I believe the challenge faced with the previous approach (as intended in my comment at the time) is that users would follow the course (presumably unsupervised) and then appear on Steemit without additional guidance... as though "your job" was complete. The point at which they mention your name in the introduction, their actions will obviously reflect upon you and as we know, the negative will always overshadow the positive.

I commend you with this new approach - the ability to look the students in the eye and understand their individual objectives will help you to understand their intentions on the platform.

I wonder if your course would benefit if there was an additional level of freedom included. Similar to what we tried to introduce with the revised approach to Newcomers - helping each user to understand what interests are relevant to them. What motivates them and what drives their passion. Without this, these new users are going to be process-driven and could potentially lack the "character" (for lack of a better word) to stand out from the crowd. In my opinion, this is what's required to help the community thrive.

Of course, this doesn't guarantee the users won't become lazy - resorting to plagiarism or AI to make a quick buck and I fear that oversight will still be required.

So congratulations and well done on trying a new approach - perhaps an additional focus on "what makes each person unique", "how can I contribute something different" rather than "diary games", "contests" and "learning challenges" could bring a fresh lease of life and fresh feel to the community.