June Feedback Thread: Give and get feedback on your course!

[JocelynH]

Whether this is your first or fifth course, it’s always helpful to hear from other instructors how you can improve your course content to be even better. Each month, we create a feedback thread where you can ask for feedback and share your feedback too.

Before you share your course content, check out our self-promotion policy and read these quick guidelines:

1. Be specific. Share what you’re looking to improve or things you’re concerned about so your fellow instructors can provide targeted feedback.
2. Upload content directly. Whenever you can, directly upload a video or course outline to our platform so it’s easier for other instructors to check it out.
3. Don’t share course links or instructor coupons. This is a space to share and receive feedback, not sell to other instructors. If you want to reference a course, share the full name of your course without linking it. Instructors can find the course by clicking on your community profile and going to your instructor account on Udemy.
4. Pay it forward. If you’re asking for feedback, look over someone else’s course and give them some feedback too! Always try to give more than you ask for.

We hope this feedback thread can help you create even better courses!

[MarkLassoff]

I'll get us started.

Here's a lesson from my newest course:

[GregReverdiau]

My only critique is that Bonjour is spelled bonjour, not Bon Jour. 😛 

Also, technical question, do you use a hair light (overhead) in your studio? 

[FrankKane]

One question I have is whether you expect students to be following along with you, modifying the code exactly as you are doing - or if they are expected to just watch. If the former, I wonder if they'd find the manipulation of comment blocks you're doing rather quickly to expose blocks of code to be confusing.

From a video production standpoint it's great. You've really got your format down to a science. It's so far beyond a typical Udemy video that I think you're far into the world of diminishing returns by trying to improve that further at this point.

I actually like that you kept some typos in there, for example starting to type with caps-lock on by mistake. You turned it into an opportunity to remind students that case matters.

Your ability to narrate a screencast at a nice, slow pace and without filler words is quite impressive. I can only do that with a script, but I don't think you're using one (and scripts are hard to follow while doing a screencast, too.)

[MarkLassoff]

I think that’s a fair criticism... I am constantly reminding myself to slow down.  Any ideas how to remember that when teaching?

[Mufaddal]

Hello ,

I would like to be open for feedback in terms of my udemy performance and how I can improve it. 

I have been on udemy for 8 months and I have 4 decently selling courses.

What can I do better to convert better ? 

ANy inputs are welcome and would love to know the perspectives and views. 

Also in terms of engagement these are my figures for new courses 

The Net percent consumption is percentage of consumption with respect to total length of courses. so 0.28 means 28% of course length is consumed till now for all enrolments for that course. 

Please do share your feedback . Thank you . 

[GregReverdiau]

Mufaddal,

I find that using educational announcements helps with engagement. I don't have empirical data to prove it but I do notice more reviews, more questions when I am more active with announcements. I have also been more active on my YouTube page recently and I have been posting a link to those videos as an announcement and that's getting people excited. Do you have a place where you can post more information that would motivate students? 

[Mufaddal]

Well I do create blog posts as educational announcements . But I have not really been comitted as much to youtube .

Thanks for the suggestion  Should give it a try .  

[FrankKane]

Engagement and conversion are two separate goals. If you want to improve conversion, you should be looking at things such as:

- Is my course landing page as compelling as it can be? That includes your promo video and course image, and what you're telling the student they will learn.

- What are my competing courses in my topic, and are they offering a better value to students than I am in terms of comprehensiveness or quality?

- Is there anything I can do to send pre-qualified traffic to my course landing page? (ie, links from relevant blogs, YouTube videos, podcasts, online communities, etc.)

[Mufaddal]

Thank you for the inputs will surely keep in mind these checkpoints. 

[LindsayMarsh]

Hi all! Just posting my latest course into for new class that was just launched yesterday. It is longer than my usual intro, clocking in around 3 and a half min.

Wondering if you feel that it goes on a bit long or not. I have created over 80 class intros in my day and the biggest challenge with all of them is condensing so much information into such a short clip. As a course creator you feel strongly about it all, but the viewer is looking for certain things, and figuring that out takes some time. 

[GregReverdiau]

Lindsay, 

Amazingly great production quality! I do think it runs a little long. Not sure how you can shorten it other than shortening each "point" a bit. I think you are hitting all the points you need to hit so I wouldn't remove any of them. 

I am actually interested in buying the course now that I saw the preview (so it worked :))

[Mufaddal]

Wow this is amazing ! . .love it.

[FrankKane]

Hot damn. From a production quality standpoint, it's awesome - and an eye-opener for me that compelling promo videos don't need to include "talking heads" at all.

It is however long. Instead of cutting stuff, maybe think about what the most important bits are that you want students to see, and put those at the beginning. Assume they'll stop watching after 30 seconds. Most of the video is walking through the course curriculum and what will be covered - but is that the most important information to convey? I think it's more important to lead off with:

- What problem this course solves for students, and who your ideal student is. Get the viewer to identify with what you're offering

- The freebies you're offering as course resources - students love that, but they need to watch almost the whole thing to learn about them

- A call to action to enroll

Then, start going into the course curriculum in detail. Then if they drop off in the middle of that content, you won't have lost some of your key sales messages as a result.

[GregReverdiau]

I've been experimenting with different backgrounds and I wanted to get some feedback or suggestions. I have a standard fake wall with whiteboard I use for my courses. It looks like this, and I alternate between the views depending on whether the students need to see the board or not. It looks like this. 

Recently I've been trying a different format for videos that have more talking and less need for a whiteboard. I'm trying to replicate a solid paper look with a light behind it. What are your thoughts? A few of my friends said it's too boring and plain but I like the simplistic look. Any other colors I should try? Thanks in advance!