Why create a cohort-based course with Disco
Now that you know what cohort-based courses are—and why you should create one—let’s talk about why Disco could be the right platform for you to create a cohort-based course.
Disco is an all-in-one social learning platform, specifically designed to make cohort learning and asynchronous learning fun, accessible, and easy for the people creating the content.
Think of it as an online hub where learning organizations like yours can create and manage training programs while utilizing the power of AI to make things a little a lot easier. You can create cohort courses, modules, and full programs, plus manage and host events. Oh, and you’ll be interested in the Slack-like chat feature, or just integrate your own pre-existing Slack channels directly.Â
With Disco, you can:
- Create online courses faster than you can say "pop quiz" with Disco AI
- Design a learning experience that'll make your learners' brains light up like a Christmas tree
- Create cohort-based courses and self-paced courses that can accelerate your completion rates
- Personalize the learning path by grouping your cohorts into smaller groups
- Manage and host events that are more engaging than a Netflix series finale
- Use a Slack-like chat feature that'll make your learners feel like they're in an exclusive club (but way cooler and with more learning)
- Or, if you're feeling nostalgic, integrate your pre-existing Slack channels directly
But wait, there's more! What really sets Disco apart as a learning platform is its dynamic duo of superpowers: social-first design and AI capabilities.
A fully customizable platform
It’s important to maintain brand consistency and continuity. While some learning management systems (LMSs) are branded like their brand, Disco is a chameleon, letting you add your brand’s custom colors, and upload brand logos and images.
What's more, is that you can customize the LMS with your domain, branding visuals, labels, and appearance. This type of extensive customization feature is difficult to find in other learning platforms, yet very critical to learning organizations to strengthen their brand.
This is how you can easily drag-drop and move the blocks to customize and design your Disco home:
Flexible and accessible learning options
People learn differently, and it’s important to accommodate all online learning styles whenever possible; whether you’re one of the 65% of people who learn best through visuals, or you prefer to learn at your own pace, like 58% of people in a LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report.
What’s important is having options for learners to engage with learning content, whether that’s live discussions, recorded events, short quizzes, longer assignments, or a full resource library of content to review at their own time and pace.
Multiple touch points for engagement
The whole point of social learning in online education is that it’s, you know, social. By assigning smaller cohorts, Disco encourages direct and group conversation and discussion to share ideas, resources, and questions. For example, Disco's built-in forum and discussion board are not just any old chat room.
Everyone (and we mean everyone) can post, comment, and share their brilliant insights faster than you can say "Eureka!". But wait, there's more! You can embed multiple apps right into these discussions which is good even for self-paced learning or asynchronous participation in a cohort program.
Want to share a YouTube video? Bam! Need to showcase an Airtable board? Kapow! It's like giving your learners a Swiss Army knife for communication, way way different from traditional education.
Now, hold onto your hats because we're about to dive into the world of polls - Disco style! Forget boring old surveys; Disco's poll option is here to make feedback fun again. Here's the kicker - everyone can see the answers and comment on the post. It's like turning your online course into a live, interactive game show!
But we're not done yet, folks! Here comes the cherry on top: Disco AI is ready to be your poll-creating genie. That's right, you can ask the AI to conjure up poll topics for you. It's like having a brainstorming buddy who never gets tired and always has fresh ideas.
So go ahead, give it a whirl, and watch as your community engagement levels skyrocket faster than a caffeinated squirrel on a rocket ship!
With these tools at your fingertips, your cohort course is about to become more interactive without creating too much course material--this is what you call maximizing user-generated content or in a learning context, 'learner-generated content'.
And the best part? Let's not forget the built-in feature for private and public group chats and DMs perfect for creating collaboration in a self-paced course, and is similar to the Slack feature that differentiates modern learning from traditional education.
1. Use AI to drive learner engagement
If you’ve got an entire cohort of actively engaged learners, congratulations: you’ve won the social learning lottery. But more commonly than not, groups have varying levels of engaged learners, and it’s the course leader’s job to ensure everyone is feeling safe and connected, and that they’re receiving value from the content.
Unfortunately, that takes time.
Disco’s AI comes at this problem in two ways:
Administrators can use AI to monitor engagement levels for individuals, tracking the number of comments or posts they create, their event attendance levels, and several modules or assignments created.
They can then set up AI-generated prompts to help connect lagging team members with their peers or team leads by asking them questions, giving them conversation starters to post, or tagging them into active discussions.
This tracking isn’t intended to call people out for not contributing, but instead to help identify those people who may need more support to succeed in the program.
2. Create course content faster with AIÂ
Creating excellent course content takes a long time—unless you’re using AI like some of the leading learning organizations. Now, we’re certainly not telling you to purely use AI-generated content for your courses—but we’re also absolutely telling you to at least incorporate it.Â
Disco’s AI allows you to use AI-generated content as a base and then edit as needed, whether you’re using it to create images to illustrate a point make your content more visually engaging, or to develop quizzes based on your pre-existing content.
Bonus tip: Disco lets you duplicate your content, making it faster and easier to create varying levels of difficulty or personalization for each of your various cohorts or tiers.
So: you now understand what a cohort-based course is, why cohort-based learning can help increase learning outcomes, and how Disco’s unique features will absolutely set you on the right path to creating the kind of content your community will love.Â
What next? Putting virtual pen to virtual paper and planning your learning community.
Up next: Defining your social learning program – step-by-step instructions to set your course up for surefire success.
Ready to start your cohort-based course? Sign up and create your own Disco account, free for 14 days!
Step-by-step instructions to set your course up for surefire success.
Chapters
Part I: Cohort-based courses 101
Discover why cohort-based learning is more effective and drives higher results. This model fosters a sense of community building, encourages collaboration, and provides a structured yet flexible learning environment.
Part II: Why create a cohort-based course with Disco?
Understand the key benefits of a cohort-based learning model thoughtfully integrated with AI. With Disco, online academies can offer cohort-based online courses featuring live classes, personalized learning pathways, enhanced student interaction, and much more.
Part III: Defining your social learning program
Step-by-step instructions to set your online course up for surefire success. Learn how to integrate social learning elements in your cohort courses and foster a sense of community among your learners.
Part IV: Create your course
Course creation 101, plus tools like events and AI to give your content a boost. Discover how to structure your online cohort-based courses effectively and leverage innovative tools to enrich the cohort learning experience.
Part V: Sign up and organize your members
Drive membership and designate groups for maximum organization and engagement. Learn how to manage your cohort-based programs to ensure smooth communication and collaboration.
Part VI: Set the stage for high engagement
Encourage collaboration with the power of AI gamification and multiple interactive tools. Create a dynamic learning environment in your online course cohort that keeps learners motivated and involved.
Part VII: Grow your learner base and results
Analyze key learnings to continuously improve and iterate on your learning experience. Utilize data-driven insights and student feedback to expand your reach and enhance educational outcomes.
Part VIII: Run, iterate, and scale
Learn productivity hacks to expand and grow – without extra effort. Implement strategies to scale your cohort-based online learning programs efficiently.
Ready to supercharge your cohort-based courses?
Disco is specifically built for modern orgs who want to easily and quickly create cohort-based courses that engage learners. Is that you?
How social-first design can boost learning engagement
Social-first design means engineering a platform that merges the needs and wants of businesses and course creator with the needs and wants of their audience. For Disco, this means a few things: