Successfully Producing Tutorials and Online Courses

How to create web tutorials and online courses on Udemy and other course platforms in a way that your participants experience the best possible learning success.

Markus Peter

• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9783751981194
• eBook ISBN: 9783752680447
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Many tutorials and online courses transfer knowledge on interesting and important topics. Often the creators are indeed experts in their field but have no idea of how knowledge is transferred properly, and which aspects need to be considered when creating good online media. The result is often devastating. Bounce rates of up to 90% are the norm on many courses. Actual interesting content is not perceived because the form of presentation puts prospects to flight.In this book the experienced adult educator and online tutor, Markus Peter, presents the basics of knowledge transfer and provides the reader with tools for creating more professional and more attractive course content. The results are impressive: Over 50% more feedback, and better feedback for courses that have implemented the approach, is a convincing argument.

Basics of pedagogy

Pedagogy is a scientific discipline which deals with both the theory and the practice of education and socialization. It deals with the cause and effect of educational processes, in different contexts.

On the one hand, pedagogy explores relations and, on the other hand, gives recommendations on how educational processes can be optimized. Branches of pedagogy include general didactics, adult education, school education, social pedagogy, and media education.

Educational findings are an important foundation regarding the optimal transfer of knowledge. In addition to the conveyed technical content, the main requirement of knowledge transfer is that the transferred knowledge is made optimally receivable for the audience.

Learning theory

"Learning theories are models and hypotheses whereby learning processes can be psychologically described and explained. The complex process of learning is explained here with possibly simple principles and rules. In the psychology of learning, theories are developed and checked for their contents and their implementability with the help of empirical studies.

The overview of the main theoretical learning approaches and statements show that most of the existing learning theories focus on specific, individual forms of learning."

(Source: Wikipedia)

Learning is to be understood as a process which, besides pure growth of knowledge, influences feeling, thinking and behavior as a new understanding of reality is constructed through experiences.

Conditioning

One of the oldest learning theories is conditioning, within which a distinction between classical and operant conditioning can be made. Both stem from the same learning mechanisms.

A familiar example for classical conditioning can be illustrated by Ivan Pavlov’s experiment with dogs. In the experiment, an originally neutral stimulus (the ringing of a bell) was connected with the feeding of dogs. This connection involved the salivation of the dogs (as it happens when they are fed) which was then triggered when the bell was rung, without the dogs being fed.

B.F. Skinner described the principle of operant conditioning in the 1950s. He noted that a direct consequence of a targeted behavior (reward or punishment) plays an important role in whether the behavior will be shown again in the future.

NLP techniques

"Neurolinguistic programming (NLP) is a set of communicational techniques and methods for changing mental processes in humans, which includes concepts of client-centered therapy, art therapy, hypnotherapy and cognitive sciences, as well as constructivism."

(Source: Wikipedia)

NLP offers a variety of methods which can be used for both planning, as well as conducting successful knowledge transfer:

Anchoring technique

The anchoring technique is one of the most common methods of NLP. Anchoring links an emotional, physical reaction or information with a certain sensory stimulus. This is a classical stimulus-response coupling. If the combination of stimulus and linked content is repeated often enough, the stimulus triggers the respective reaction. In training, anchors can be used:

• to anchor feelings (self-anchor, moment of excellence; e.g. against exam anxiety)
• to anchor information (memory anchor)
• to anchor perspectives, roles and activities (space anchor)

Anchors should stem from the preferred system of representation:

• visual (seeing)
• auditory (hearing)
• kinesthetic (feeling)
• olfactory (smelling)
• gustatory (tasting)

Many people have two preferred systems of representation and if one anchor addresses both ...

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Basics of pedagogy
• Requirements for course organization
• Glossary
• Copyright