Start To Teach Online – 2025

ONLINE workshop: ‘START TO TEACH online’ – get now immediate access to this 4 hour online workshop

*** THIS WORKSHOP TOOK PLACE ON Monday 12 May – Join below for IMMEDIATE ACCESS to the 4-hour in-depth and action-orientated workshop’s recording + presentation + resources below.

Have you been wondering if teaching online and sharing your creative skills, knowledge & passion is for you? To reach more (international) students or to offer a cheaper alternative to your in-person workshops? Maybe you have realised already that it takes a bit more creativity and understanding of online learning to turn your existing in-person workshop into an engaging online experience. If so, this short but in-depth introduction to starting to teach online is for you!

Teaching online became super popular during Covid. However, you do need to be creative with WHAT & HOW you teach online to make sure your content and methods are engaging for your students. There are some big challenges to teaching online, but also fantastic creative & commercial opportunities. And that’s exactly what we will be focusing on in this short workshop.

What’s holding you back to starting to teach online? Are you not sure what to teach or what equipment or software you need? Are you unsure how to plan or price your online training? Or how to get sales? I this workshop, we will go through all of this so that you can launch your online training later this year or whenever you are ready!

This is a really practical 4-hour online workshop, created and hosted by Patricia van den Akker, the Director of The Design Trust and author of the new book Teaching Creative Workshops in Person & Online.

Can’t make it live? No problem! This online workshop will be recorded, and you will have access to the recording, presentation and additional resources in our private workshop hub for 6 months until Wednesday 12 November 2025. You can post questions and homework for written feedback from Patricia in this hub throughout this time.

*** UPGRADE to get a signed copy of Patricia’s book for the discounted price of £25,- (incl. p&p in UK – sorry only available for UK orders). We highly recommend that you have a copy of her book to make the most of this workshop and to create and launch your own online training.

the key facts

• 3-hour online workshop on Monday 12 May 10am – 1pm (UK time)
• Outcome: Really understand how online training can work for your creative business. Turn your online training ideas into an action & marketing plan to launch in the autumn.
• Especially created for: Creative professionals who are thinking about teaching creative skills online and want a great introduction to make the right decisions and take the right steps.
• Tutor: Patricia van den Akker – Director of The Design Trust, author of the book ‘Teaching Creative Workshops’.
• Time commitment: 3 hours for the training. We recommend additional time to develop, test, price and market your online training ideas.

are you thinking about how to start to teach online?

Teaching online became very popular during Covid and the lockdowns, and it can be a great additional income stream or way to reach more (international) clients. But it also has many challenges! No, you can not just turn your in-person training into a video and assume that your students will engage and learn everything. Online learning is different and has it’s own creative opportunities.

Patricia has developed this new, short online workshop for creative professionals who have been thinking about teaching online. Or for those who have had a go already, but got stuck or disheartened. In this practical online workshop you will …

• Discover why online teaching and learning is different from teaching in-person, what the advantages and disadvantages of online teaching & learning are, but also what the best formats and techniques are for online teaching. Do you want to offer free promotional ‘training’ to sell your existing products & services (such as educating your clients about commissions)? Do you want to provide live or recorded training? Or combine both? There are a lot of creative opportunities and we will share them in this workshop to make it easier for you to start to teach online.
• Get clear on WHAT, HOW & WHO you want to teach online. Especially with so much (free) competition it is crucial to stand out from the crowds and be unique. Choosing the right topic, format & activities for online teaching is essential to make your online teaching engaging and ultimately successful.
• Work on your own 3 online training ideas to launch (later this year or when it suits you). You will start to create a lesson & filming plan for one idea, and make decisions on what + how + who you will teach, and what to charge. Patricia will show you how to cost and price your online training – to make it profitable for you, and affordable for your online students.
• Get Patricia’s 13 year expertise of running an online business school, and her ideas on how to promote your online training to get sales. From via your website by creating key-word rich titles and descriptions, to social media and email marketing, and selling evergreen training.

We highly recommend that you get Patricia’s book on Teaching Creative Workshops in Person & Online, or that you upgrade when you book your place to get a signed copy in the post before this workshop starts.

what will I do & learn during this 4 hour online ‘start to teach online’ workshop?

This is a new 4-hour online introductory workshop that Patricia has created to inspire creative professionals to explore and use online teaching creatively and complementary to their existing practice. To help you get started quickly, without overwhelm, and to make it easier for you!

WARNING: This is a really practical online workshop where you will be doing and not just listening! You will be working on your own online teaching ideas, by yourself and with other participants in the break out rooms and in the chat. Throughout this practical online workshop you will work on 3 online training ideas and create your own training, lesson and filming plans. We highly recommend that you try to join this workshop live, and that you come prepared in advance with some ideas of what you want to teach online. Be ready to get involved and to share with others.

During this 3-hour online workshop Patricia will take you through a thorough introduction of what’s different and possible with online training, followed by the specific steps and actions to take to start teaching online (sooner, rather than later!):

• We will start this online workshop with an intro to teaching online. What’s the difference between teaching online and in-person? What are the advantages & disadvantages of teaching online? What are the creative opportunities and challenges when teaching online, and how can you avoid or manage these pitfalls?

1. WHY do you want to teach and especially online? What are your expectations? How can you use your own motivations to make your online teaching more unique?
2. WHAT, HOW & WHO do you want to teach online? How to find the right topic & format to teach online. Patricia will show the different creative ways & formats to teach your creative skills online – Will you offer live sessions, recorded training or a combination of both? It’s time to get more creative with different opportunities to teach online! What are the best ways to teach online to keep your audience engaged? It’s really important to get clear on WHO your ideal students or participants are, so we will dig a little deeper into this too.
3. What equipment and software do you need to start teaching online? Patricia will share really practical resources and suggestions to save you time and money! And again … keep it simple. It’s amazing what you can do with your computer and smart phone camera.
4. Start to plan your online training. What to do exactly and when? When is the best time to teach online – which months, days or times? When to launch your online training? And especially if you are looking at recorded online training then you will need to create a lesson & filming plan to put it all together to minimise overwhelm. Patricia will show you examples and will share templates, and during this workshop you will start to plan your lesson and filming plan.
5. Costing & pricing of your online training Patricia will explain the costs of your creative online training (including extra costs to get you started), what to charge, and how to include different price points. She will share the most common pricing strategies for online teaching. During this workshop you will start to create your financial forecast for one year of online teaching, and Patricia will share a downloadable template in the course hub afterwards, that you can use to make it easier to play with your numbers and make your online training profitable.
6. How to get paid and keep it legal. What are the best payment options? How to keep the admin and payments as easy as possible – for you and your students. And what do you need to do legally?
7. How to promote your online training to get your first students, as well as promoting ‘evergreen’ content. Patricia will share her expert marketing advice for online teaching (she has been teaching online for 13 years!), including how to make the most of your website, getting found with keywords, email marketing and automatisation. Patricia will share an example of a launch plan with the exact marketing activities to get online students.
8. How to make it really easy for your online students to join, and to make your online training welcoming and diverse.
9. What’s next? At the end of this workshop you will start to create an action plan to launch your first easy online training later this year! .

By the end of this short online workshop you will have …

• A clearer understanding of the differences and challenges of teaching online, but also the unique creative opportunities of teaching online. What equipment and software you need to get started.
• Clarity on WHY, WHAT, HOW & WHO you want to teach online. You will create an outline of 3 specific online training ideas, incl. title, learning goals, type of client, and best formats and activities to teach online.
• Started to create a lesson plan and a filming plan for one of your online training ideas.
• Started to create an annual financial forecast with all the different costs and potential income (incl. how many students you will teach, the ticket price, and how you can charge different prices) for your online training over one year.
• Started to work on a marketing plan and action plan to deliver and launch your online training successfully later this year.

what will i get when i sign up for this short workshop?

When you sign up to this 4-hour online workshop you will get …

• An invitation to join this workshop live on Monday 12 May from 10am – 1pm UK. We recommend highly that you try to join us live, so that you can work on your training ideas, ask Patricia questions and work with other creatives who want to start teaching in person. It’s great for accountability, inspiration and to get some feedback already! (Joining in is of course entirely voluntary … but highly recommended!)
• Get access and a license for one person to the recording and the presentation of this workshop in your private workshop hub for 6 months, until Wednesday 12 November 2025. In the private hub you can ask questions at any time, and also post homework to get personal written feedback from Patricia. You can watch the session again, or if you are unable to join us live you can watch it when it suits you.
• In the private workshop hub you will get downloadable templates for: A) A lesson plan; B) A filming plan; C) An annual financial forecast; D) A launch marketing plan; These handy templates will save you a lot of time!
• *** EARLY BIRD OFFER: Book your place by 6 May to get Patricia’s specially designed map to plan out and work on your online creative training for free (RRP £15,-) This A2 map that you can see below will be posted to you by mail. Sorry one per person in total, and for UK orders only. This printed map is only available if you join one of our teaching workshops in 2025. On one side you can brainstorm your teaching ideas, and on the other side you can plan your online training throughout the year, and work out your finances and your marketing. It’s super useful, and very complementary to Patricia’s book on Teaching Creative Workshops in Person & Online.

who is this ‘START TO TEACH online’ workshop for?

Patricia created this short, practical workshop especially for:

• This workshop will help you decide if online teaching is right for you at the moment, and if so what the first easy steps are to launch your own online teaching sooner, rather than later. We recommend that you bring some online teaching ideas already to this workshop to get the most out of it, and to work on your own specific training ideas. But be prepared to get completely new ideas of what & how you will teach online!
• You are a creative professionals who has been wondering about teaching online, but you feel overwhelmed and have a lot of questions! Would it work for what you want to teach? What to teach? Will it make me money? How much to charge? What equipment or software do I need? How to get started? How to make it fun & engaging? How to get people to sign up? At the end of this short workshop you will have got a lot of clarity on if this is right for you, but also a good overview of the challenges & fantastic opportunities of teaching online, and you will have developed some concrete ideas to start teaching online in an easy way.
• You might have been thinking about using video more to promote your creative practice or business, or to use for example Zoom to ‘educate’ your potential clients about your products or services, e.g. your commissions! Video is very powerful as a communication and selling tool, and as a lot of marketing is actually ‘educating your potential clients’. You might find this workshop useful too to broaden your horizons of what is possible. Please note: This workshop is NOT a technical workshop, so we will not teach you how to film, edit etc. This introductory workshop is more about planning the content, pricing and marketing.
• We work especially with designers, crafts people (e.g. jewellers, textiles, ceramics, …), visual artists, photographers, illustrators, printmakers etc. This online training to start teaching online is especially created for small businesses, freelancers, sole traders who work in those fields. However, if you coach or mentor, or you teach performing arts, music, dance, creative writing or wellbeing (e.g yoga, mindfulness) then this training is still suitable for you, but you might need to be a bit creative with the examples. If you are unsure if this workshop is relevant to you then please get in touch by email on info@thedesigntrust.co.uk. We are always open and honest and will say if this workshop is right for you or not.

how to make the most of this 4-hour online workshop?

We highly recommend that you try to join this online workshop live on Monday 12 May 10am – 1pm UK, so that you can work by yourself and discuss your ideas and plans with fellow wannabe teachers in the breakout rooms or in the chat. We know that people who join us live get a lot more inspiration, accountability, support & ideas from other creatives, and are much more likely to succeed.

We recommend that you purchase Patricia’s book Teaching Creative Workshops in Person & Online in advance of this workshop. You can upgrade when you book this workshop, and get the book with a discount and signed!

Can’t make the live workshop? No problem! The workshop will be recorded and you will have access to the recording + presentation for 6 months until 12 November 2025.

To make the most of this workshop we recommend that you bring some ideas of what you want to teach online, as you will be developing those ideas throughout this workshop. After the workshop you will need to make time to plan, prepare, price, promote and get organised to create and launch your own online training. We will show you how to keep this as simple as possible! But how much time this will take depends on how experienced and ready you are already with your teaching, filming and marketing.

PATRICIA’S BOOK ‘TEACHING CREATIVE WORKSHOPS IN PERSON & ONLINE’

In 2022, Patricia was commissioned by Bloomsbury Publishing / Herbert Press to write ‘The handbook for creatives who teach’. After 3 years of research, interviewing many creative teachers in a wide range of disciplines, loads of writing and rewriting, editing and designing … after 3 years of really hard work her first book Teaching Creative Workshops In Person & Online was published in February 2025.

This is a really practical, visual & action orientated book for creatives who want to teach workshops, courses, memberships or 121 – either in person or online – and who want to create and deliver more creative and unique training, get organised and stand out from the crowd, and price and promote their creative training professionally. It’s full of her practical expert advice, with reflective and action-taking activities and expert tips to move your in person and online teaching forward. With a lot of detailed information on what makes teaching online different & challenging, but creative too! With 16 case studies of creatives who teach, including many online teachers such as textile artists Ekta Kaul and Hanny Newton; gold leaf painter David A. Smith (he is truly amazing!); illustrator agent Lilla Rogers from Make Art That Sells, and many more!

You can buy Patricia’s book Teaching Creative Workshops in Person & Online from Amazon, Waterstones and other online retailers, as well as from your local independent book shop.

Or you can purchase a signed copy of the book for only £25,- (incl. p&p) directly from Patricia if you upgrade when you join this online workshop. Sorry UK only.

We highly recommend that you purchase Patricia’s book in advance to accompany this short online workshop on start to teach online.

FAQ: Got any further questions?

click the arrow to get your answers

• I can’t make it live on the day of the workshop (Mon 12 May). Is that a problem?

  We recommend that you join the workshop live if at all possible, so that you can work in real time on your online training ideas, work with fellow creative teachers, and ask questions live during the session.

  However, if you have other commitments or you live in a different time zone, then remember that this session will be recorded and posted on our private workshop hub.

  You will have access to the recording + presentation + hub for 6 months until Wednesday 12 November 2025.

  PLEASE NOTE: It’s unlikely that we will run this workshop again in 2025, so if you are not entirely ready yet then book it now and you can watch it later in the year when you are ready to start to teach online.

• I teach performing arts, yoga, creative writing. … Is this workshop for me?

  We would love you to join us!

  Although our expertise is working with creative visual artists and designers, in crafts, visual art, photography, illustration etc, we think there is a lot of similarity in what & how to teach these creative skills online. We think this workshop is very suitable for you, and that you will get a lot from this workshop too.

  However, you might need to be a little more creative with some of the examples that we share. If you have any questions then email us on info@thedesigntrust.co.uk with what you want to teach online and we can give you a more specific answer.

• How much time will this workshop take?

  This online workshop is easy & short … just 3 hours! But we will pack a lot in that time!

  But obviously, to start to teach online you will need to spend more time after this workshop on preparing, planning, filming, writing, editing, costing pricing and promotion.

  How much time that will take depends on your experience in these areas and how developed your training ideas are.

  But, this short workshop will give you the necessary know-how to make decisions to make your move into online teaching much easier! We promise that this short workshop  will save you a lot of time, money & energy!

• What if I am not very tech-savvy?

  We use Zoom for our online workshops – an online platform that’s very easy to access.

  A week before your workshop will start we will send you the details of how to sign up on Zoom for this workshop, and at the start of the session we will tell you briefly how to use Zoom, the breakout rooms and the chat. Participation is voluntary of course, but highly useful.

  Our private online platform (where we will post the presentation + recording afterwards) is really easy to use too. You’ll only need basic computer literacy in order to navigate it.

  However, to create your online training we recommend that you are interested in learning new digital skills, as you will very likely need to use new softwares or apps. We will share in this workshop easy-to-use equipment and software, and always emphasise to keep starting to teach online really easy. 

  For the actual filming & editing of your online training you might want to consider working with freelance filmmakers & editors.

   

• I want to join with a friend. Can I share?

  When you buy a The Design Trust online workshop you purchase a single licence, which means that YOU CAN NOT share the recording or presentation with others who have not paid for it.

  Like you we are a small creative business, and this online workshop is full of my copyrighted material and expertise that I have developed over the last 25 years.

  If you share with others who haven’t paid then you basically are stealing. We know you wouldn’t like it either if others would do the same to you. So THANK YOU for not sharing with others.

  If we find out that you share illegally then we will have to remove you from the workshop hub immediately and might ban you from any future workshops and courses too.

  However, if you work in a partnership or in a small team then you can share the recording with people who work for you.

• Till when can I book this workshop? And how long do I have access to this workshop?

  We highly recommend that you try to sign up for this workshop to join us live, which is Monday 12 May from 10am – 1pm UK time.

  PLEASE SIGN UP AT LEAST 2 WORKING DAYS BEFORE so that we can make sure you have time to sign up and all the admin is in order.

  However you can still sign up for this workshop till Friday 18 July when we will close our shop. After that date this workshop recording & presentation will no longer be available to purchase for new students.

  All existing students will have access to the private hub with the workshop presentation + recording for 6 months till 12 November 2025.

• What if I need to cancel?

  The workshop will take place on Monday 12 May from 10am – 1pm UK and we will record the session and give you access to the recording and the presentation for 6 months till 12 November 2025.

  So if you are unable to make it live, you still have access to the recording for 6 months.

  After this online workshop has taken place we will not offer any refunds as you can still access it whenever you like.

  We recommend that you check that your broadband and WIFI is sufficient to join the session live. We have not had any problems ever with anybody watching the recordings.

  If you need to cancel then please email us before the workshop has started on info@thedesigntrust.co.uk and you can get a full refund. Unfortunately it takes 5 – 10 working days for the money to be in your bank account.

• I have another question …

  If you have any other questions then please get in touch with us on info@thedesigntrust.co.uk. We are always happy to help.