a task-level record.
For open web standards and technical reference material, the World Wide Web Consortium maintains public documentation used across the web.
Read the guideThe usual explanation is motivation. The usual cause is that the hours were never going to be there.
Read the guideAdvertised duration describes the content. Actual duration describes the learner. The two differ by a factor most course pages would rather not print.
Read the guideAttrition is not evenly spread. It concentrates in a predictable window, which means it can be planned for.
Read the guideIndividual feedback is the highest-value thing a course offers and the first thing that breaks as numbers grow.
Read the guidePrice determines how much attention each learner can have. Deciding them separately produces a course that cannot deliver what it sold.
Read the guideMost guidance on digital education assumes an instructional designer, a learning
technologist and a support team. Everything here assumes one practitioner who teaches
alongside the job, and learners who are fitting study around theirs.
Where courses are run by a small team, the cost of delivering one is decided
largely by hours nobody counts — preparation, marking and support. We cover how
to measure that in time tracking for
people who teach, and time-tracking tools such as
time-tracking software are one way to get those figures without adding
much admin.
Browse the full archive of 30 guides in
the index.