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Fun Icebreakers for Adults to Use in Classes, Meetings, and More
Even if you’re not familiar with the term “icebreaker,” you’ve likely participated in one. An icebreaker is simply a question or activity that helps “break the ice” between strangers and encourages people to open up and talk to each other. Icebreaker examples include an impromptu “Where are you from?” while walking to class, or a scheduled team-building exercise at work.
Icebreakers can be especially useful in classes for adults, since grownups often do not interact as easily as children do. Find out about different types of icebreakers, examples of in-person and Zoom icebreakers, some tips to help icebreakers run smoothly, and what to do and avoid to make sure your icebreakers are inclusive.
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4 Ways Instructors Can Help Create Course Marketing Materials
Creating effective marketing materials for your courses can feel like a never-ending task, especially if you have a small team. Marketing your classes with fresh and relevant content takes all of your resources. Yet there’s one valuable resource you might be overlooking—your instructors. They may not be marketing experts, but they have a perspective worth exploring.
We’ve talked before about how instructors can help attract students by sending emails, making announcements, sharing on social media, and leveraging community connections. Instructors can also help you create marketing content that feels personal and relevant. Let’s look at how you can work with instructors to make marketing materials for your classes.
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How to Learn Art: 5 Easy Ways to Inspire Your Inner Artist
Hundreds of people interested in how to learn art search the web for relevant information, resources, and classes every day. Needless to say, that approach can yield millions of results, quickly becoming overwhelming and time consuming.
At CourseStorm, we believe in making learning accessible, so we’re cutting through the complexity to offer five ways to learn art and improve artistic skills. If you’re an instructor, you can use these techniques to enrich your art classes for learners or to inform how you market your classes. You might even share this list with students so they can explore the world of art on their own. For those curious about how to learn art or expand their knowledge, these tips make a great starting point.
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How Theaters Can Boost Enrollment in Performing Arts Classes
Increasing class enrollment can be a challenge for any course provider. It might be particularly complicated for theaters with arts education programs. The marketing plans and workflows you have in place for performances don’t necessarily translate into functional course enrollment tools. If your goal is to enroll more students in your performing arts classes in 2023 and beyond, this post is for you.
Many theaters are just returning to normal programming after a tough few years. Maybe you’ve returned to entirely in-person events, or maybe you’ve found that online learning and events still add value for your audience. Our State of Informal Learning Report found that nearly a quarter of students still prefer online classes in 2022, even after the dramatic spike during the pandemic has started to recede. Either way, if you’re still working toward your enrollment goals, these strategies can help you register more students.
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How Cultural Trends Can Help You Create Popular Classes
Have you ever noticed how a new movie comes out and it seems like suddenly everyone is talking about it? Social media and online news certainly play a role in this phenomenon, but there’s something more basic happening here. People like to be in the know and feel like they belong.
This human tendency to create and follow cultural trends can work to your advantage when planning and marketing classes. If you know what’s trending, you have a better idea of what’s likely to interest or excite your students. Just learning to spot these trends is half the battle. We’ll show you where to look for current cultural trends and how to use these events to build irresistible classes.
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Why Accessible Content Benefits All Students
Accessibility should be a top priority for any course content creator. Accessible content helps everyone access and engage with your lessons, whether you’re teaching in-person or online. That allows you to reach more learners and offer more engaging educational experiences.
When you hear the word “accessible,” you may think of ways to make a building or website more user-friendly. This may include adding wheelchair ramps or using easy-to-read color combinations. When it comes to course creation, accessibility has much broader applications. It’s about supporting every potential student regardless of their physical, cognitive, technological, situational, or socioeconomic challenges.
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How to Make Art Classes for Kids Appealing to Parents
Marketing kids’ art classes—or any classes targeted to children—is a delicate balance. Although you’re offering art classes for kids, or summer camps, or theater workshops, or any other youth classes, it’s usually the parents who are researching options and making the decision to register. As a result, your organization needs to advertise, promote, and share classes in a way that appeals to parents while making it clear that the class will be enjoyable for kids.
Getting this right means answering all the questions a parent may have about the class while keeping a sense of playfulness and fun. We’ll show you how to strike this balance, plus give you some insight into what exactly parents are looking for when choosing art classes for kids.
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How to Ask for Referrals for Your Education Program
Imagine students eagerly enrolling in your program without any significant marketing efforts on your part. It is possible, if you do one thing: learn how to ask for referrals.
Referrals and word-of-mouth recommendations are some of the most powerful marketing tools you have. In fact, 81% of people say they trust the advice of friends and family over the word of a business. By encouraging students to talk about your classes to their networks, you can build a steady stream of high-quality leads who may become loyal students.
When your students recommend a class to their friends and family, it’s not only an affirmation of your program. It’s also a way to increase engagement and build a sense of community among peers. We’ll share some tips on how to ask for referrals, as well as how to use them as part of your overall marketing strategy.
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Creative Ways to Find Savings and Funding for Nonprofits
Your nonprofit organization makes a big difference for the people and communities you serve. You want to impact as many people as you can, but your reach can only stretch as far as your budget will allow. Fortunately, there are valuable sources of funding for nonprofits if you know where to look.
Finding nonprofit funding sources takes time—an asset already in short supply for many programs. That’s why we’ve rounded up some of the best ways for nonprofits to make and save money. Many of these resources can also help introduce more people to your mission so you can grow your support network.
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5 Reasons for Low Enrollment and How CourseStorm Can Help
It can happen to any informal ed program. You check on the sign-ups for an upcoming class and realize enrollment is low. So low that you might have to cancel the class if you don’t get a few more students signed up quickly. Don’t worry—there is something you can do to boost last-minute enrollment and save the class.
Low enrollment warnings are emails sent to the students and instructor of a course that’s facing potential cancellation due to lack of sign-ups. These emails can mobilize students and instructors to take action and save a low enrollment course.
Let’s take a look at why low enrollment happens and how you can use CourseStorm’s automatic low enrollment warnings to avoid having to cancel classes.
