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Your source for daily news covering CRE transactions and trends. Stay informed on national, regional and property sector news that matters to your business.
Offering on-demand online courses that provide continuing education credits for brokers, attorneys, appraisers and architects. Select from easily accessible video and written courses that cover a variety of CRE topics.
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By Kasi Orcutt
Real estate continuing education (CE) courses are necessary, but they don’t have to be boring or painful. CE courses have a “grin and bear it” stigma—you need the credits to fulfill state CE requirements and remain licensed, so there’s been no onus to make the courses interesting.
But in a time of digital innovation—and webinar fatigue—the same-old approach is outdated.
Connect Classroom CE courses are created with a poetic, user-centric approach to real estate continuing education. The courses are designed to be as enjoyable as they are educational, enhancing and extending your knowledge base with information you’ll want to start applying from day one.
You’re a hard-working professional and time is one of your most valuable commodities. And your time is better spent on tapping into what matters now—not legacy information that won’t enhance your work.
Connect Classroom infuses engagement into learning by delivering up-to-the-minute, stream-of-consciousness stories and videos about what matters in today’s market and where the industry is moving. We focus on current trends and forecasting, relevant evergreen (not time-sensitive) information and introspection that outlines how (and why) all that information is applicable to you right now.
In other words, we cut the fluff, making the CE process simple and streamlined from start to finish—easy to get in, get done and get back to work.
In curating these courses, our user experience (UX) experts share three key pillars to transitioning CE from something to dread into an efficient learning opportunity to look forward to. This requires a delicate balance of intuitive design, streamlined delivery and active learner participation.
Get Immersed in CE with Connect Classroom
Pillar 1: Learner-Centric Design
Instead of simply delivering course instruction, we’ve designed a learner experience. Because your time spent on CE could be used juggling the 100s of items on your to-do list, our platform ensures that most of your CE time focuses on enhancing and extending learning.
Connect Classroom simplifies your path to learning. Access courses whenever and wherever you are ready to learn, on any device with an internet connection.
We can offer you a frictionless conversion from consumer to learner. We don’t require you to set up and memorize a new username, site password, course password, etc. Our process results in a significant reduction of click-through fatigue. When you purchase a course, it automatically converts you into a user and sends you an email notification with your online course credentials. We use your email as your username, so you don’t need to remember a separate username. This also makes password retrieval easier, should you need it.
We streamline every process to remove obstacles between cart and credits. Whether you plan to spread your CE over several months or wait to tackle a marathon of credits in one day, you can easily get the latest knowledge—when and how you need it.
Read More: Remain informed with current CRE news
Pillar 2: Technical Blend of Mixed Media
Connect Classroom is not one-size-fits-all course format; we present courses using a hybrid learning model. Visually, course content is not just text on a screen. We move beyond word-heavy slide decks and deliver content through stimulating video learning, graphics and webinars. This results in thought-provoking information applicable to the content – “a cornucopia for the senses” – driving the flow of continuous learning for real estate professionals.
Every course varies because it is content designed instead of instructionally designed. This approach infuses time-tested, forward-thinking information into dynamic, actionable courses.
To create your courses, we conduct a great deal of user experience research:
We regularly update courses to remain relevant with where the market is heading and what law changes are coming – and how all that will affect real estate professionals like you. We also include strategies you can implement to react and adapt to those changes, as they occur.
Information is intended to be retained and applied, not viewed and discarded. Valuable, time-worthy content is transferrable to the real-world immediately after the course module is closed.
Pillar 3: Engagement & Active Learning
Too many CE platforms rely too heavily on passive education tactics alone. Passive learning focuses on an end-of course quiz to test comprehension. Students commonly skip through all the material and Google the answers to pass the quiz. Then as soon as they close the course module, they forget the information presented.
With active learning, periodic quizzes throughout the material enforce engagement and reinforce knowledge retention. Connect Classroom throws in a few surprises with interesting knowledge checks such as a quick prompt or reflective statement that encourages introspection.
With introspection comes association. Our engaging format builds short-term and long-term memory connections and encourages information retention. Continuing education isn’t just about pushing out information—it’s about helping active learners organize relevant information and tie it into their everyday lives and careers.
Completing your continuing education requirements shouldn’t be dreadful—it should be enjoyable! Courses tailored to your wants and needs can take you from, “I have to watch this” to “I can’t wait to apply what I learned!”
Advance Your Learning with Connect Classroom
Connect CRE offers an integrated business development approach to all things commercial real estate. We deliver an unrivaled combination of content, connections and creativity – produced by a team with decades of commercial real estate experience. With separate but synergistic platforms, we provide our clients a one-stop shop for news and information, events and networking, marketing and business development strategies, and more.
Your source for daily news covering CRE transactions and trends. Stay informed on national, regional and property sector news that matters to your business.
A full-service marketing agency dedicated to CRE clients. We combine our extensive CRE background with our team’s business, marketing, communications, technology and design acumen, to develop and execute comprehensive strategies to create, build, and grow successful brands.
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