“Don’t use a lot where a little will do” – Proverb
These are words of wisdom for course creators and passionate change-makers doing impactful work in the world!
No matter what discipline you teach – from functional movement to meditation, or math to psychology, Ayurveda to anatomy – you are likely familiar with the concept of “Less is More.” Whether or not you employ that awareness in your educational design, however, is another story.
That’s because some of the most powerful teaching resources –our passion, enthusiasm and depth of knowledge—can overshadow our clear perspective of what information, stories and activities our learners need (and don’t need) to have their transformative learning experiences.
So often we over-prepare and “fire-hose” students with information and activities. And this is one of the major pitfalls of educational design -trying to everything into a course, workshop or training.
What if, instead, you design transformative learning experiences to provide the Minimum Effective Dose of information, stories and activities your students need for deep learning?
The Minimum Effective Dose is the smallest “dose” needed to yield a desired outcome. It’s that sweet spot before the Law of Diminishing Returns (or when the effort exceeds and negatively impacts the targeted results) kicks in.
In exercise science and medicine we talk about targeting the Minimum Effective Dose all the time – unfortunately, not so much in educational strategy and design.
The zone of Diminishing Returns in professional and academic courses can show up as:
– Too much content. Result: Overwhelmed Students.
– Too many activities. Result: Confused students.
– Long presentations. Result: Student Loss of interest/attention.
– Too many choices (No clear pathway). Result: Students drift.
– Single learning style represented. Result: Unengaged students.
So, what if you reverse engineer your courses, trainings and programs to provide just the right amount of information, stories and activities for your students to experience deep learning?
Magic, my friend, that’s what happens!
The Minimum Effective Dose of content, activity, and story is the Course Sweet Spot where students experience real change with just the right amount of effort and efficiency.
This is where your work delights and inspires your students so they can’t wait to tell more people about you!
If that sounds good, please stay tuned. I am preparing my new Curriculum Catalyst Checklist. This will be a tool to self-audit your course, training, workshop or program. It will be published and coming your way soon. Because finding your Course Sweet Spot is, well, sweeeet!