Recently a long-time friend who I met years ago through the blogosphere asked me if I would teach a Zoom pastel class. She wanted to learn to use color the way that I did and she had a friend or two who would also be interested and would I also create a Facebook Group and could we start very soon?
Developing a class was a lot of fun but came with certain challenges. Because I decided on subscription based model, new students can enter at any time. Since all experience levels are accepted, I had to design the course work in a way that all students could experience success. (Which is setting the bar high and teaching in a way that makes it challenging, fun and ensures a positive outcome.)
Setting up modules on Facebook was pretty easy, but I had to feel my way through working out the kinks in creating and publishing slide show demonstrations. For instance, Adobe Spark worked well for a narrated demonstration that was included in the weekly class email to prepare students for what we would be working on. I used Keynote for a step by step presentation with written captions during class. But Keynote didn’t play well with Facebook, which prefers PowerPoint, which takes forever to upload. I had to streamline the process for the sake of saving time and sanity and eventually eliminated them for the most part since students’ time is limited and they didn’t always have time to watch the pre-class presentation.
Because my class is a rolling class I have both the time and the luxury to find out what works and let it evolve in an organic way. For shorter courses, you’ll soon find out what does and doesn’t work so you can refine for the next time.
Teaching a hands-on art class is about clear communication, which involves not always writing so much as organization of content. Some tips on developing yours:
Develop a clear and concise course description and post it on your website and any social media platforms you use to get the word out. This is an excellent opportunity for a press release.
Determine the length of the course to determine cost and invoicing schedule, which you can set up automatically through PayPal. My class is a rolling class which means we meet every week. PayPal sends an invoice on the first of every month. I don’t adjust it for five -week months, so I feel free to take a sick or vacation day if I need to.
Content and length of class are intertwined. How much material can you cover in a definite timeframe? Developing a lesson plan can help with these decisions.
Sign up for a Zoom account which allows you more flexibility time-wise. My classes run at least 2 hours but students can stay later if they want to do more work on the project.
Develop a mailing list – Add students to your mailing list so you can notify them of upcoming classes, or as I do, to send reference material that we’ll be working with each week in class and which contains the Zoom invitation. Mailchimp is easy and has a free version.
If you have beginner’s nerves, have an outline handy to be sure you cover all your points.
Practice hosting Zoom meetings with friends. It’s easy but Zoom often experiences glitches and the more familiar you are with the platform, the easier it is to navigate technical issues. Items you may want to explore are
- screen sharing
- changing hosts
- pinning and spotlighting
- sharing screen using Apple phone mirroring
- situating your camera so your audience can clearly see your work surface
- Setting up recurring invitations
Repetition of key concepts never hurts. Sometimes students hear something several times before the “aha!” moment occurs.
Keep it simple by breaking down information into small digestible pieces. When you’re very close to your process it’s easy to shortcut delivery of information that is new and therefore unfamiliar to your students.
Because people learn in different ways, it’s good to communicate in several ways using a popular training method: Show, Tell and Practice. This is easy when you’re doing a hands-on class because most likely you’ll be doing a demo or working along with your students. That’s your “Show”. Describe what you’re doing as you demo. That’s your “Tell”. Then of course, your students will be putting methods into practice. Be sure to ask them if they have specific or general questions and allow time for them to show their work. The camera isn’t that great for this purpose but you can get a good idea of where your students are at in their work. In my class we often send images via Messenger to get a clearer view.
Use Facebook Group for announcements, conversations and questions between classes and to add content that supplements your class work. You can create photo albums for each student so they can share their work.
Questions or comments about this post? Leave ’em below in the comments section!
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