A cohort-based course is an online course that a group of learners, called a cohort, takes together. They start on the same day and follow one schedule for a few weeks. The course combines live sessions, weekly projects and a community of fellow learners, which often stays active after the course ends. Cohort courses are common for skills such as product management, growth marketing and design, and also for hobbies such as cooking and make-up.
The main difference from a recorded course is the timetable. On a self-paced course, nobody notices if a learner stops after the third video, and many learners do stop. In a cohort, each learner has a deadline every week, a group that expects her share of the work, and a mentor who reviews it.
Imagine a marketing executive in Ahmedabad who wants to move into growth marketing, the work of winning and keeping a product's users. She first attends a free one-hour webinar. An event management platform handles the sign-ups and sends the reminders. She then applies to an eight-week cohort of 60 learners. Some cohorts accept applicants only after an interview, so that every member has a few years of work experience.
Each week follows the same pattern. On Saturday, a person who does this job at a well-known company teaches a two-hour live online class on a video conferencing tool. The cohort is split into groups of six, and each group discusses the class in its own breakout room. By Wednesday, each group submits a project. In week three, for example, the project is a plan to raise the number of users who come back to a food-delivery app in the week after their first order. A mentor reviews each project. All week, learners ask and answer questions in the cohort's chat group.
After eight weeks, she has a certificate, four projects she can show to employers, and 59 new contacts in her field. Many cohort companies charge more because of this network of contacts. Some also sell a yearly membership to the community on its own.
Who pays? Mostly professionals who pay for themselves, and the fees are usually higher than for a recorded course. Some companies pay for their managers.
How is it different from an online course marketplace? A marketplace sells recorded courses that each learner takes alone, at any time, for a few hundred rupees. A cohort course sells a scheduled course taken with a group, at a higher price. It is also different from a coding bootcamp. A bootcamp trains a person for a first job over several months. A cohort course usually helps someone who is already working to learn one new skill in a few weeks.