The Art of Online Course Creation | Helping Experts Build Impactful Courses That Get Real Results
The Art of Online Course Creation is the podcast for experts, coaches, and entrepreneurs who are ready to build a high-quality online course: not just a course that exists, but one that actually gets results.
If you have real expertise that you want to turn into an online course your students will finish, rave about, and get real results from, you're in the right place.
If you want to create an online course that does more of the heavy lifting for you in your coaching business so that you can spend more of your 1:1 time with clients actually coaching, personalizing, and troubleshooting, you're in the right place.
Your host, Shannon Boyer, brings a master's degree in education and 25+ years of experience as an award-winning curriculum and course designer. She takes the guesswork out of online course creation by breaking down the strategies, frameworks, and design decisions that separate courses people complete and implement from courses people abandon.
Each episode covers the real work of building a course that delivers: validating your idea, designing for transformation, choosing the right platform, building your audience, and creating an offer that sells because it actually works.
Subscribe to The Art of Online Course Creation and start building the course your expertise deserves.
The Art of Online Course Creation | Helping Experts Build Impactful Courses That Get Real Results
#61 Beyond Badges and Leaderboards: Better Gamification for Online Courses with Mary Nunaley
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What if gamification in online courses is about far more than points, badges, and leaderboards?
In this episode, Shannon sits down with learning engineer and Lavender Dragon co-founder Mary Nunley for a thoughtful conversation about what gamification really means in online course creation and community engagement. Together, they unpack why some popular engagement tactics work, why others fall flat, and how course creators can think more strategically about motivating learners in ways that actually support transformation.
You will hear a nuanced discussion about the difference between keeping people entertained and keeping them meaningfully engaged, why dopamine-driven design has limits, and how seemingly small choices inside a course can shape persistence, motivation, and connection. The conversation also explores Easter eggs, urgency, rewards, learner psychology, and the role of thoughtful course design in creating an experience people want to continue.
Whether you are building your first online course or looking for ways to make an existing program more engaging, this episode will give you a fresh lens on gamification and help you think more carefully about what actually keeps learners coming back.
Mary Nunaley is a learning engineer and co-founder of The Lavender Dragon Team. She turns complex ideas into human-centered learning experiences using storytelling, game-based design, and thoughtful applications of AI. With a background in online education and years of experience designing asynchronous courses, simulations, and microlearning, Mary focuses on building learning that actually changes behavior not just checks a completion box. Her work sits at the intersection of learning science, creativity, and practical AI integration for modern educators and creators
You can find Mary:
Get started on your own course creation journey or learn how to make your existing course even better at The "Your Best Course" Build Lab, my interactive and supportive online community.
To get started creating your own online course, check out my new freebie that will take you through the steps of choosing a topic that will be profitable for YOU.
To book a call to discuss your options and see if working together makes sense. Click here. 😊
