ABOUT THIS EPISODE
You built the thing. You actually finished it. And then it just... sat there as a bonus inside your one-on-one work while the version you imagined selling never quite happened. This week Dr. Catrina Mitchum sits down with Luna Muñoz of Luna Leadership to take apart a CV course that was quietly working as a supplement and figure out what it would take to make it stand on its own.
What starts as a "why won't people finish this course" problem turns into something much more useful: a real-time reorganization of an entire course, built almost entirely from materials Luna already had sitting in folders, unsold and unconnected.
What We Work Through
- Why "nobody finishes my course" often isn't a completion problem at all, but a sign the course is doing a different job than you think it is
- How to read your own learner data honestly, and what to do when your platform charges you extra just to see how your students are actually moving through your material
- The difference between a course that needs discovery built into it and one that assumes people already know where they are headed, and why skipping discovery quietly kills completion
- Why pulling people backward through earlier work is not failure or filler, and how to design that re-entry on purpose so it does not feel like starting over
- How giving learners options in how they complete an activity, not what the activity is, can do real work for completion without watering anything down
- Why naming the "why" behind every step matters, especially for adult learners who will absolutely opt out of anything that smells like busy work
- Where a short, well-placed call belongs in a mostly self-paced course, and how to use it without chaining yourself back to weekly Zoom
By the end, Luna walks away with homework, a reordered course outline, and a stack of things she already made that finally have somewhere to live. If you have ever created something good and then let it gather dust, this one is going to feel familiar.
About Luna Muñoz
Luna Muñoz helps early and mid-career academics transform and translate their skills for audiences outside academia through her business, Luna Leadership. Her work spans translating academic expertise into language the job market understands, helping people figure out where they actually want to go next, and building the kind of self-awareness work (strengths, values, and skills mapping) that has to happen before a CV ever gets written. She supports PhD students, postdocs, and researchers navigating the move beyond higher education.
Find Luna:
- Website: lunaleadership.com
- Links: https://linktr.ee/lunacenti
Course creation is complex, but you do not have to figure it out alone, and you definitely do not have to do it someone else's way.
If your course exists but something feels off, nobody's finishing or it just isn't landing the way you know it could, grab the free Course Fixer Checklist at www.cmlearningdesign.com/free-stuff and start figuring out what to fix first.
Not sure where you fit? Book a free 15-minute Clarity Call at tidycal.com/cmitchum/15-minute-consult.
Apply to be a guest: https://forms.gle/RDHPskg81r3GhSd59
Connect with Catrina:
www.cmlearningdesign.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/catrina-mitchum-learning-design
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Music credit: Alex Mitchum
Alex, Catrina's youngest brother, was a jazz guitarist and his family established a scholarship in his name at his alma mater. Please consider donating: https://www.alexmitchum.com/scholarship
