Benjamin Franklin, who helped with drafting the Declaration of Independence in the United States, is known for saying the following about learning and education: “Tell me, and I forget. Teach me, and I remember. Involve me, and I learn.” In a nutshell, what he is telling us is that is you merely present information to a person, they are very likely to forget what it is that you’ve told them. However, if you teach them, they are more likely to remember what you’ve said, but if you do so in an engaging manner, they are the most likely to retain the information that you’ve presented.”
So before we answer the question that we posed in the title of this article, we need to first look at what a course is and what the purpose of a course is.
What is a course?
A course is a collection of materials that the student reads and internalises in order to learn something. Yes, you can learn something just from reading an article however the beauty about a course is that after you’ve finished a chapter or module of the learning material assessments test how much you’ve retained from what you’ve learned.
The nature of these assessments depends on the complexity of the course and also if it is accredited. For example, if a course is accredited, the accrediting body will have specific standards that the assessment has to measure up against so that it meets their standard. If the course is quite long, the assessments will need to be equally as long in order to test the student’s knowledge of the material adequately.
The assessment is neither there to trick the student, nor is it there to give the student an easy way to pass the course. It is there to be a straightforward technique that is used in order to ascertain how much a student has gained from doing the course and whether or not he or she is worthy of being a professional in the chosen industry.
What is gained by doing a course?
When you do a course, you learn someone that you didn’t know beforehand. Courses which are run by tertiary institutions such as universities and colleges teach you a lot of material with a view to making you ready to enter into a specific profession. For example, if you do a marketing qualification, you have the ability to apply for jobs in the marketing field.
With some professions – such as accounting, medicine and law – you can’t enter the profession without having completed practical training. During this period, you’ll work as a junior in the trade under a person who’s been in the industry for many years. After your training, you will write a set of exams which certify that you are a competent professional who is suitably qualified and skilled to enter the profession.
Our Competitive Advantage at Future Self Academy
What makes us, at Future Self Academy, different to any other learning institution is that our author-led courses don’t fully equip you to enter into a profession. Instead they give you tools that you need to succeed in life and to help you to navigate any challenges that you might face from time to time.
We’ve tapped into the collective knowledge that authors, who are thought-leaders in their respective industries, have compiled in their books. As we alluded to earlier in this piece, you re more likely to retain information if you actively engage with the material as opposed to merely being a passive reader of a course or a book. Thus, we’ve partnered with these authors in order to create courses from their books that contain videos of the authors themselves guiding the student through each module. In this way, the author leads the student through the course and alerts them to road markers that will help them to benefit all that they can from a particular book.
If you’re keen to do an author-led course from Future Self Academy, we recommend that you go to our course catalogue page to view what we offer.
