What are the Best Teaching Methods?

[LMC]

Hello Warriors,

I've made money, online and offline, and I've always been interested in teaching others on how to do the same. In my experience I've taught a few through "Over-the-Shoulder" means.

A few months ago I tried to run a free course to see how I do at teaching more then a handful of people and kind of failed at it.

My question to you guys is?

What are the best teaching methods, to teach 100-200 students.

Is it Video?
Visuals + Reading?
Ebook?
Day by Day Content?

I would love to hear your thoughts?


I would love to teach but just don't know how about going about it.

[mahasaya]

Well, the latest I've seen to work quite well are webinars.

A good variation are boot camps, but there is less direct contact.

Go for it!

[Asher]

Originally Posted by LMC

Hello Warriors,

I've made money, online and offline, and I've always been interested in teaching others on how to do the same. In my experience I've taught a few through "Over-the-Shoulder" means.

A few months ago I tried to run a free course to see how I do at teaching more then a handful of people and kind of failed at it.

My question to you guys is?

What are the best teaching methods, to teach 100-200 students.

Is it Video?
Visuals + Reading?
Ebook?
Day by Day Content?

I would love to hear your thoughts?


I would love to teach but just don't know how about going about it.

I'm assuming you are talking about offline context
for my response.

As much as possible, avoid free. Free conditions
the mind of people that you're not confident of your
own skills. Dare to sell yourself. You might sell yourself
short in the beginning - but it's all a learning phase.

Start charging a price. Use a plethora of teaching
methods in your presentation and if you are teaching
a small group, be sure to give out "homework".

Since they've paid for it, make sure they do something
about it.

I've found in my offline coaching experience, what
people want is progress. Even after a period of 2
weeks, if they do not have any kind of progress or
they do not get any personal value, then your value
to them will depreciate.

Over-the-shoulders for 100-200 students will be a
nightmare. Everybody's learning speed is different so
if you're doing that, you really should consider getting
some extra hands to go around the class to help.

Better to spend some extra money getting people to
help and keep 100-200 people happy then to try to
save money and upset 100-200 people because you
can't settle their issues quickly.

Hope that helps~
Asher

[Zeus66]

I've taught using teleseminars, but it was to pretty small groups (5-10) at a time. Skype's good for that on the cheap. I don't have any experience with large groups, but I agree that webinars seem like a good option. I've been a student where they used webinars to great effect.

John

[Kevin-VirtualProfitCenter]

I've been doing teleseminars/webinars for years. Groups up to 300 or so.

I have used many platforms:

• Telephone Bridge Line
• Custom Software
• DimDim.com - Good Open Source with Slides, etc.
• GoToWebinar.com

So far I like GoToWebinar, though I haven't used it long enough yet to really take it through all of its paces.

Key points:

Create slides that your students can see. Record the webinar as video they can download.

[GoGetta]

I would go with Webinars and Video!

GoGetta

[VinnyBock]

I think most people are visual learners, I know I am....

I think a video appeals more to the masses...

[rhab]

From a student perspective, I have really enjoyed webinars and found them to be beneficial in learning. With you talking and providing slides for your points and examples, I think it conveys very well. Then afterward open for discussion.

As a follow up provide a download of the webinar.

[Frank Bruno]

Various content seems to work well as people like to consume their content in various formats.

Example:

Webinar
Teleconference
Online video
Mp3
.Pdf

These are some good choices.

Frank Bruno

[Brad Gosse]

I try to do everything with video these days

[swood01]

After you decide on which method you will use to teach, sending your students to your blog is a great way to increase your blog traffic! You can use camtasia to produce your videos and upload it to your blog. Then send a link out to your students that will allow them to click, go to your blog, and learn at their own pace.

[GoGetta]

I would also like to add actually that video and more interactive teaching methods generally give off the image of being more VALUE!

For example Video Course will command more money than ebook courses as an example generally, even if they have the same content within!

Just a thought!

GoGetta

[Greg guitar]

Since everybody is unique, and here on the forum you can find many posts railing against video, as well as many raving in support of it, the best option is multi-media: use video, audio, and PDF transcripts.

I love a good video (not one of those 15 minute speeches with 3 screens each containing a topic headline), but find that, if I'm interested enough to review the material later, I prefer a PDF, with a clickable table of contents, so I can go to the exact part I need to review.

You can learn a lot from Maria Gudelis about how to put on an exciting free webinar that got her a ton of raving testimonials, while feeding her marketing funnel. You can find it and watch it f*ee here: Maria's CrAzY TBS Formula Revealed...WARNING - It's FREE!

I highly recommend you follow Tony Robbins' advice if you want to really rock at whatever skill you're trying to develop, in this case teaching, and model the people who are the best at it.

Watch some of the webinars, and read/listen to/attend conference calls of the people that get you excited and ask yourself what they are doing that you could duplicate, but with your own personal touch.

When it comes to teaching, a lot of it is salesmanship. Just as in writing salescopy, your biggest job is to get the student to take action, so that they actually use what they learn, and become your raving fan.

How do you get students to take action? A big part of it is to keep them in a state of excitement by using stories and bullet points (verbal or written) selling the benefits to them of absorbing and using what you're teaching. Ultimately, whatever medium you use, make sure you put as much thought into the content as you would into a salesletter.

Your "conversion rate" will be vastly enhanced if you make sure there is plenty of content that answers the unspoken question "can this material create massive improvements in my life and add to my happiness?" with a resounding "YES!", and gives evidence and stories to prove the point.

The biggest mistake most teachers make is to assume the students understand the value of the material, and have confidence in their ability to master it. They consequently spend all their time teaching the "what" and "how" of the subject.

Little or no time is spent the far more important "why", as in "why do I need to know, understand and master this", and on the encouragement factor. You need to answer, with a resounding "YES!", the question: "This looks great, but is it something that I could really master?"

Most people are filled with self doubt, and if you can continually offer the encouragement to counter their doubts, you will be an amazingly successful teacher. You can easily do this simply by keeping the need for it always in mind.

Many of the Warriors offering the most popular and well reviewed WSOs are doing this all through their products. Frank Kern's material is a great example.

Break things down into their most basic parts and then as you teach each part, remind the people "this is really simple", "you might think this is hard, but you'll be pleasantly surprised; if you can send and receive email, you can do this", etc.

Ultimately, your "conversion rate" is measured in the % of students who absorb and actually use what you're teaching, and whose lives are therefore enhanced. You should definitely do a follow-up survey to find out how effective it was, and make sure you include the question "What do you think would have made it more rewarding for you personally?" Constructive criticism is gold!

I hope that helps. Ultimately, the words you choose and how you deliver them (relaxed, but excited, friendly, encouraging tone), is far more important than what medium you use.

That said, you might as well take advantage of the higher perceived value of delivering everything on as many mediums as possible, including physical cds/dvds.

Good luck.

[Fernando Veloso]

Personally I use: Video + PDF + Random Notes

* Videos to teach them the Method
* PDFs to help them visualize all the steps of the Method
* Random Notes to help them FOCUS

But you know your crowd better then anyone here

[MWick]

I think it is a combination of all above listed tools delivered by someone who has presence and can control the environment. You just gotta get into their heads and push the info sometimes...

[Intrepreneur]

I've found the best teacher who presents themselves in the online marketing arena is Mr Howie Scwartz and you could learn lots from him but in speaking of his methods he does mostly use his seminars (no fluff - Hooray!) to teach others his understanding of a topic. Check out some of his stuff and you'll see how teaching is best when taught just like a teacher would.

Onto your failure as a teacher I can only guess that your teaching methods might not have been bad but the people whom you are teaching are segregated in many ways which causes learning barriers. The one segregation I can see causing the biggest problem with teaching such a large group is lack of feedback. Most people can only learn when feedback is appraised often.

I think this is a pretty good resource for you too.

http://www.nswbusinesschamber.com.au...ople_learn.xml

[davtom]

I like webinars. I've attended many live webinars and I have also trained at a webinar myself. I find them far more useful than video, which in turn tends to be more useful than a pdf or audio product for me.

I'm considering going into training a bit more, and I'm considering dimdim.com for that. Most people seem to use gotowebinar.com.

[LMC]

Wow thanks for all the comments, and options.

I'll go through a lot of this over the next few days, I appreciate your help.