Shownotes
Should my online course be live or pre-recorded? Online course creation for psychologists and therapists
One of the top questions I get asked when I talk to psychologists or therapists about creating their online courses is “should it be live or pre-recorded.” It is one of the details that, as psychologists and therapists, we tend to get slightly hung up on. In truth, my opinion is that you can’t answer that question until you know your ideal client really well and you have thought through the learning points you are going to cover on your course as the way you deliver the course should be a natural conclusion based on what your ideal client group needs from you and how it makes sense to deliver your key learning points.
In this episode I am going to outline some of the key advantages and disadvantages for recording your online course via pre-recorded or live video. At the end we will also think about whether a blended approach could work.
Before we get stuck in I just want to point out that if you are at the stage where you haven’t yet got your online course planned out or you are not sure what learning points you need to cover don’t worry we have a free training coming up in the evening on 15th February 2022 where I will teach you my method for outlining an online course. You can sign up here.
Advantages of teaching your online course via pre-recorded video
- Great for courses where people will need to go at different paces. The “roadmap to a successful online course” is pre-record because I know that module one will take different lengths of time for different people depending on where you started from and how much time you have to dedicate to your course creation. I didn’t think the roadmap would work live because some students will already have established social media followings that you can talk to and others won’t even have thought about who your ICA is get, let alone knowing how to reach them. Pre-record allows people to use your material flexibly so they don’t feel “behind.”
- Flexibility of schedule for you and the students. They can fit their learning in around demanding jobs, caring responsibilities etc. You can also record at times that suit you.
- It is easier to follow a script and be concise when you pre-record. This can feel less anxiety provoking than live teaching.
- You can have unlimited numbers of students.
Disadvantages of teaching your online course via pre-recorded video
- You don’t get immediate feedback from your ICA as you teach so you won’t know if you are hitting the mark in time to change things while the course is ongoing.
- There is less accountability for your ICA so you tend to get lower completion and engagement rates.
- You don’t have the adrenaline of live teaching to carry you through either!
- Can be terrible for perfectionists as you (and your students) will expect things to have higher production values so you will either need to invest in editing or learn how to do it yourself. If you do it yourself you will be tempted to edit every little umm and err out of your videos but doing that will make you sound weird and will take you so long you will probably give up. If you pay an editor that is quite a big expense.
- You will need most of the content created before the course starts so people can truly go at their own pace. If you have a big course in mind you can drip the content out, releasing more every week or every month but you will generally want to have most of it created in advance because the editing process takes so long.
- You can’t troubleshoot with people when they hit roadblocks so you will most likely need another way to support people added on such as a FB group or a live Q&A session.
- Tech is more complicated. At a minimum all you need is a video hosting platform and you can then set up your email marketing software to send a sequence that guides people through the videos however to get good engagement/completion rates it is likely that you will want to create a website that shows people their progress and allows them to access workbooks/slides etc alongside your videos. This can be complicated and I recommend outsourcing to a web developer to make sure you get it right. Again, like the editing, this costs money.
Advantages of teaching your online course live
- Allows you to create week by week so you can test an idea without investing a thousand hours on creating and editing before you really know what works.
- You get real “facetime” with your IC group so can get to know them
- Higher levels of accountability lead to better engagement and completion rates
- The adrenaline rush of live teaching and the relationships you build can keep you motivated
- You can troubleshoot with people as they learn
- It is easier to get people to do exercises that promote high quality learning like role plays, quizzes, hot seats, etc.
- Easy tech. All you need is zoom, somewhere to host replays (like Vimeo or a FB group) and you are good to go.
Disadvantages of teaching your online course live
- You are committed to a date/time each week so have less flexibility.
- Your students have to be available at set times and if they can’t be that might put them off (even if recordings are available).
- People have to learn at the same pace or they will feel “behind” so it doesn't work for all topics.
- Other students’ learning can be derailed by questions or difficult students.
- Your students may not feel comfortable learning about your subject with others. They may want to be anonymous and may not want to engage with others in the group.
- Depending on your topic and IC group it might be hard to hold the boundary between an educational course and therapy when you are on a live call with people. You can work with this by setting up clear boundaries from the beginning and having pre-decided responses to use when things stray into clinical territory but it is important to be aware of.
- You may need to limit the number of students you accept, depending on your subject and teaching style.
Could a blend of live and recorded teaching work for your online course?
Lots of clinicians have used a blended strategy for their online courses. This often involves classes being pre-recorded and then the clinician hosting one live call a week or a month where they can troubleshoot with their students or offer further support. I’ve done this and found it works well and I know many other mental health professionals take that approach.
You could also run your course live a few times and then use the materials to create a pre-recorded course. This allows you to respond to feedback and get the benefits of creating live, such as spending time with your ICA and means you are more likely to create a course people really want rather than spending hours on one that misses the mark.
Those are the main things I would consider when deciding whether to run your course live or as a pre-recorded course. There is no hard and fast rule but for a lot of us a blend or running the course live a couple of times before we switch to pre-record seems to work best. As ever, I would love to know what you are thinking of doing with your course so do come and chat to me on Instagram @rosiegilderthorp or in our free Facebook group, The Do More Than Therapy community.
Sign up for our free training on February 15th to learn how to take your idea for your online course out of your head and into reality. Sign up for free here.
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Do you dream of creating an online course? Are you desperate to reach more people but sceptical that you can ACTUALLY make it work?
The truth is a lot of online courses do fail but that isn't because the content is bad. It is because the marketing strategy sucks. The truth is your marketing isn't a separate thing. Talking to the community you want to serve should be part of the development of the course.
Getting to know them, giving them free resources and building relationships WHILE you build your course in the background is the key to success that most psychologists and therapists launching courses miss.
Well not you! Because you can download my free course creation guide and get yourself on the right track to creating a course people actually want and need.
The guide talks you through the first, essential steps you must take when planning your course so you can avoid the expensive mistakes I see so many well-intentioned people making.
Get yours at PsychologyBusinessSchool.com now: https://psychologybusinessschool.com/creating-a-valuable-freebie-psychologist-course-creation
Mentioned in this episode:
Course Creation Guide
Do you dream of creating an online course? Are you desperate to reach more people but sceptical that you can ACTUALLY make it work? The truth is a lot of online courses do fail but that isn't because the content is bad. It is because the marketing strategy sucks. The truth is your marketing isn't a separate thing. Talking to the community you want to serve should be part of the development of the course. Getting to know them, giving them free resources and building relationships WHILE you build your course in the background is the key to success that most psychologists and therapists launching courses miss. Well not you! Because you can download my free course creation guide and get yourself on the right track to creating a course people actually want and need. The guide talks you through the first, essential steps you must take when planning your course so you can avoid the expensive mistakes I see so many well-intentioned people making. Get yours at PsychologyBusinessSchool.com now - the link is in the show notes.
