I feel like the way of learning has been changing. But ultimately, it doesn't change that much. During COVID, there were a lot of cohort-based courses. It was crazy. Everyone was doing that. Even the new creators. But we all know that after COVID kind of ends, we all go back to our real life. It doesn't seem all that popular at all now. Still, when I look around, there's still many amazing programs that are running with a cohort, with a bunch of students doing it together. So now I'm thinking what is going on?
In this episode, I want to share the two types of learning that we can continue to bring to our audience, to share our knowledge, and that will not go out of style because they are the fundamentals. Let's just say that we shouldn't be sucked into what is trending right now.
This one is a bit controversial because it's hugely dependent on your personal preference, but I do think that most people on the internet, they still prefer to read, at least for myself. It is faster. It's easier to take notes and it's so much easier to go back, right? Of course, I'm talking about when a text is structured really well, because I've seen it all the time.
Like a lot of people aren't really good at structuring information when they look at sharing things in text, it's pretty much just like a brain dump. They just want to write all these things and then they put it all down. To be honest, I'm the same. At first, when I start writing, it's all a mess. I have so many thoughts. And then as I write, my brain starts to go off track and then I want to write about different things.
This is why I like beta readers. Oftentimes, I would share my writing with beta readers and they would tell me that, Hey, Kevon, this is all very nice, but then you kind of lost me here. You kind of lost me there. So that's when I know that.
A book or like a large guide, the information is nice, but the key is actually in the structuring of the table of contents. Which information you present first and then next, and then at the end. I want to share this because I also see that a lot of people these days, they would write on Notion and then they try to make it interactive. They have a lot of links, clicking around, different tables and all that. To be honest, I really don't think that's a good learning experience for your students, for your audience. I think that's just too much distraction. What you should be doing is focus on a linear learning experience. So just stay simple, like one way down and let people just like go through it. That's the best.
If you are afraid that people might bounce off because they don't enjoy it, then it's time to improve the writing. So going back to why text is a better way to learn. I'm just thinking about my own experience. Like how many video courses would I go back to revisit the learning? Almost none.
Like I watch it once, maybe I'll take some notes and then I would just go back to my notes if I need to. So that's another reason why I guess when we create video courses, you know, you can price them higher. But is it really good for the learning experience? I have doubts about that.
I think the other thing is when you write a book, something text, right? And you're trying to do like a hard cover and a paperback style. It gives you a lot of pressure to make it good because once it's printed, it's printed.
Digital products is easy to reverse, but physical product, not so easy. So you basically have to do a better job in structuring that information because it cannot be reversed once it's out there, even though it's not a big deal.
Ultimately, I think, usually text product, if done well, they have a lot more value in it. If your main strategy is email marketing, then doing text would match really well because your audience is used to you writing to them. But if maybe your main channel is YouTube. Then maybe, yeah, video would match well because they are used to watching videos from you.
All I'm saying is that I will focus more on text product at the moment. That's not saying that I won't mix in a few videos or I won't do live sessions to connect with the audience. But I think the main knowledge would be in text format. That's the first type of learning that I think would be amazing, if you can nail it.
Now let's come to, how do you learn in a group format? Because we all go to school. We all want to have buddies to learn with us. No matter how interested you are in a subject, we still want some buddies around. What I'm seeing is that a lot of cohort-based courses are done wrong. Basically, the impression of cohort-based courses is, you're selling a group. You have a start date, end date, and then let's just do four live sessions where I would present some kind of information. And then I'll open the door for a Q and A. That's what most people think of when they think of cohort-based courses. It really doesn't have to be that way. I learned it the hard way because I've done so many cohorts and I've iterated through. I think what works well for a cohort-based course is basically just have a group of people learning together with the common struggle and a common motivation to get to a goal.
You also don't want to present all the information live. Honestly, people are dozing off when they are consuming live. So you want to have some self-paced materials for them to learn at their own pace. You know, everyone's busy. But then the last thing is you need to allow some space for them to connect and discuss. And ultimately cohort-based learning is good because we all need that tiny, tiny little pressure to get us to do things. I think that's the setup of the importance of a cohort-based course, not just like having four lectures over four weeks. That's not a cohort-based course. I would think this is still the key. Cohort-based course is just a word, but the best format is still hybrid. So you can see what I talk about, like self-guided materials, some live sessions for exercise and discussion and Q and A, and then allow more space for the students to connect and work together. Those are the three things that you need. I don't think this will go out of style because we have been learning this way for a long time. So this is going to work really well. Cohort-based course as a word might die down in terms of popularity but this learning style will never die down.
I've only been in the knowledge space since the end of 2020, but I've some experience running a kids coding school in the past. So, you know, I still see the way we learn and how it changes over time. So, or no, I'm saying that we'll always have new ways to learn. And there are always things that are trending based on the world situation. But I really think that text-based and a cohort-based learning experience. These are the two types of learning that will never go out of style. So if you're someone who is like very interested in building a successful knowledge, education business, based on what you know, I think you need to nail these two types first. Instead of going off and do a bunch of different things. This is something you should try and I hope this is useful for you. Let me know what you think about this.
