Top Tips for Skillshare Teachers: How to Optimize Your Classes

Thinking of teaching a class on Skillshare? Whether you’re new to our platform or have taught with us for some time, this post will help you optimize your class on the platform.

Our recent research shows that active Skillshare students often engage with classes based on their project. With that in mind, here are our latest tips and advice.

Today, we’ll take a look at ways you can optimize your process around selecting your topic, two areas to focus on while in production, and merchandising your class for success. All of these topics are covered in the Teacher Help Center. In this post, we’ll focus on the details that are often overlooked.

Selecting Your Topic

All classes begin with a topic idea. Let’s begin with ideation – selecting and researching your topic.

Here are some questions to keep in mind when you’re looking for your next class topic:

What’s out there? Which trends are you seeing in your subject area?
Who can you help? Is there a particular audience subset you can reach?
What questions are your students asking you? What are the common problems you see them running into?
Where are your current interests? Is there something you’ve learned lately that you can support your students in achieving?

It is important to ensure that you are creating a class that will appeal to students in your niche. Here are two key tools available to help you on Skillshare:

The In-Demand Topics list in the Teacher Help Center. Here, the Skillshare team shares insights into what our members are searching for, as well as areas of opportunity on the platform. This is a great first port of call to test your ideas and gather inspiration. This article is updated every 3 months so you can be certain you’re working with relevant data.
The Skillshare search bar is the ideal place to test your search words and phrases. Make ample use of search, and try imagining how your ideal student would search for classes like yours. This is especially important if you teach in one of our popular topic areas like watercolor or Procreate. This helps you to understand which classes are already out there and how you might position your class for success.

Remember: Your Unique Perspective Matters

Even if a topic has been covered before, it hasn't been covered by YOU. Every teacher brings their own expertise, style, and insights to the platform, so don't be afraid to put your spin on it!

Creating Your Class

Now it’s time to outline your class and get it into production. Check out the Class Planning Template, which covers every step of the process and helps you to organize your class materials.

Two important steps for teaching on Skillshare are the Project Lesson video, and your Conclusion video.

Your Project Lesson video

Class projects are a unique feature on our platform. Our research shows that students rely on projects when deciding on which class to focus on. Make it your class by making the project outcome clear! We recommend that you:

Show and describe the class project. You may also mention what you will be looking for in their projects to help your students focus.
Give context. Why did you choose this project for this class? What do you like about it? Which skills will it help your students learn and/or practice?
Summarize the steps your students need to take to complete the project. People love a primer!
Remind your students to post their projects to the Project Gallery. It can be helpful to remind them that you’ll give feedback on their work.
Give your students their first action step.

Your Conclusion video

Don’t forget to finish on a high note! In your conclusion video, we recommend taking these steps:

Recap what your students learned in the class.
Include a key takeaway. It can be helpful to reiterate the class value proposition here. You could frame it by saying, “If there’s one thing I hope you take from this class, it’s ____.”
Final reminders: invite your students to connect! This is where you warm the classroom. Encourage them to ask questions in the discussion section! Tell them you can’t wait to see their projects! Ask for a review!
This is also a great opportunity to keep students engaged with your teaching. Use the opportunity to push students deeper into your catalog. What’s the next best class for them to take? How can you further their skills or inspire them to keep practicing? Show them where to go next.

Next, let’s think about that all important class page – also known as your merchandising. This is your space to craft your classroom. It’s important to make sure everything is in good shape before you publish your class.

When preparing to publish your class on Skillshare, we recommend paying attention to these areas:

1. Class Description

One of the first things a student sees when they select your class. This also informs SEO (the discoverability of your class in search engines), so think of this text as your shop window. Ensure that key information about the class appears above any images you include. This gives search engines an opportunity to read and index this important information. Don’t forget to put yourself in your students’ shoes. What would you want to know about a class? More best practices are outlined in our Help Center.

2. Project Description

Remember that class projects are a unique feature of the Skillshare learning experience! When a student visits the project page, they should know exactly how to complete the class project.

3. Cover Image

Bold, simple cover images work well. Show your class project if you can. Keep it light on text so that your images are legible in small formats, like in a thumbnail on the app. This is your chance to showcase your class and get those all-important clicks!

4. Class Title

A few key reminders about your class titles on Skillshare:

Your title should be descriptive and representative of the class topic at hand.
Generally, around 70-90 characters is the ideal length.
Use your keywords and research to think about how best to present your topic.
Make sure your capitalization and punctuation are consistent.
Find tips about how to structure your class titles in the Help Center.

5. Class Projects

We recommend posting your own class project in the project gallery. This gives your students a sense of what they will achieve. This also acts as an icebreaker and a guide for your students.

Launch, Promote, & Engage

We recommend promoting your class widely before and after you hit publish. Use your referral links everywhere you promote your class, including your social media channels, newsletter and other mailing lists, community groups, and anywhere else you have an online presence. Skillshare also features tools like Discussions and the ability to engage with students in your virtual classroom.

Promotion Tactics: Before Publishing

Consider notifying your students of an upcoming class by kicking off a Discussion with them.

Ask yourself: Who is the class for? Keep them in mind as you write.
What is the problem your class will help your students solve? Describe how you will help them. You might also include a personal story about how you overcame a similar obstacle yourself, and what inspired you to teach the class.
What do you want them to get out of the class? Be clear and specific about the project and the class outcomes.

Promotion Tactics: After Publishing

Gather any feedback you receive, like positive reviews, useful comments, and class project images. These are excellent – a reason for students to join in and reap the same benefits. Share the excitement and show your students what’s possible!

Show your strengths by sharing quotes from your students about what they enjoyed about and learned in the class.
Demonstrate how different students are learning in the class by sharing some exemplary projects. You can be as general or as specific as you like.

Engage in the Classroom

Regularly engaging in your classes helps to retain current students. It also shows new students that your classes are active.

You can:

Respond to student questions on the class discussion board
Give feedback on student projects
Offer a follow-up 1-on-1 session to students who are very engaged in your classes and whom you think you could help further
Create Digital Products for further learning opportunities.

Remember that your activity in the classroom is key to keep your students engaged and coming back for more. Our data show that students who receive comments on their class projects are significantly more likely to take more classes.

Platform Trends

To help you find more success with optimizing your classes, here are some areas where teachers are seeing the most success on the platform right now.

A key theme is actionable projects. These can be short classes with a simple project. They can be daily challenge format classes with a series of projects. They can also be larger, project-driven classes where students work on a project over the course of several lessons.

Our recent research with active Skillshare students, they told us:

They are looking for a project they can sit down and complete in 10-20 minutes.
They search for classes based on the project and duration of the class.
Generally, they enjoy classes that get into the project quickly.

Join us again for another blog post for teachers! What was your biggest takeaway from this post? Which topic would you like us to cover next? Get in touch with us today!

Written By

Nicola Balkind

Nicola manages Content and Community Programs at Skillshare.