Today I decided I needed to put my thinking cap on and create some new classes, or maybe I should say reinvent some old ones. This is both fun and a challenge. After all, how do you create classes that will catch a parent’s eye, catch a learner’s interest, and be a subject that is fulfilling to teach. To be able to check all the boxes is a tall order! I don’t have the answers. I’m working with trial and error just like the next teacher. But I thought I’d map out my process as I work to create new content.
Like most teachers that have been on the platform for a bit, I have some classes that seem to be a hit, and others that have fallen as a miss. I honestly don’t know why those “miss” classes didn’t catch on. Maybe the market was oversaturated with the same subject? Maybe the age range didn’t fit? Or the time I was offering wasn’t right for the learners that would be interested? Or maybe the type of course was wrong?
Outschool offers four types of courses – One time, Multi day, Ongoing and Flexible. Most of my classes are One Time. These are classes that – you guessed it – meet only once. For me, these classes revolve around a theme. I create fun and exciting content that can be wrapped up nicely after one class. But I’ve been thinking…..I have two one time classes that just have fallen flat. Maybe these classes would be better suited to a different course type?
Let’s take my Princess Dance and Story Time class. This was created as a One Time class. Seemed good to me. Class revolves around a princess, we learn a dance to a princess song – content was wrapped up nicely after one meeting. But there are so many princesses out there. And after doing a quick search on the Outschool site, I saw that ongoing ballet classes were pretty popular. So I decided to restructure my Princess class to be an ongoing class.
At first I stayed away from ongoing classes, because I read that each class couldn’t build on the previous class, they all had to be independent, because a learner needed to be able to jump in at any time during the course, and this seemed difficult to me. I’m teaching dance. If I offer a dance class for 8 weeks, then shouldn’t each class build upon the knowledge learned in the previous class? This is how every studio is run. But I changed my thinking. All ongoing is is a series of One Time classes linked together! Once I started thinking in this frame of mind, Ongoing seemed easy!
I have just listed my Princess Dance Class as an Ongoing class this week. The first class isn’t for 2 weeks out. I guess we’ll see if this change in course type boosts its numbers, or if the Princess market is just truly over saturated. Only time will tell 🙂
Miss Amy's Corner 