Cohort-Based Courses

Online courses taught to a group that moves through the material together, as opposed to on-demand courses sold as recorded content. In the saved threads filed here, Wes Kao frames the difference in price and in what the buyer is paying for: premium cohort experiences charge $1,000-$5,000 per student, against about $50 for an on-demand course, and “community” is one of the main selling points that justifies the gap (1- Analysis of Course Communities… (tweet)).

Her argument is that “community” is used as a catch-all (live interaction, a Slack room, active participation, “not a MOOC”), and that conflating its elements hides the levers; unbundling it lets a designer tune each one, starting with companionship. In a second thread, built from her work on the altMBA with Seth Godin, she recommends looking beyond edtech when building something new and studying groups that make people feel zealous and committed enough to make the group part of their identity, such as religion and the military, for the external signals of belonging that give students reasons to mention a program to coworkers (1- to Build Something New… (tweet)).

Where this appears

• 1- Analysis of Course Communities… (tweet)
• 1- to Build Something New… (tweet)