You Can Teach Any Fashion Subject Online

If you're reading this post, then chances are you have some knowledge, skill and experience working in the fashion sector. In this post, we're going to show you that no matter what that experience is, there's a course style that you can adopt to teach your subject online.

There are four principle course styles that we can identify. We’ll look at each one in more detail below, but the four are: 

• Reflection-based courses
• Problem-based courses
• Skills-based courses
• Project-based courses

Courses can be designed based on an entire style. Everything within the course is based on that style, or different sections of the course, whether complete modules or individual lessons, can have their own style.

Let’s have a look at each one and see how they differ.

A Reflection-based course has a primary objective to teach new concepts and ideas and introduce students to new material to think deeply and critically about the subject. As tutors, we aim to broaden our student’s understanding of a particular subject, give them some new concepts and ideas to think about and satisfy their curiosity about the topics in the course.

Basically, reflection-based courses are offering theory input, so our role as a tutor in designing courses, modules or lessons in this style is to broaden our student’s understanding of a particular subject, give them some new concepts and ideas to think about as well as to satisfy their curiosity about the topics in the course.

Obviously, then we’re not going to be teaching any skills. Still, the student ends having a much broader understanding of the subject, can think and reflect about the subject and make judgments about how the subject applies to them in their role and what they need to do next with what they have learned. We often see this being taught in art history or when a student is learning about a particular designer, for example.

On the other hand, problem-based courses help students overcome specific issues they are facing in their work or lives. When you build a Problem-based course, you will answer the specifics of how to do XYZ. You've identified a real challenge the student is facing or a difficult with a particular skill or application of knowledge, and then you show them how to overcome this problem.

You’ll integrate best practices, any latest tools, personal techniques and tips that are relevant that, from your own experience, will overcome the problem the student faces.

For students who struggle with a particular problem in their workplace, on a university course, or in running their fashion business, or working in the industry, this course is ideal. The tutor teaches the student how to solve it in the best way with the objective that after having taken the course, the student no longer struggles with the issue again in the future.

For example, through your research, many young designers find it difficult to set up appointments with large retail stores. They find it difficult to make cold calls and to set up appointments to meet the buyers. Consequently, the process of selling their products is difficult. So...you design a course that teaches them how to overcome the problem and not achieve a high enough cold -calling success rate. A Problem-based course is an ideal style.

The third style is Skill-based courses which focus on developing a specific skill or competency. You take the student through a series of lessons that help develop a particular skill and raises the student's game or their level of mastery of that skill. If the student completes the course, there will be a real shift in their ability compared to where they started the course. It might help to think of skills courses as helping students to go from one level to another.

For example, you create a course that shows how to create a fashion flat of a shoo-in Adobe Illustrator, and by repeatedly practising the techniques you show in your course, the student masters the skills in question.

And finally, there are Project-based courses.

With project-based courses, the student follows along with you as you show them step by step how to create something. You lay out all the steps required, and each step of the process is documented in your course so that if the student follows what you demonstrate, they will be able to create it themselves.

So they are learning by doing. For example, you create a short course on how to sew a beautifully mitred corner with your foolproof method that you have used in practice for years. The course or lesson takes the student through the sewing, trimming and turning and pressing the mitred corner. So when the student follows you step by step and repeats what you do to the letter, they will have mastered the skill, but they have done so within the context of a discrete project.

The difference between a Skill-based course and a Project-based course is that the former may use many different approaches to developing the skill. In contrast, the latter is developing the skills within a single project, and the project itself may address various techniques, skills, approaches, uses of materials and so on.

Summary

Understanding which will be the best course style for you is important, so think about it before you start creating the course outline. And don’t forget your course can consist of a combination of different styles by module or even by lesson depending upon how long the course is or how detailed the material.

Each style, of course, will attract different types of students who bring their different needs and expectations about what your course will do for them, so keep that in mind too.

If you'd like to know more about teaching fashion courses online, then take our free series of four training videos. Sign up below and get access to the first lesson immediately.

And remember the four styles you can adopt for either the entire course, a module, or a lesson are:

Cheryl Gregory is the Founder of The Fashion Student Hub, a marketplace for selling online fashion courses. We Teach Fashion teaching fashion subject experts how to create and promote their own online courses, generate revenue and serve the growing need for online education in the fashion sector.