Co-teaching with guest instructors

No course creator knows everything. There comes a point in most courses where another person could teach a topic better: someone with specialist expertise, a different perspective or direct experience your learners would value. Bringing in a guest instructor can make a course richer, more credible and more interesting to learn from.

It can also make a course feel disjointed. A guest who does not know your learners, uses different terms or teaches in a very different style can leave learners confused about how the pieces fit together. Co-teaching works when you choose carefully, brief thoroughly and take responsibility for making the whole course feel like one course.

When a guest instructor improves a course

A guest earns their place when they bring something you cannot:

• Specialist expertise in a topic next to yours.
• Direct experience of a situation your learners face, such as running a business in a particular market.
• A different perspective, such as the view from the other side of a transaction, or from a different background.
• Credibility in an area where learners would reasonably trust a specialist more.

Imagine a hypothetical membership for small-scale mushroom growers, run by a grower named Cormac. His course on turning a hobby into a small business covered growing techniques he knew well, but two topics sat outside his expertise: food safety practices for selling to the public, and selling at farmers markets. He invited a food safety trainer and a successful market seller as guests.

A guest is not a good idea simply to add a famous name, to fill a gap you could teach yourself or to save you from recording. Learners notice when a guest adds nothing.

Choose the right guest

Expertise matters, but it is not the only thing. Before inviting someone, consider:

• Can they teach? Experts do not always explain well. Watch a talk, video or workshop they have given.
• Do they understand your learners? A guest who usually speaks to experts may pitch everything too high.
• Do their values fit? If they will use the guest spot to sell their own products hard, that will reflect on you.
• Can they commit? Recording, revisions and possibly live sessions take time. Be clear about what you need.

Decide the shape of the collaboration

Guest teaching comes in several forms. Choose the one that fits the topic:

• A guest lesson inside one of your modules.
• A guest module covering a whole topic.
• An interview-style lesson, where you ask the questions and the guest answers, which keeps your voice present.
• A live guest session during a cohort, recorded for later learners.
• Full co-teaching, where two instructors share the whole course.

Cormac chose an interview-style lesson for food safety, where he could ask the questions beginners would ask, and a guest lesson filmed on location at the market stall.

Brief the guest properly

Most problems with guest lessons come from a thin brief. The guest does not know what learners have already covered, what the lesson must achieve or how the rest of the course is taught. The principles in briefing freelancers so you get what you need apply here. Cormac's brief for his market seller looked like this:

Audience: hobby growers selling for the first time. Most have never had a stall.

They already know: how to grow and harvest three common varieties, and basic pricing from Module 2.

Your lesson's goal: by the end, learners can plan a first stall: what to bring, how to display it and how to talk to customers.

Format: 10 to 15 minutes of video at your stall, plus a one-page checklist. Please use the term “fruiting blocks,” as the rest of the course does.

Style: practical and friendly. Examples from your own first year would be ideal.

Timeline: outline by the end of the month, filming the following week.

Share a sample lesson from the course so the guest can see the style, and review their outline before they record.

Keep the course feeling like one course

Your job as host is to connect the guest's teaching to everything around it:

• Introduce the guest briefly before their lesson, explaining who they are and why you invited them.
• Follow up afterwards with a short recap in your own voice that links the guest's points to the next lesson.
• Use the same lesson template, with the same summary and activity structure.
• Keep terms consistent, using a short glossary if needed.

Agree on pay, rights and credit in writing

Before any recording, agree the practical details in writing. Common payment approaches include a flat fee, a share of course revenue or, for short contributions, an exchange of promotion. Be clear about who owns the recording and materials, whether you can keep using them indefinitely, whether you can edit them and what happens if the course is updated. Agree how the guest will be credited.

A simple written agreement protects both of you; contracts with freelancers and contractors and copyright basics for membership content cover the general issues. For anything significant, check the details that apply to you with a qualified professional.

Bringing in your first guest instructor

1. Identify one topic in a course where someone else could genuinely teach better.
2. Choose a format: guest lesson, interview, module, live session or full co-teaching.
3. Check the potential guest can teach, understands your learners and fits your values.
4. Write a brief covering audience, prior knowledge, goal, format, terms, style and timeline.
5. Agree payment, ownership, updates and credit in writing.
6. Record your introduction and follow-up to connect the guest's lesson to the course.
7. Ask learners afterwards what the guest lesson added, and use that when planning the next one.