The Meta Course is a course that itself facilitates the creation of great courses! We learn to design and implement effective learning structures for the ideas and skills most interesting to us.

It's also a great way to participate in a community of people who care about creating high quality learning experiences on a variety of interesting topics.

Upcoming cohorts start:

• October 12 (Monday) - 8:30pm ET

Interested in the Meta Course? Send us an email at contact@hyperlink.academy and let us know!

• Please include your name, topic for the course you're interested in creating, and any initial ideas for its contents and structure.
• The Meta Course is free but we do have limited capacity and want to make sure it's a good fit on both sides. If it seems like it will be, we'll chat more and invite you to enroll.

Thanks!

—The Hyperlink Team

Goals

• Produce a thoughtful, and (mostly) polished course, with a complete curriculum draft, ready to schedule your first cohort
• Get to know a community of awesome course creators, and exchange useful feedback
• Learn about Hyperlink — our vision, and how the platform works

Prerequisites

• Have a clear idea for a course topic, and rough ideas for its scope, curriculum, and structure

Structure

Overall

• 5 weeks; one group call each week (90 minutes)
• Asynchronous forum discussion and feedback
• Each participant will schedule at least one "Test Run" session for facilitation practice

Check each cohort's details for exact meeting times and dates.

Week 1 - Intros and Ideas

• BEFORE WE MEET : Please jot down any initial notes you have for your course idea. What parts are you pretty sure about? What questions / areas would you most like to address?
• Hyperlink Introduction: We'll share a bit about Hyperlink's mission, how we approach course design and internet learning, and the Meta Course itself.
• Participant Introductions : Each of us will briefly introduce ourselves and our course ideas, then take a few minutes during the call to draft a topic with initial thoughts for course goals and proposed structure.
• Week 1 Homework - Ideas and Feedback : After the initial call, each participant will take some time over the coming days to read each other's initial course idea drafts, and exchange thoughts and feedback on the forum.

Week 2 - Course Structure

• Reviewing Ideas: A quick discussion round, where we can address some of the questions that have come up based on feedback in the past week.
• Designing Course Structure: We'll talk about possibilities for designing the shape of your course. What are the core learning objectives? How long is it? How frequently and in what form do participants meet? What's the workload? What are the final outcomes / artifacts?
• Syllabus Possibilities: We'll explore features of a good syllabus, and look at some great examples demonstrating creative, detailed syllabi in a variety of fields.
• Test Runs: Each participant can schedule a Test Run — a short session to practice facilitating one small part of your course. You'll do at least one of these sometime in the next two weeks! See below for details.
• Week 2 Homework - 2-3 Rough Outlines: Based on your initial idea and feedback you've received, draft an outline for your course, mapping out its high level objectives and overall shape. If you can, sketch out 2-3 potential directions or high level shapes for your course.

Week 3 - Facilitation

• Reviewing Course Outlines: We'll do a round of feedback, taking a look at the rough draft outlines we each put together.
• Intro to Facilitation: We'll explore some possibilities and design considerations for facilitating your course, getting into details of how you might organize each meeting, and balance synchronous meeting and asynchronous discussion and other course work.
• Hyperlink Features and Logistics: We'll do a walkthrough of what it looks like to create and run a course on Hyperlink — what you can do with the platform, and what you'd like us to add in the future.
• Week 3 Homework: Revised Outline You'll work on editing your outline, starting to flesh out in more detail and revise based on further feedback.
• REMINDER: Test Runs: If you haven't yet scheduled your Test Run, get that on the calendar.

Week 4 - Exercises and Assignments

• Review / Questions : Another round of questions / feedback / review to get ready for putting together your complete syllabus!
• Exercise and Assignment Design: We'll get into some additional details for your syllabus, looking at possibilities for creating engaging exercises, prompts, or assignments for the course.
• Week 4 Homework: Final Syllabus: You'll complete a detailed syllabus that articulates your course curriculum. It doesn't have to be 100% polished quite yet, but should fully cover all the relevant details a learner needs to know before joining your course.
• REMINDER: Test Runs: If you haven't yet done a Test Run, please do so this week!

Week 5 - Demo Day

• Final Presentations and Review: We'll spend the bulk of this call presenting our final course drafts, and addressing any lingering questions.
• Plan for Course Launch: Let's talk about next steps for getting these courses launched on Hyperlink! At this point, you're welcome to polish your course and schedule a live cohort, or chat with us further about possibilities. You can also continue posting on the forum for feedback. See below for details on getting your course launched.
• Meta Course Retro: We'll take the last ~15 minutes of our final call to do a retrospective on how the Meta Course went, and how we can improve it for next time.

Test Runs and One-on-Ones

Test Runs: If you're not an experienced teacher or facilitator, often the most challenging part of designing a course is not writing the curriculum, but experiencing what it feels like to actually guide a group discussion or activity in a realistic setting.

This experience will come over time, as you run the course — but we can jumpstart it with a Test Run. This is a live session where you can practice facilitating a representative portion of your course. Pick a ~30 minute part of your course you'd like to try, and schedule an event where other Meta Course participants can join, learn with you, and give feedback.

1:1 Workshop: You can optionally schedule a 1:1 call with a member of the Hyperlink team at any point during the Meta Course. If you're feeling uncertain about your course, and would like some extra guidance, feel free to reach out!

Epilogue: Publishing your Course

No fresh graduate from the Meta Course will have a perfect course. As it's run repeatedly with real cohorts, your course will improve over time, so it's okay if it's still a bit rough around the edges — it'll only get better from here!

After our Week 3 call, if you feel good about your course, let us know (email contact@hyperlink.academy or PM on the forum) and we'll set you up with a draft course on Hyperlink! You can set up your curriculum and other info, then go live and schedule cohorts. See the Hyperlink Manual for more detail on course facilitation and maintenance.

If you don't feel ready quite yet, don't worry! Take your time and work on the course at your own pace. If and when you want to launch, send us a note.

You can take the Meta Course again if you'd like more feedback, or want to explore a different course idea. We're also happy to chat more any time.