Building your curriculum: research, expansion, and refinement

You'll need a solid blueprint to create an impactful course, one that involves research, expansion, and later, refinement of the course content. Let's dive deeper into these phases and how they can help transform your course into an information-packed, well-structured experience for your learners.

Phase I - Research and expansion

Think of the first phase as the research or expansion phase. This can feel like you're exploring an encyclopedia, eagerly gathering information, diving deep into the knowledge pool. The approach to this phase can greatly vary depending on who you're teaching and also the existing knowledge reservoir on the course's subject.

Let's examine two different scenarios:

Real world example - accounting course

The research phase for this course was more practical than theoretical. It involved three years of tutoring students in person, so by the time I was ready to create videos, no actual research was required – I only needed a syllabus and I could teach straight through it.

Real world example - MySQL for Developers course

Contrary to the accounting course, the research phase for MySQL for Developers was distinctly different. I purchased numerous books, read through them meticulously (skipping the boring parts) focusing on the sections applicable to application developers.

It's important to highlight that during this phase, refrain from making any judgment calls on whether the material should go in a course or how it would fit in a video. Just read, learn, and soak it all in – make notes, highlight, and let future you decide what to do with the accumulated material.

Phase II - Collection and compilation