Over the past few weeks, we’ve been rolling out some incredible new features to make your online courses more powerful and easier to manage.
From innovative Assignments to a super organized Gradebook, we’ve been hard at work designing the tools you need to create an exceptional learning experience.
Now that first-day jitters are behind you and your students are starting to settle in, it’s time to focus on the core of your coursework. And we’ve got just the feature to help keep things running smoothly and on schedule.
Introducing the latest MemberPress Courses update: built-in content dripping!
Just like a perfectly planned curriculum, our new course content dripping feature ensures your students receive their lessons in just the right doses, exactly when they need them.
No more overwhelming them with too much at once or letting them sprint ahead. With dripping, you can deliver your course material in manageable chunks, keeping your students engaged and looking forward to what’s next.
With this new feature, MemberPress continues to evolve right alongside your needs, making it easier than ever to structure and manage your online course content.
What is Course Content Dripping?
We’ve all had those moments… binge-watching an entire television series in one weekend, staying up all night turning page after page of a new book, or suddenly realizing that you’ve finished off a full sleeve of cookies… all by yourself (🙋).
While indulging in something enjoyable may be satisfying at first, it often leaves us feeling unfulfilled afterward.
Learning can be the same way. When students take in too much information too quickly, it can lead to:
- Anxiety: Worrying they missed something important or made mistakes.
- Regret: Wishing they had taken more time to fully understand the material.
- Doubt: Questioning if they truly grasped the content.
- Overwhelm: Feeling overloaded with too much information at once.
These aren’t feelings you want your students to have after completing your course.
That’s where course content dripping comes in!
Instead of giving students everything at once, course content dripping lets you release material in well-timed intervals. This approach helps them take their time with each lesson, stay engaged, and absorb the information more effectively.
What Differences Will Content Dripping Make for Your Course?
1. Build Knowledge One Step at a Time
One of the biggest advantages of course dripping is how it guides students through your course material in a logical, well-structured sequence.
Instead of giving students access to all the content at once, dripping releases each lesson or module in a specific order, helping students build their knowledge gradually.
This step-by-step method helps students develop a sense of progress and achievement as they move through the course.
In other words, think of your course as a literal staircase, where each step represents a new lesson. Students need to master the first step before they move on to the next. This ensures they have a solid understanding of the basics before tackling more advanced concepts.
2. Keep Students Interested and Motivated
Capturing and maintaining student interest is no small feat, but course content dripping makes it easier by delivering material in a way that keeps them drawn in.
When students know that new content is coming regularly, it builds excitement and curiosity. This anticipation keeps them engaged, as they’re always looking forward to the next lesson or module.
A steady, consistent rhythm can also help establish a routine for your students. Just as habits are formed through regular practice, a predictable flow of content encourages students to develop a learning routine.
They become accustomed to setting aside time for each new lesson, which increases the likelihood that they’ll stay connected and committed to the course from start to finish.
3. Deliver Content at Just the Right Time
Course content dripping gives you full control over when and how your lessons are released, aligning them perfectly with your course schedule.
You can strategically plan your lessons to lead up to key moments, like assessments or interactive projects, ensuring students are fully prepared when it matters most.
Whether you’re introducing a tricky concept that needs a little extra attention or gearing up for a big assignment that requires more time, content dripping allows you to adjust the delivery of your material to meet the needs of both your students and the course objectives.
4. Help Everyone Learn at the Same Pace
Course content dripping is an effective way to keep all your students moving forward at a steady rate, ensuring no one gets ahead too quickly or lags behind.
By releasing content at carefully timed intervals, you create a cohesive learning environment where everyone progresses together.
When all students are on the same page, it opens up opportunities for richer, more interactive discussions and collaborative activities.
You can foster a sense of community and teamwork, knowing that each student is at the same point in the material.
Additionally, with everyone learning together, you can easily identify and address any areas where students might need extra support, ensuring no one falls through the cracks.
5. Make Learning Meaningful and Manageable
Learning should be something students enjoy, not an overwhelming experience. When all course material is presented at once, it can create unnecessary stress and anxiety.
Course content dripping offers a more student-friendly approach by delivering lessons in smaller, manageable portions.
Instead of feeling pressured to grasp everything at once, students can take in information at a comfortable pace, making the learning process feel more personalized and approachable.
By spacing out the content, you also create moments of achievement for your students as they complete each part. This steady progression helps maintain their enthusiasm and keeps them motivated to continue learning.
In short, course dripping is a powerful method that helps keep your students motivated, focused, and on track. It’s a simple yet effective way to transform the way you deliver your courses, making learning a more rewarding experience for everyone involved.
NEW Built-in Course Content Dripping: Simplifying MemberPress Rules for Courses
Setting up course content dripping used to be a bit of a chore, involving multiple steps and configurations. It got the job done, but let’s be honest – it wasn’t the most efficient way to go about it.
We recognized the need for a more streamlined solution, so we’ve integrated our Rules feature directly into the Courses add-on. Now, setting up your drip schedules is much simpler and more intuitive.
With the new built-in dripping feature, you can create drip schedules without having to leave the curriculum builder. This not only saves you time but also ensures that your course materials are protected and released according to plan.
You can also customize drip messages within the settings, making it easy to communicate with your students about when the next content release will be available. This helps manage expectations and keeps everyone on the same page.
By taking care of the technical details, we’ve freed you up to focus on what really matters: creating top-notch course content.
How to Set Up Course Content Dripping in MemberPress Courses
Before your students start rushing ahead, let’s organize your course content in a way that keeps them on pace and fully involved with the lessons at hand.
As we mentioned a little bit ago, MemberPress Courses uses MemberPress Rules to power content dripping.
That being said: Any drip settings applied through MemberPress Rules will conflict with the built-in dripping options in your course settings.
So…
- For a streamlined, hassle-free experience: If you want your courses to automatically drip content according to a set schedule (like releasing new lessons automatically every week) the new built-in drip feature is the most convenient option. It simplifies the process and ensures a consistent delivery without any extra setup.
- For more personalized control: If you need the flexibility to release content at irregular or highly customized intervals, using MemberPress Rules gives you that control. However, this approach requires a bit more time and effort to configure the additional Rules.
Visit our Support Docs to compare the functionalities of MemberPress Rules vs Built-In Course Content Dripping.
Keep It Simple: Let’s Get Your Drip Content Flowing Smoothly!
To set up course content dripping, start by toggling the “Enable Dripping” option in your course settings.
Below that, you’ll need to specify how the content will drip – by section or by individual item. You can also set the frequency (daily, weekly, or monthly) and choose the start date and time zone for each content release:
Ready to set up course content dripping? Watch the full tutorial below for a detailed walkthrough on how to get started.
What’s Next for MemberPress Courses? Or Should We Say, What’s Still New…
Course Dripping may be the latest and greatest feature we’ve rolled out for MemberPress Courses, but it’s far from the only update we’ve made recently.
Before you dive headfirst into dripping, let’s take a moment to go over some other exciting changes you might have noticed in the MemberPress plugin.
As we continue to enhance the tools available for your online courses, we realized that the growing list of features – like Lessons, Quizzes, Assignments, and the Gradebook – deserved their own dedicated space.
That’s why we’ve given MemberPress Courses its own menu item in the WordPress dashboard.
Now, everything related to your courses – whether it’s creating a new course, building out your curriculums, or tweaking course settings – can be managed directly from the Courses menu in the dashboard.
Separating Courses into its own menu item helps you keep your course creation and membership management tasks distinct, which is especially handy if your business relies on both.
If you’re an existing MemberPress user, you’ve likely noticed this slight rearrangement. We hope you’re finding the new setup cleaner and more streamlined!
However, if you’re new to MemberPress and eager to start building your courses, you might be wondering where to find all these powerful features.
Just hop into the MemberPress plugin, navigate to the Add-Ons section, do a simple search for “course” to filter down your options, and there you’ll find all the educational tools that have grown bigger than the core MemberPress plugin itself:
Including the New:
As always, stay tuned for even more features and updates in the future. But for now, take advantage of the new course content dripping feature, and explore the other enhancements we’ve made to make your course creation experience smoother than ever!
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Oh this is very exciting and great to know, thanks for sharing !!
I’m excited to try this actually, I didn’t know it was a thing
Great feature! Something I wouldn’t have thought of but the drip function solves a lot of problems.