Aug. 10, 2025
Breaking Free From Bad Course Design with Dr. Catrina Mitchum
Welcome to episode 40 of the Designing with Love podcast! In this episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Catrina Mitchum, an educator, instructional designer, and the founder of Catrina Mitchum Learning Design.
Ever wondered why so many online courses fail to deliver meaningful learning experiences? In this enlightening conversation with Dr. Catrina Mitchum, founder of Catrina Mitchum Learning Design, we uncover the critical mistakes that derail course creators and the powerful solutions that can transform digital learning.
Dr. Mitchum shares her journey from higher education professor to course design specialist, revealing how she became an "accidental instructional designer" when her community college lacked these crucial professionals. Her insights stem from both academic expertise and hands-on experience helping course creators avoid the pitfalls of poor design.
Whether you're an aspiring instructional designer, a course creator looking to improve your offerings, or an educator seeking to enhance your teaching approach, this episode delivers actionable strategies to create learning experiences that truly transform knowledge into application. As Dr. Mitchum powerfully states, "Information without application is useless."
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Catrina Mitchum’s LinkedIn Page
Catrina Mitchum’s YouTube Channel
🎯Call to Action: Free Course Maker Jumpstart
This jumpstart lets you get some initial feedback on early-stage ideas for a course without having to do a ton of work before seeing if people are interested in what you want to build. This can help you start the process in a way that feels less overwhelming.
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00:00 - Welcome to Designing with Love
08:32 - Becoming an Accidental Instructional Designer
14:41 - Top Five Mistakes Course Creators Make
27:08 - Creating Hybrid Learning Experiences
31:26 - AI Tools for Instructional Designers
36:11 - Career Advice for Instructional Design Students
WEBVTT
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Hello and welcome to the Designing with Love podcast.
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I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you information, tips and tricks as an instructional designer.
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Hello, GCU students, alumni and fellow educators, Welcome to episode 40 of the Designing with Love podcast.
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Today I have the pleasure of interviewing Dr Catrina Mitchum, the founder of Catrina Mitchum Learning Design.
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Welcome, Dr Mitchum.
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Jackie, thanks so much for having me.
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Thank you, I appreciate it.
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I'm glad we got to connect on Podmatch and have an opportunity to do this interview today and really get some good insight from you with your company that you have, and then also to be able to help my students who may want to go into something similar to that.
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That's great, Wonderful.
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So can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
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Sure?
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So my company is Catrina Mitchum Learning Design.
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I've been in business for almost three years and I am a recovering academic is what I call myself.
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I was in higher ed.
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I still adjunct, actually.
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But I was in higher ed.
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I think I taught my first class in 2008.
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And I taught my first online class in 2009.
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So we've come a really long way since then.
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Yes, absolutely 2009.
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And so we've come a really long way since then.
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But I started at a time when my community college didn't have instructional designers, because it was not common and also not affordable to have them to work with you, and so I kind of became an instructional designer because I wanted to teach online.
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I taught online only from 2010, all the way up until now, and so, in order to do it well, I studied instructional design all the way through, because I wanted to do it right, because I knew it was different from teaching in person, right?
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So in essence you kind of became an accidental instructional designer.
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You didn't plan on it but it just was there and you knew that you, that was something you needed to do.
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Yeah, that's, that's amazing.
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Yeah, that's kind of how I kind of fell on my lap too and I was like, oh, this is this, what instructional design is?
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I think it was something I knew I always wanted to do, but I didn't know there was a name for it.
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So it's interesting how we stumble upon it and don't realize it.
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Or those that are maybe teaching or doing something similar they are doing it and they don't realize it.
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Because I have a student that's in my program right now and she's like I was doing it for a while and just didn't realize it.
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So it's interesting how we stumble upon it and realize, oh, the light bulb moment happens, yeah, yeah yeah exactly, that's neat, wow, that's cool.
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And so what do you think are the top five mistakes that course creators make, because your website does such a good job of kind of outlining what should occur, but what do you think are the top five mistakes that they make?
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The number one is a focus on content first, and I, having done instructional design in higher ed before I got out, I would say that's also a problem in higher education too is assuming that if I give them the information, they will learn it and they will know it and they will be able to do it without anything else.
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Um, there are so many courses out there that are just video vaults and content dumps, and you know, we all know.
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If you're listening to this podcast, I'm guessing you know that that's not actually how learning works.
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So, yeah, I would say that's the number one.
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The number two is not actually getting feedback, oh that's a big one when you're selling courses is different than higher education and is different than having to do it for work higher education and is different than having to do it for work.
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And a lot of times people focus too heavily on getting testimonials or just positive reviews so that they can use them in their marketing and sales, but they don't often collect the feedback that is so necessary to actually making changes to the course so that it is successful the second time around or the third time around or however many times around they're going.
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At that point they just don't think to get the feedback.
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I am constantly recommending to focus on feedback first and then say can I use some of this in my marketing?
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Right Cause, feedback should be both the positive and the negative things, and a lot of times there's really good gems about the positive experiences that people had.
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Um, but focusing on it as feedback before focusing on it as a testimonial would go a really long way.
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Wow, that's true.
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It's almost like like they're skipping not because I hear a lot the with the Addy model that's used quite often that people want to skip analysis, right, and go right into design, and then they skip the E part, at the end, the evaluation, and they're just like, okay, let's roll out this course and then let's just let it go and not do any evaluation, and so it almost feels like those bookends are so important but they just want to throw them away and just do what's in the middle and that's it Right.
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Yeah, yeah, and that's a danger to that, because no evaluation means you don't know what worked and what didn't and what you need to improve Right.
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Right, Right, yeah, Well, and and that you know, bringing up Addy, that that is actually the third one that I was going to mention is the so you would call it validation, Right when in the on the course creation industry, but they don't.
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They don't get that validation early on, Like there's no asking of hey, if I was going to sell a course on this, this or this, what would you be interested in?
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Or even things like writing out descriptions of what's going to be in there, or creating goals.
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So many courses, so many courses don't have goals, which is probably the fourth one, but I'm going to tie it in with the third one, because they're not using, if they do have goals, they're not using them to validate the course before they start building things.
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Oh, wow Right.
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They're not asking, like, if you took a course on digital marketing, would improving your email click-through rate be something that you would want to work toward as a goal, right?
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They're not asking those very specific, concrete outcomes types of questions and when you, I mean I feel like it's really an opportunity, like they have such a great opportunity to build a course that people actually want, instead of feeling having students feel like the course is kind of thrusted on them, like can happen in higher education, where, you know, we often design things based on what we, what we think they need to know, instead of what their goals are.
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The course creation industry is really this unique opportunity to build something based on the changes that people want to make and the goals that they come with to that space so important right, kind of figuring out what's the?
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almost like a backwards design right, where you figure out what are the outcomes, what are the goals of what the learner wants, and then you build the course from there and you figure out what those are, and so, yeah, that's so important, yeah, that's the exact.
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I take them through backwards design, my clients.
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I take them through backwards design.
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I don't call it that Right.
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You know a lot of the shifting from instructional design in spaces where it's a known and expected kind of language, right Right Into a space where I've had to do some yelling about how important course design is.
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And the people that hear me and understand me the most are the people that have built a course that didn't do.
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Well, I do a lot of course audits because they come to me and they say you know, I built this thing and I really thought people were going to love it and they can't even get past the first module.
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Oh wow, that's sad.
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Oh yeah, and so that actually brings me to number five.
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And that's because there's no getting started or start here or like cohesive kind of this is how the course works, like sometimes there's a welcome video but it's not really a navigation slash.
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Take your time slash.
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This is how much time things are going to take.
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All of the things that I got used to putting into a course in higher education like that start here module.
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It's so important, it's it's very difficult to find in the course creation industry, even the very so.
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The very first course I bought on it was supposed to help me get out of higher education and it was terrible.
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There was no clear learning path.
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The modules had no.
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There were no stepping stones between things, there was no transparency in why this built on that and there was no getting started space at all.
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I just started clicking on the module in the upper left-hand corner because that seemed like maybe it was the place to start, but it wasn't.
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It wasn't the place to start.
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So it wasn't logical in any logical order and it almost felt like a hodgepodge of different elements put together.
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Right, but no, no sequence to it.
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Yeah, exactly Exactly.
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It wasn't a learning journey, it was just a dump of information, oh gosh.
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That's not good.
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Because, then if the learners don't know where to start and how to continue, okay, I'm building upon something, I'm learning as I go and I know what my end goal is.
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If there's no clear path, it leaves them confused more than ever, right Than when they is.
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Yeah, there's no clear path that leaves them confused more than ever Right Then then when they started.
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Yeah, that's true, exactly.
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Yeah, For me it brought clarity, because I was like oh, this is a gap.
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Right, this is something I can.
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I can actually help others to be able to do a better job at course creation and, yeah, that's so.
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You saw a need.
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You saw that.
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That opportunity of being able to fulfill that and make courses better yeah, I love that that's.
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That's a wonderful opportunity to be able to do that and to make make these courses better.
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So, no matter what someone wants to learn, they can have that clear path and you know that they're going to be successful with that and the course is going to be successful too for all the learners.
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So that's important, yeah, cool.
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Yeah, I believe instructional design in any type of realm or course development.
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It's supposed to help people reach their goals and help them learn something that they didn't know before and be able to apply that to their lives and their careers.
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So it's definitely the type of industry and the type of Education is so giving as an industry as a whole.
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So it's really nice to have that opportunity to change lives in so many great ways.
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Yeah, it's wonderful.
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Yeah, so how do you suggest that course creators move from that one-on-one to more group content without losing the personal touch?
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My answer to this question is always hybrid.
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Yes, you know, as, as a subject matter expert, right, they know the sticky points.
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They know the places where people that they work with one-on-one get stuck Right and over on repeat and walking them through the same questions and activities and, in general, not having to change what they're doing very much from person to person in similar sessions.
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Those are the things that can start to live in a horse.
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And then the places where it's really sticky.
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That's the place where you do the one-on-one still until you figure out and sometimes you won't right, sometimes there's just learning.
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As you know, jackie, learning needs to be just challenging enough in order for it to feel worthwhile, in order for us to actually learn the thing, and so sometimes that one-on-one piece, it's that, it's that thing that needs to be just challenging enough and you need another person to help you through it.
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Um, so that my recommendation is always to to do hybrid and then to start with the things that that go on, that go on repeat, as the places where you start to not evergreen, but kind of things that are repeatable from person to person.
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That's so true, looking for those areas where there may be more.
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Maybe more clarity is needed because you find that students or learners will struggle in certain areas and you can kind of anticipate that.
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Or just after time, you see, okay, they're struggling with this part, I to give away all of it.
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We want to create some challenges at the same time, but not not challenge them so much that they they stumble upon it and they can't get past the next to the next module, right?
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So we want to exactly yeah.
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We want to exactly.
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We want to remove the barriers that don't need to be there, right?
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Like some barriers are things that they need to overcome to learn the thing, but some are just barriers because we thought it was a good thing to do, or we forgot to caption our videos or you know whatever else, whatever else we accidentally did that created these artificial barriers that don't actually need to be there for learning to happen.
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Yeah, that's so true.
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Yeah, Cause we don't.
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Yeah, the last thing we want to do is have cognitive overload and and then make them frustrated.
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And then they're like, ah, forget it, I'm going to give up and just not, I'm not going to do this anymore.
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And especially if they paid for the course, I would imagine that's got to be more frustrating when they were like wait, I can't even complete this, and you know I'll just take my loss.
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You wait, I can't even complete this and you know I'll just take my loss.
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You know that's when you know it's not a good thing?
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Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah.
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And so many people like when I'm in networking groups and I talk about what I'm doing, I get so many nods when I talk about courses that they have put on the digital shelf and are collecting dust because everybody has them, them because there's that many terribly designed courses in the course creation industry, unfortunately.
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Wow.
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So they just kind of sit there and don't really serve any purpose, right?
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They're just.
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They're just, they're just taking up digital space.
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Yeah, yeah, basically making somebody have to pay $100 a month for Kajabi, basically.
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Wow, yeah, that's not cheap.
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Yeah, yeah, that's tough, and especially for an organization that that's their lifeblood, right, and that's what they rely on, and then having to shell out that extra money, that's not a good return on investment or anything.
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Yeah, that's true, wow.
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So, as we know, ai technology is continuing to make waves and, of course, it's in education, it's in instructional design.
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I use it every day.
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It's an amazing thing, but then there's also the always the downside to everything when it comes to technology.
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So are there any specific AI technology tools that you find helpful as you're working with clients to use during the course creation process?
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Yeah, I am a Claude gal, um, so I prefer Claude for a variety of reasons, um, but I like being able to build the projects and I just I just feel like it gives better responses, and I just feel like it gives better responses.
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That's good.
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I also, like in, I try to make my services accessible, and so I do sometimes have things that are more like guidebook, and so when I have activities in there, I do try to give AI prompts to help the people that buy it, so that if they don't feel like they need me, I'm replacing myself.
00:17:12.451 --> 00:17:12.792
We can't do that.
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I have tried.
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I have tried to get it to act like an instructional designer, and it's not a great output.
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No matter which AI tool I use, I've noticed that too.
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Yeah, also.
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They don't know what they need, and so AI doesn't know that either.
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Right, that's true.
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But I will often use it to get prompts to give folks like.
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This is the goal of the activity.
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How can I help someone use any AI tool to kind of get something so that they're not kind of staring at the blank page, right, because that can be scary.
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My background is in writing and so any kind of blank page is scary to a lot of people.
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I also I mean, they've been using AI for a while but I like Adobe Premiere Pro for video editing.
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It just the ability to remove all of the pauses and the speech to text for captioning is more on point than any tool that I've seen.
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The only thing it spells wrong is my name, because it insists that my name should be spelled with a K Instead of a C.
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Yeah, instead of a C.
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Yeah, but yeah, I would say those are my two top daily AI tools.
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That's great.
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I also really like Perplexity, for if I'm having to fill in some gaps in some places with research, I feel like Perplexity is a really good tool for that too.
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Wow, that's great.
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I'll have to check out Adobe Premiere Pro.
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It's been a while since I've used it and so I'll have to check it out with the AI tools that are incorporated in it, because Adobe has done such a great job of integrating that in there.
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Like when they first came out with Firefly, I had to check that out.
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I was like Ooh, image creation this is neat and um, and some of my students have been mentioning Adobe express and how they use that with their students and it has AI built in there too.
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So it's it seems like they've done a good job of making it to where it's integrated and it doesn't feel like it's out of place.
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It's in good place?
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Absolutely doesn't.
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Yeah.
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I would say from a so, not an instructional design perspective, but if you're going to try to help course creators and go into business for yourself, either as a freelancer or solo proprietor or whatever it happens to be appier a lot for automations and I was using it before they integrated AI, and that tool doesn't always call the thing that is the trigger or the result the same as all the other tools it's integrated with, and so it could sometimes be like a lot of trial and error to figure out what to call something, but their AI integration has made that way easier.
00:20:05.259 --> 00:20:07.423
Wow, that's great yeah.
00:20:08.250 --> 00:20:19.321
Yeah, anything we can do to help with those mundane tasks, right, that we used to do and automate some of those things that I think that's where AI can really do a great job of that.
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Yeah, yeah.
00:20:21.050 --> 00:20:29.940
And we in curriculum development we use it to just come up with ideas for different, for, like topics, objectives.
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Well, I mean, in program design we come up with topics, but we use it to come up with objectives.
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And we also take the course description, pull that into AI and say, based on this, can you come up with some different assignments and things like that.
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So it's good at that because, as you know, like you said earlier, subject matter experts that they're, they know what they want, but it's just getting to that outcome right of figuring out how to, how to do that and how to be able to do it in authentic ways, so that the learner feels like they have that authentic experience and that it's not just oh, I have to write this essay.
00:21:07.234 --> 00:21:15.385
I have to, you know, because writing is important, as we know, but at the same time, giving them that that real world application is so important.
00:21:15.385 --> 00:21:32.310
So being able to do that and help them not to feel like they have to go to AI all the time and feel like they can, yeah, have that experience that makes it more authentic than feeling like it's busy work, cause that's definitely not something we want.
00:21:33.433 --> 00:21:35.118
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:21:35.118 --> 00:21:39.189
And and that's the case, there are a lot of, I think.
00:21:39.189 --> 00:21:57.357
I mean, teaching is hard, right, because we are excited about the thing that we're teaching, and so it can be difficult to make sure that we're tying it into direct real world applications, no matter what industry you're in.
00:21:57.357 --> 00:21:59.122
That, I mean, that matters.
00:21:59.122 --> 00:22:03.622
It matters to adults especially, but I would even argue it matters to kids.
00:22:04.430 --> 00:22:05.512
Right, that's so true.
00:22:05.512 --> 00:22:21.851
Yeah, because when I think about instructional design and how diverse it is, you know you can go into corporate, higher ed, k through 12, military, nonprofit, and you think of all of those different industries and how they have similarities but they also have differences too, you know.
00:22:21.851 --> 00:22:29.875
I mean, if you, if you're thinking of government or military, their, their processes are different, right, and so very different.
00:22:29.875 --> 00:22:33.340
That, I think, is so important too.
00:22:33.340 --> 00:22:44.136
So, yeah, so it's very interesting when you kind of look at the different ways that instructional designers can embed themselves in different areas, and so it's very interesting, for sure.
00:22:44.136 --> 00:22:47.644
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's cool.
00:22:47.644 --> 00:22:53.160
And so the last question is is about the most.
00:22:53.160 --> 00:22:58.169
Most of my listeners are students, but I do have some others that are novice instructional designers.
00:22:58.169 --> 00:23:07.130
But I always like to ask you know, what are some tips and advice that you can share with those that are currently in the master's program in instructional design at Grand Canyon University?
00:23:18.174 --> 00:23:23.987
I, if you haven't taught a class, also teach a class, because there's a lot of value in being able to see, kind of the whole trajectory of a course from.
00:23:23.987 --> 00:23:26.037
It doesn't have to be a course you designed either.
00:23:26.037 --> 00:23:36.989
I mean there's a lot of value in teaching a course that you didn't design, but being able to see every phase and step and stage of the process, including the delivery of it.
00:23:36.989 --> 00:23:52.057
Right, the teachers often do the delivery of the online course, and having that delivery experience will go a really long way in being able to work with subject matter experts in a way where you actually get somewhere.
00:23:52.057 --> 00:24:00.962
I mean, I've heard you hear horror stories, right, about subject matter experts who don't want to listen and they don't understand.
00:24:02.266 --> 00:24:08.220
Putting yourself into that teaching seat can help you better understand where they're coming from.
00:24:08.220 --> 00:24:14.346
So that would probably be my first piece of advice.
00:24:14.346 --> 00:24:25.682
I also feel like you don't need to limit yourself to the industries that people are already working in, right?
00:24:25.682 --> 00:24:32.363
Nobody thought that I was going to leave higher education and start helping people that sell courses for a living.
00:24:32.363 --> 00:24:40.321
Um, because there are not a lot of instructional designers out there doing what I'm doing right now.
00:24:40.321 --> 00:24:53.036
Um, a lot of the, a lot of the courses that are out there um, that have been out there for a long time on how to create a course, are actually designed and developed by marketers.
00:24:54.076 --> 00:25:00.298
Oh wow, yeah, I mean, that's why we're in the situation where we're in.
00:25:00.298 --> 00:25:09.422
Right, and you know, I don't think that people do it from a place of, you know, trying to trick others.
00:25:09.422 --> 00:25:31.450
I think that, even from personal experience, if you're not taught to be a teacher or you're not taught to be a curriculum developer, then you tend to try to teach people in the ways that you've been taught, and so they're mimicking what their previous experiences are, even if they weren't great, because they don't know what else to do.
00:25:32.130 --> 00:25:33.550
Oh my gosh, that's so true.
00:25:33.550 --> 00:25:36.352
I've noticed that with subject matter experts quite a bit.
00:25:36.352 --> 00:25:38.531
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:25:38.531 --> 00:25:47.257
Or they'll pick a textbook for a course because that's what they had, or they had something similar to it.
00:25:47.257 --> 00:25:48.500
I'm like, but is this really the best textbook for the course?
00:25:48.500 --> 00:26:01.054
And then they want to write the course around the textbook and I'm like, wait a minute, but if the textbook, if we got the cause, sometimes we lose rights to the textbook as an institution if the textbook goes away, is the course still valuable?
00:26:01.193 --> 00:26:05.324
Can you still teach it with what's in there and can the students still do the assignment?
00:26:05.324 --> 00:26:09.162
And then when I asked them that question, they're like, oh no, not really.
00:26:09.162 --> 00:26:12.538
And I'm like, okay, then you shouldn't build a course around a textbook.
00:26:12.538 --> 00:26:19.064
You know it, know it should just be there to help them, you know, further learn the information.
00:26:19.064 --> 00:26:22.435
But it should never, yeah, should never be built around it.
00:26:22.435 --> 00:26:26.747
And some of the some of them don't realize that until you ask them that question.
00:26:26.747 --> 00:26:31.103
And then they're just like, oh, I see now, yeah, yeah, so true.
00:26:31.182 --> 00:26:31.583
Yeah.
00:26:32.384 --> 00:26:38.018
Folks are often shocked because the number one thing people do is create a bunch of content without anything else.
00:26:38.018 --> 00:26:57.028
Right, and so the note they're often shocked when I tell them to to identify the actions first, like what are the things that we're having them do, and then only pull in the content that's going to support those actions and activities so that they can actually reach the goals.
00:26:57.028 --> 00:27:04.183
Yeah, because information without application is useless, absolutely.
00:27:04.545 --> 00:27:05.246
That is so true.
00:27:05.246 --> 00:27:08.750
Yeah, I love that Great.
00:27:08.750 --> 00:27:18.049
And I love the part you mentioned about teaching too, because I've been an instructional designer for 14 years, coming on going on 15.
00:27:18.049 --> 00:27:26.405
Now I think, well, at the end of the year it'll be 15 years, but then I've only been an instructor in teaching the instructional design courses for three years.
00:27:26.405 --> 00:27:34.667
So it's like wow, it took me a while to get into that, because where I've been working, I kept trying and then I wasn't getting in.
00:27:34.667 --> 00:27:42.069
And then they, finally, you know, five years ago, they they started offering the instructional design program because I was looking elsewhere and they wanted someone.
00:27:42.069 --> 00:27:52.304
If I was going to teach at a master's level, they wanted me to have a doctorate, and I was like, well, I don't know if I want to go back to school again to do that and uh, but yeah, it was kind of interesting.
00:27:52.364 --> 00:27:55.228
And then they had that and they're like, oh, we'll apply for the position.
00:27:55.228 --> 00:27:56.569
And I'm like, all right, I'll apply.
00:27:56.569 --> 00:28:19.036
And so I agree, it's made me a better instructional designer, being able to teach and see how even though I don't get to work on the instructional design courses I work in another college but being able to see that process, because I kept hearing the same things over and over again from instructors, like students don't know how to write very well and they don't know how to do these different things.
00:28:19.036 --> 00:28:24.375
And I was so shocked by that and I was like, really, that doesn't, that's just seems weird.
00:28:24.375 --> 00:28:30.377
How would they be able to get into a master's program and take master's level courses without knowing how to write?
00:28:30.377 --> 00:28:32.402
Well, that just blew my mind.
00:28:32.402 --> 00:28:38.661
But then when I started teaching the courses, I was like, oh my gosh, I know exactly what they're talking about now.
00:28:38.661 --> 00:28:41.326
So it just really opens up your eyes to that.
00:28:41.326 --> 00:28:45.468
And then you get to kind of validate what they've been telling you all along.
00:28:45.468 --> 00:28:48.175
So yeah, it's amazing Also.
00:28:48.936 --> 00:29:13.309
I'm going to just point this out the discipline of writing studies, their own teaching, and so going and looking at all of the research or not, don't do all the research, it's been decades and decades but looking at the research that's done in writing studies and incorporating that into every single class would probably be really useful.
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