Nathan Barry explains why most course creators fail: they design around what they want to teach instead of what students actually need to change. Start with the problem, then reverse-engineer the course backward from the outcome.
Something that comes up all the time in course design is, is this course actually good? It's good in the sense that they don't create the outcomes that we want.
So the challenge with the way that courses have been created for years and knowledge has been created for years is that we think about what we want to teach someone. What do I have in my head that I want to now transfer to your head? And we don't think necessarily about what is the behavior that I want you to change. So that's kind of the first thing that goes wrong is that We think more about what we're interested in teaching, what we're passionate about, which doesn't solve the pain point, right? Even if it's the most beautiful thing in the world, it flops because they didn't properly diagnose the problem that people were having that they need someone to solve. And when we can start with that question, then we can reverse engineer what the course is actually going to be, what that learning journey is going to be.
