A quick guide that helps you find the worthy ones.

This year I spent around $5000 on online courses.
Warren Buffet said, âthe best investment you can make is an investment in yourself. The more you learn, the more youâll earn.â
But his statement is flawed.
Not all learning investments are created equal. People whoâve excelled at their craft are often not the best teachers. Likewise, creators who write the best sales copy donât offer the most value.
Hereâs precisely how you can spot bad online courses so that you wonât waste your time and money.
1) They Tell But Donât Show
Most online courses are useless because they focus on the why and what instead of the how.
In a Medium writerâs online course, for example, the instructors spend 90% of the time exploring what writing consists of. They have an hour-long conversation about the importance of consistency. Yet, they donât show the students how they can write consistently.
The medium star couldâve talked about the roadblocks and how he overcame them. He couldâve shared his calendar or accountability system. He couldâve shared strategies for when youâre struggling to get started. But he didnât. For me, the course felt like a time-waster.
âNever tell us a thing if you can show us, instead.â
â Steven King
What to look out for instead:
Look for how material instead of endless talks on the why and what. Valuable things often include templates, tutorials, spreadsheets, and screen-sharings.
Here are some examples, so you know how to tell the difference:
2) Instructors Teach in One Direction
âActive learning works, and social learning works,â said Anant Agarwal, founder and chief executive of edX, in an interview with the New York Times. To back this up, a recent study suggests social learning helps you complete online courses.
Yet, most online course creators choose alow-maintenance model. They pre-record videos so you can watch them at your own pace.
But whatâs scalable for the instructors isnât the best for you. Data from Harvard University and MIT shows only three to four percent complete self-paced online courses.
To increase your chances of success, you need a community.
I love Cam Houserâs comment in a joint Slack channel: âPeople donât take courses for information. Thatâs what google and youtube are for. They take courses for outcomes, accountability, process, community.â
What to look out for instead:
A slack channel or Facebook group isnât enough. Great courses offer structured space for social learning. You have an accountability group, comment on each otherâs work, and have regular live touchpoints with your instructors or coaches.
3) They Ignore the Principle of Directness
Online courses are often distant from the actual application. You watch videos about your desired skill, but you never actually practice.
Letâs consider one of my favorite examples.
Imagine youâre a frequent flier. Before every start, you watch the video of a flight attendant putting on the life vest. You watch the video again and again.
But as this study shows, actually putting on the inflatable life vest a single time would be more valuable than repeatedly watching another person doing it. You acquire true mastery by performing the procedure yourself.
The author of âUltralearningâ calls this principle directness. It is essential for mastering any skill. Yet, most online courses teach skills far from direct.
What to look out for instead:
You donât learn by watching things. You learn by doing them. So the more you engage with the content, the likelier it will stick with you.
Whatâs your desired outcome behind taking the course? Check whether you have assignments that are directly linked to your desired skill. Pick a class as close to your end goal as possible.
If you take a course on e-mail newsletters, write your e-mail and ask for feedback. If you take a drawing class, do your first drawing. If you take a course on online writing, write your first article.
Just like the minimum viable product, find a minimum viable action. What is the simplest thing you can do based on what youâve just learned?
Foster a bias towards action. You learn best when you do the work.
âJust keep working at it, and youâll get there is wrong. The right sort of practice carried out over a sufficient period of time leads to improvement. Nothing else.â
â Anders Ericsson
4) They Donât Understand the Science of Learning
Masters might not be the best teachers. More likely, theyâre beginners when it comes to instructional design and the science of learning.
Most online courses are built on the assumption that our brains work like recording devices. But students donât acquire their desired skills by consuming content. Instead, learning is at least a three-step processâââwe acquire, encode, and retrieve.
Learning scientist Roediger writes: âLearning thatâs easy is like writing in sand, here today and gone tomorrow. Learning is deeper and more durable when itâs effortful.â
Learning through passive content consumption isnât effortful. Thatâs why most online courses are a mere form of entertainment.
What to look out for instead:
Look out for active learning elements. Check whether the course uses evidence-based learning strategies such as:
- retrieval practice ⟠recall something youâve learned in the past from your memory
- spaced repetition ⟠repeat the same piece of information across increasing intervals
- interleaving ⟠alternating before each practice is complete
- elaboration ⟠rephrasing new knowledge and connecting it with existing insights
- reflection ⟠synthesize, abstract, and articulate key lessons taught by experience
- self-testing & calibration ⟠answer a question or solve a problem before looking at the answer and identify knowledge gaps
âMastery, especially of complex ideas, skills and processes, is a quest. Donât assume youâre doing something wrong if learning feels hard.â
â Roediger et al.
Conclusion
Most online courses donât help you reach your desired outcome. You can spend thousands of dollars and hours without learning anything at all.
Learning doesnât help you per seâââitâs taking the right courses that can make all the difference:
- Check whether the course curriculum goes beyond why and what and teaches the how to do stuff.
- Evaluate whether youâve got regular touchpoints with your instructor and learning opportunities with fellow students.
- Understand whether youâll practice your desired skill.
- Look out for evidence-based learning elements such as spacing, retrieval, or reflection.
Iâm building a course on how to write online based on evidence-based practices to make the most of your time. You wonât sit in front of pre-recorded videos and struggle to stick with them. If youâre interested in joining a group of 25 people, you can pre-register here.