While the term Instructional Design may seem too intimidating for many online course creators, it's important to know what it is and it can improve the quality of your courses and eLearning projects. Anna Sabramowicz shares her experience in this field and how important it is to get the student's feedback throughout the project. This will help you create a better course, learn the pain points of why they purchased your online course and help you build a community around your course. I had a lot of fun with Anna on the Online Course Coach Podcast and her engaging personality comes through in the interview. It was my goal to find someone to bring on the podcast to talk about Instructional Design in simple and easy to understand terms, and she did just that. I work with a lot of people who don't consider the learning process that a student will take and what all the student will learn throughout the course. It's easy to breeze through the course creation process and packing the course with all the knowledge you have. But, it might be more important to step back and determine the few things that the student wants to learn. The best way to do this is through beta testing your course with your ideal student base. The more feedback you get throughout the process of course creation, the better your course will be. This process works similar to the Lean Startup model and can be applied to your online course and eLearning projects.
Anna Sabramowicz's Bio
Anna Sa•bra•mo•wicz is the founder of ElearnerEngaged, an boutique elearning studio, responsible for award winning scenario based learning like "Broken Co-worker: Interactive eLearning Scenario." She published her own online course on learner centered instructional design, Skillagents.com, which has been described as “eating a box of chocolates”. Anna makes no claims to be a technology expert, but loves to empathize with the learners’ experience. Oddly enough, her advocacy for learner centered design and results driven education—where training time really matters—has made her a complete contrarian.
The Online Course Coach Podcast Questions
- What is your background?
- How did you get started in creating online courses?
- What is instructional design?
- What are some things you can do in the Instructional Design phase of the course creation process?
- How important is instructional design to creating online courses?
- How can a beta student help improve the course for the instructor?
- What are some things an entrepreneur should keep in mind with instructional design in their own courses?
- What are some struggles you've had along your career in regards to online courses?
- What are some successes you’ve had along your career in regards to online courses?
- What are some marketing strategies that you've had that's worked?
- What is Skill Agents and what does it provide?
- onlinecoursecoach.com/skillagents
Show notes from the interview with Anna Sabramowicz
- She started out as a school teacher and moved to adult education
- Anna worked in the corporate world first
- She has worked with Rubbermaid and other Fortune 500 companies
- Most people don’t know what Instruction Design is and it’s a fairly new concept in online educational
- Ask the student why they are taking this course…it’s a good way to hear their motivation
- Use reflection within a course. Ask deep questions to the student throughout the course to get them to think deeply about the subject they are learning
- Offer your course to a group of people to review your course and give you feedback
- Ask: how are you using the material in your life?
- She uses her Youtube channel as her best form of marketing
- Use coupon code “coursecoach” for online course for 40% off! by going to onlinecoursecoach.com/skillagents to learn more about her online course