Why learn in a Cohort Based Course (CBC)?
In the past few weeks, I have delved deeper into the world of Cohort Based Courses (CBCs), why it is gaining popularity and why I think they are here to stay in the future, giving the traditional universities a run for their money!
I also believe that it will force the traditional university setups to rethink on multiple things from student engagement to faculty to the whole learning experience.
There are popular platforms out there that allows instructors to run their courses. In India the most popular ones being Graphy (by Unacademy), GrowthSchool (founded by Vaibhav Sisinty ↗️), Airtribe (by Navneet Sharma and Dhaval Trivedi). Globally the popular platform Maven (founded by Gagan Biyani) has a great curation of courses and some amazing instructors.
I’ve also been doing 1–1 conversations with the leads for my upcoming #CBC’ Systems Thinking for Product Builders’ and am amazed by the diversity of the participants and their hunger to learn!
And that one phrase perhaps captures the essence of CBCs the most.
The hunger to learn.
In a traditional setup learner is fed the same ‘syllabus’ driven by the instructor, and everyone is expected to answer the same set of questions as evaluations. The expectation is that everyone will learn similarly from the instructor, and be able to excel equally.
The traditional forms of learning were supposedly objective in nature, driven by the belief was that one size fits all. If we give the same information, everyone will learn similarly.
We all know by now, that it is not true. Every learner has a different learning path.
In a#CBC every cohort member could go away with different learnings which are added over the core learning. As a result people pick up a lot more things than they come for.
This “Subjectivity” in learning is perhaps the greatest part about the learning experience in a #CBC.
A key aspect that drives this subjectivity learning experience of the CBC is the composition of the cohort. As a learning facilitator, I have always believed that there is a lot of learning from each of the cohort members.
So for an instructor, selecting the right cohort is an integral part of the CBC experience. This holds particularly true if the cohort is for working professionals. The past experiences of the learner add immense value to the learning experience of everyone in the cohort.
The democratisation of education through online learning platforms, has ensured that there is a learning course available for almost everything you want to learn. There are amazing people with immense experience, willing to devote their time to teach.
Leveraging community engagement becomes a critical part of the CBC learning experience!
CBCs drive this notion that you could learn from anyone, anywhere and at any point in time.
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