L.E.A.R.N. course design
Breaking Down a Long Video
My dear readers, the one question I get repeatedly is whether you really need to keep your videos short. I've beaten the horse enough around the science, I won't do that again here. But, what I find most interesting in these emails is that what usually comes next is a lot of context about how they have already recorded their videos, and they run 20 - 30 minutes. In other words, they don't want to redo anything. The good news is, you don't have to. Let's take a look.
To prove what I'm saying, this month I am breaking down an example from a class I'm currently taking, Chinoiserie Foundations by Diane Hill. The Module is on how to paint a Peony in the Chinoiserie style.
Yes, I groaned at the 37-minute runtime for several reasons. First, I already know that if I want to return to a specific section within the lesson, I'll have to rewatch the whole thing. Second, I know that I'm unlikely to retain all the info. Lastly, I was tired when I fired it up. I didn't have time for 37 minutes. I had 15 minutes in me at most. So, what did I do? I turned it off and returned a week later when I had more time.
By the way, that week was a week for me to get completely sidetracked by life, work, or some other squirrel that caught my attention. I kept putting off her class because I needed to dedicate 37 minutes to watching this video. So, take note that you risk losing your students in this scenario.
Having now gone through the lesson, I know it could have been broken down into the following topics:
- Mixing base paint (3:33)
- Painting the base layer (6:33)
- Mixing shading paint (1:46)
- Painting the shading layer (17:43)
- Troubleshooting your shading (2:46)
- Mixing outline paint (1:43)
- Painting the outline layer (5:02)
Looking at it like this, you can see at least seven subtopics to the more general idea of painting a Chinoiserie peony. An added benefit is that your student can easily come back to one of those specific subtopics without having to rescan an entire video.
But, Toni, you say. One of the modules is seventeen minutes. Isn't that outside of the recommendations? Yes, it is. But, in this case, most of those seventeen minutes are Diane repeating the same process on each of the thirteen petals. No new information is being introduced, and repetition is good for retention. If she'd asked me to audit the course before publishing it, I'd have told her to speed up that video for the last seven petals.
And, she doesn't have to rerecord anything. All she has to do is cut the long video into shorter segments. Fade to black at the appropriate marker, add an appropriate transition clip, and voilà. Easy peasy.
There you have it, one 37-minute lesson has become seven smaller, more easily retained mini-lessons. You've also given your students a better user experience. I've had to go back to shading twice and it sucks having to scan my way through the video to find what I'm looking for.
Make it easy on your students, set them up for success, and they'll come back for more.
What questions do you have? Email me at hello@owlmedicinedesigns.com or simply hit reply.
