The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Course Instructors

In today’s rapidly changing educational landscape, the role of instructors lies beyond simply sharing expertise; it involves inspiring, engaging, and nurturing the minds of learners.

We can find parallel principles for educators that will foster in students a lifelong love of learning, much like the ideas introduced by Stephen R. Covey in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” which revolutionised the way people approach personal and professional success.

This blog post serves as a guide to those who aspire to create a deep and a lasting impact in their students’ lives. By adapting these practices, instructors can create a meaningful educational experience that aligns with their teaching mission and goes beyond the classroom walls.

At codedamn, we are constantly striving to provide learners all over the globe with interactive, relevant, and high-quality content. Whether you’re an experienced instructor or a first-timer eager to share your expertise, we have the tools to help you succeed. If you’re looking to develop a highly interactive course that truly engages the learner, this is the place to start.

Let’s dive into the complete guide on how you can build an unforgettable learning experience on codedamn.

1. Align with Purpose

The first and foremost among these 7 habits is to “Align with Purpose”.

Effective instructors begin with a clear understanding of their teaching mission, goals, and the impact they seek to have on their students. They align their course material, teaching style, and interactions with these overarching objectives.

Before you begin creating your course, understand what your ideal learner would expect to learn from your course. Creating an impactful course begins with empathy. Imagine the needs, goals, and expectations of your ideal learner.

Once you start creating your course on codedamn, make sure to provide the learning with a clear and well-explained description of your course.

Your course landing page provides the learner with each and every information about your course, make sure that you’re using this to your advantage. This is an example of a well-formed course description and details.

Below is your own instructor dashboard from where you can customize how your course should look. Use this space to talk about your course in a detailed manner. Write clear and crisp objectives of your course, and the outcomes learners should expect out of your course, mention if there are any prerequisites for enrolling into the course.

Maintain a high level of topic relevance in your course. Choose topics that are suitable in today’s industry standards and set a roadmap-like structure of your course. Make sure you build a course an intuitive course with user-friendly structure to help learners derive the maximum value.

2. Cultivate Interactivity

“Asking questions” is a technique used by communicators, speakers, teachers, and professors all over the world to keep listeners engaged in what they’re saying. This brings us to the second habit of highly effective instructors.

The best way you can retain learners and ensure lessons are both informative and engaging is through interactive teaching methods that stimulate critical thinking, creativity, and active participation. This is precisely what we’re doing at codedamn – bringing the “interactive learning experience” to life.

The primary aspect which sets your course apart from the rest, is interactivity. With the tools and infrastructure provided by codedamn, use it to your advantage so you can provide the best interactive learning experience to the end learner through your course.

To accomplish this, you must design your course with the ideal mix of videos, practise labs, and quizzes. Strive for a balanced, engaging mix of content.

To help you set up your course at every step, we’ve prepared an extensive documentation at https://teach.codedamn.com/. This will guide you and help you navigate through codedamn’s instructor dashboard. Utilise this comprehensive guide to smoothly navigate through the course creation process.
Rectify your progress from the recommended launch checklist. This will give you a fair idea of things you’ve missed out on and how you can further improve your course.

3. Uphold the Highest Standards

In the process of crafting an unforgettable course, upholding the highest standards of quality becomes paramount. As you move from outlining your course to its actual creation, remember that quality isn’t merely a factor —it’s the cornerstone of a successful course.

Videos are the most popular way of teaching something to learners, it not just engages the learner but also gives them a face to remember. Even though it’s not mandatory, it’s always a good idea to add some videos in your course.

Make sure that the videos you upload are of the highest quality: at least 1080p resolution. With this, also make sure to use a proper microphone while you record the course so your audience can hear you well and clear without any background noise.

Each tutorial should resonate with the value you intend to deliver, offering students content that is both informative and masterfully presented.

By upholding these standards, you reinforce your commitment to excellence, ensuring that your course stands out as a perfect example of educational quality.

4. Go Beyond the Curriculum

Remember how we all used to love exploring the “out-of-the-syllabus” topics back when we were in school?

Successful education doesn’t confine itself to the syllabus or course materials. Effective instructors recognise the importance of going beyond the course, providing learners with a larger scope and encouraging them to explore further.

Here’s what you can do towards the end of your course, to inculcate this principle in your course:

Provide Additional Resources: Share supplementary materials, or tools that align with the course topics. These additional resources can deepen understanding and foster an independent pursuit of knowledge.
Guide on How to Achieve Goals: Outline actionable strategies that help students apply what they’ve learned to achieve their individual goals. Whether it’s career advancement or personal growth, provide insights that can be applied to their journey.
Offer a Quick Recap: Summarise key points at the end of each section or the entire course. This reinforcement helps solidify the concepts and ensures that students grasp the essential takeaways.
Suggest Possible Next Steps: Guide learners towards what they can do next, be it other related courses, projects they can undertake, or communities they can join. These suggestions pave the way for continued growth and exploration in their chosen field.

5. Be reachable

Being reachable is more than a best practice; it’s a commitment to building and nurturing a learning community where education is not a one-time event but an ongoing dialogue.

Participate in discussions: Help students by answering their doubts and queries within your course in a timely manner. This is a good way to show your responsiveness to your learners.

Keep track of your comments: Stay up-to-date on new comments on your course items via the internal dashboard.

Update Your Instructor Profile: Provide students with various ways to connect with you by keeping your profile up-to-date with relevant social media links. This creates multiple channels for students to engage with you, ask questions, or even share their successes.

6. Build a Community

Effective instructors know that learning doesn’t have to be a solitary journey.

Building a community around your course can add tremendous value, not only enhancing the learning experience but creating a supportive network that lasts far beyond the course itself.

Here are two steps you can use to cultivate a community around your courses:

Create Engaging Spaces: Utilize platforms like instagram, twitter to initiate conversations or share valuable content which would engage more people on your courses. These platforms can also become hubs for students to ask questions, share insights, and connect with each other.
Leverage your presence using codedamn’s discord server: We have a growing community of more than 16,500 members on discord, who regularly engage via asking questions, doubts, queries. Let more people discover you by being a part of such conversations, starting micro-communities and so much more. Opportunities are limitless here!

7. Embrace the Learning Loop

Effective education is not a monologue but a dialogue. It’s a continuous process of learning, adapting, and growing, not only for the students but for the instructors as well. The feedback loop is vital in this process, as it ensures that your course is aligned with the needs, expectations, and experiences of your learners. Here’s how you can create and benefit from an effective feedback loop:

Take Feedback from the Community: If you have a close knit community with your students, try to actively seek feedback from your students, or even other fellow instructors in the community. Create a welcoming environment that encourages honest and constructive feedback.
Keep an Eye on Reviews: Regularly review feedback on your courses. These insights offer a window into how your course is being perceived and where improvements may be necessary.

Iterate Fast: Don’t just collect feedback; act on it. Assess the feedback and quickly make the necessary changes to your course.

With these best practices, you’re well on your way to build an effective course on Codedamn. Take your time, use the resources available, and don’t hesitate to reach out for support.

The world awaits your expertise.

Still need help?

Connect with team codedamn in our exclusive discord server for instructors: https://cdm.sh/instructor-discord, we respond to everyone within an hour!

All the best,
Team codedamn