The Training aspect of Growth Hacking

I totally underestimated the effort of doing that task as it was not just about creating the syllabus itself (I have done that a lot of times before) but because I wanted to come-up with a concept that will be unique and very valuable. And that’s tough!

Challenges in implementing a hands-on class

The Size of the Class

Large classes make it difficult to engage students in a personal way and create environments in which they receive interaction and feedback. Therefore I had to limit the participants to around 20 per season.

The Technical Background

Each student comes from a different technical background and although involving students in technical stuff can be very challenging, very easily you can lose their attention if you will not manage to have them all on the same page. Imagine what could happen if 20 students are in 20 different steps of a wizard. A disaster that would create disappointment to me and also to them. So, how did i “tackle” that?? By a) delivering pre-class resources for all participants to go through before joining the classroom, b) inviting some more assistants on-site that will assist students and also c) by providing a real-time slack channel that they could use to submit any questions or inquiries. A Growth Hacker will be on the other side answering in real time.

Boredness

Also, in most classes, it’s challenging to find projects that can be massively parallel but still unique to the student. Therefore, I decided to create a unique project myself to ensure that all students will be on the same “page” and will manage all technical or theoretical difficulties in parallel.

Varied Learning Skills

The varied backgrounds of students also present a challenge. Some (maybe even many) students coming to a class lack the quantitative reasoning skills needed for discovery-based learning. Without such basic abilities, even the best designed hands-on experience can be lost on a student. This has been solved by involving some theoretical references and specialized materials that will deliver the quantitative reasoning elements and connect the why’s with the necessary critical thinking and disciplinary context from the real world.

Turning brains on

It’s also possible to have hands-on classes that don’t manage to “turn brains on”. Ideally, most hands-on classes should be “brains- on” as well. And that requires active learning. As professor Richard M. Amasino analyses:

“Active learning as using one’s brain in an active way. Listening to a lecture is passive. Students solving problems posed to a class is active, as is defending one’s answer to a problem. Active learning is important because students must work, and even struggle a bit, with the subject material to learn it in a meaningful way.”

In Growth Hacking that counts a lot. Even if I will manage to teach them tons of growth hacks, doesn’t bring much of value. Those hacks will soon be either outdated or over utilised which is something that will turn them not very effective. The importance is to drive them through the proper mindset and the thoughtful process to follow in discovering new hacks and new tips as part of their growth hacking daily routine. Quite of a challenge :-)