Timing suggestions for courses

So one of the issues with these types of courses is finding times to hold them when everyone who's interested can attend. I have two suggestions in that regard.

First, and I believe I already suggested this in another thread, is to ask the potential students when they'd like the class to be, prior to scheduling it. The instructor could announce the details of the course - what subject they want to teach, the expected pricing, the number of lessons, and about how much homework there is likely to be. Then, the people who would want to join the class can respond with what times/days would be best for them. Thus, you could maximize the number of students in each class by having them at times when the most interested students are available. The down side is that potential students who aren't available at popular times would probably get left out.

Second suggestion: Split the classes into groups. For the instructor, preparing the material, lesson plan, homeworks, etc is the probably much more time consuming than the time spent actually teaching the class. Would it really be that much more work for them to teach the same lesson twice every week instead of just once? This might drive up the price slightly to compensate the teacher for their additional time, but it shouldn't be too much. Instead of trying to find 20 people who are available at one particular time, you might split it into two groups of 8-12 people, each getting the same lesson every week, but one group meeting on one day and time, and the other group always meeting at the other day and time. This would have the additional benefit of giving students in one group the opportunity to sit in on the other group if they would otherwise have to miss a lesson.

Just my two pawns worth, from someone who really likes the idea of these courses and would love to take one, if you come up with a subject and timing that work for me.

--Fromper

How much of the value of the class is the live session?  Timing will always be an issue for someone, or some lectures, but can the courses work with just a video lesson and the homework assigments?  Maybe instead if the middle of the day you'd watch the lecture at night, do the homework etc.  It seems that might work as well though there's likely somehting lost missing out on the live sessions

I think the entire point of doing this as classes instead of just as a series of video lectures is the interaction with the instructor. The teacher will ask the students questions to see if they're keeping up. The students will ask the teacher questions about details that they don't understand.

It might be useful for the videos to be released after the classes are over, to be viewed non-interactively by others, but then the classes aren't worth such a large investment of time and money for the student.

As I said, I'm anxious to try one of these. As a kid in school, I realized that I tend to learn better in a classroom listening to a teacher than just reading text books, which is why I prefer video lessons in chess study. But making it interactive adds another level to that which is missing when you just watch a video online or buy a DVD. Unfortunately, the class I was really insterested (the Open Sicilian) was only offered on weekday afternoons, when I'm at work, so I couldn't take that class.

I think there's still a lot of extra value from having a class with an available instructor versus just video lessons.  Yes, timing can prevent the interactivity via the web, but if you signed up for a class you'd still have access to the instructor, they could answer questions ans review homework.  I think taking the class would have a good deal extra value over just seeing the videos.

The staff would also have to be careful in what if any course material they later made available since if you get too much value as just a subscriber then the universitty courses will lose value.

Very good post Fromper.

I think your suggestions make a lot of sense, but the problem I see with that is doing those classes offline might be an issue.

Not only there is a problem with finding all those 20 students, but you have to make sure their schedules allow them to take 1 of the 2 classes you offer as well as commuting times. Some of those students are kids and depend on parents to drive them. Now it becomes more of a parents availability rather than student's one.

This is why we have opened an online chess school that solves all of those problems. Since we serve all time zones and all classes are live and interactive, a student can choose any time he wants and have either private or group classes.

This way you solve both availability problem and budget. It is cheap and easy to access for students. Let me know if you think there is a better solution.

Thanks.

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Thank you for demonstrating that you have absolutely no clue what this discussion is about. It makes it much easier for the moderators to delete your ass.

Fromper you have made some great suggestions!

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