Create an Engaging Course
You want to think about what chess students want. This is why it is important not to just jump into course creation but really spend some time thinking about what would be valuable to your students.
Step 1: Choose your course topic.
Pick something you're experienced in and genuinely excited about. With chess, this can be so many different things. If you love the end game, choose that!
Step 2: Define your target student and course goals.
Before you begin creating content for your course, it's important to determine the level of the student you are teaching to. If you want to reach advanced players, for example, you won't want to bore them with things they already are likely to know!
Step 3: Decide how students will practice what you're teaching.
Understand Chess students love being hands-on with their learning: they want to practice what they've learned through puzzles, notable additional games, and more! There are lots of different types of practice you can include, so you'll want to choose what's best for your topic.
Step 4: Create your course outline.
Your course outline is the foundation for your course--this is where you decide how you will structure and visualize your content. You can parse out the different lessons you want to put in, different puzzles, games, etc.
Step 5: Script your course.
Once you know how your course will be structured, the next step is to prep for filming your lectures. Most instructors find that scripting each lesson (or writing bullet point notes) helps to reduce filming time and increases the smoothness of their delivery. Just remember that students do not typically like watching someone just read off a screen so you'll want to rehearse the recording a few times to make it seem more natural.
FAQs
How long should my course be?
The only length requirement for a course is that it must be at least 30 minutes. It's hard to create meaningful chess content in less time than that. These courses should be able to fully cover topics in a long format. You can also take a look at other similar courses to get a sense for the average course length of similar courses.
How much time does it take to create a course?
Course creation time varies greatly depending on the length of the course and an instructor's time commitment. Many of our instructors complete their courses in 1 day to 7 days.
Do students want puzzles and additional notable games to review?
Yes! Understand Chess students love to practice and apply what they are learning. Understand Chess gives you the tools to create puzzles and apply additional notable games for subsequent review for the students.