Be Your Own Professor

It's June, and although most people believe that teachers prepare to take a 3 month paid vacation, the reality is that I am beginning my preparations for my fall courses.

I have a method and system for planning courses that I've worked out over a lifetime of teaching. In the fall I'll start my 23rd year of teaching professionally. I've done a number of levels, but the most challenging and rewarding level so far has been the university course.

I speak with a lot of people who have a university degree who express regret that they did not engage more with courses in the humanities. I also speak to a lot of current students who complain about having to take requirements that have "nothing to do" with the major course of study they've selected. It seems to me that a lot of our courses on history, literature, philosophy, and the like are somewhat wasted on people who are a lot more motivated to get into the thing they want to study, get hands-on with it, and find immediate benefit from it - a skill or concept - that they think will make them employable.

A few years into work and post-graduate life, many people start to feel some curiosity about the world around them and wish they had paid more careful attention in college. The solution here is to plan your own course, for yourself, on whatever it might be that you want to learn. Although many universities offer what are commonly called "extension" courses, or enrichment courses - courses without official credit - the cost of such courses can be staggering. You can be your own professor and plan a course for yourself using these guidelines that I use when I'm planning an actual university course.

Establish And Refine an Area

What is it you'd like to learn more about? Poetry? Middle Eastern History? the European Union? How the Supreme Court Works?

The best thing to do is figure out what you'd like to know more about, then narrow it down to something that can actually be accomplished. People find this step intimidating because they do not effectively narrow the question to something that can be done in a certain period of time.

For example, if you would like to learn more about poetry it might be a good idea to either limit your course by geography or time. It's easier to do a class on 19th century American poets than "poetry," which could extend back into ancient Greece, China, and India. Remember you can always do another course.

Middle Eastern History could be refined to "20th century Middle Eastern History" or "The Middle East in the Age of Colonization." These reductions in phrasing help you feel like you can take steps to plan the course instead of groping around for anything relevant.

Set a clear goal, or goals, for the course

One of the most important practices in education is to set goals you can assess. These are usually done by professional teachers in the terms of student ability at the end of the course. Teachers look for observable, measurable outcomes that students can do. Here are some examples:

Students will be able to discuss major theoretical ideas in argumentation.

Students will be able to research, plan, and deliver a persuasive speech.

These are from my own syllabus planning and might seem a little vague. That's ok for now. What you want is a vision, a goal, an outcome that will help you be selective in what you are going to read, watch, and listen to during your course. If something doesn't help you accomplish your stated goals, don't include it in your course. Again, there's plenty of opportunity to make another course and read or watch something later on.

Phrase your goals in terms of things you hope you will be able to do at the end of your course. For poetry, maybe your goal is to be able to discuss the life and works of 5 major 19th century poets. Or maybe to understand and communicate the shifts in poetry writing that occurred in the early 20th century in Britain. Perhaps you would like to be able to explain how the 20th century foreign policy of the US impacted Middle Eastern politics today. The choice is yours, and the more specific your desire, the better your course will be.

Setting a Time Frame and Schedule

This one is easy for me as it's out of my hands. My university runs on a semester system, with 14 week terms. Every course I teach has to be fully completed and assessed within a 15 week period. This limitation has a huge influence on what I'm able to assign and expect in my course. It also forces me to limit my lecture and teaching time to cover things that are essential in relation to the goals I have for the students in the course.

For you, i suggest less is more. If you want to spend a month studying something, set a month long time-table. If you are busy during the day, be realistic about how many hours you can spend on the course at night. It's also ok just to teach your course to yourself on weekends. Whatever your constraints are, I encourage you to set an end point for your course in order to help you stay focused, avoid tangents, and really make sure you are working toward your goals. Without an end point or a "final exam," there would be no need to select what is really vital toward helping you choose what to do in order to help you with your desired outcomes.

Finding Materials for Your Course

This is an amazing time of abundance when it comes to teaching resources. Some of the best experts in the world on myriad topics have placed their course lectures on YouTube and other video sites. Professors around the world will post their reading lists, course outlines, and assignments online in convenient formats for anyone to download. Your task in this part of the course design is to figure out what to read, watch, or listen to in order to reach your goals.

I always think of direct instruction - lectures or presentations - as a resource that students can use to create their own texts that prove they have mastered the material. You can do the same thing. I suggest finding, through Google, experts in what you want to teach yourself. See if they have course outlines published, and consider reading those books. If a lecturer on YouTube suggests or references a book, it might be worth looking up. As you consume this material you should always be taking notes and asking yourself, "How can this be useful in helping me achieve my desired outcome?"

A good habit to develop here is the freedom to dismiss a book or a lecture if it isn't relevant. We feel pretty guilty about starting into a book then realizing that it's not what we hoped it would be about. Since time is limited, you should not feel bad about giving up on a text. But before you do, have a look at the bibliography - authors usually will cite another book you haven't heard of that will be more useful for your course.

Once you have a sense of what you want to look at, divide it up into reasonable tasks for the time you have planned for your course. Every week or so give yourself some accountability assignment: Journaling or blogging, answering a question related to your goals for the course, or maybe writing a summary of what you have learned from the last week. If you really want to keep yourself accountable, blogging your course might help. Sometimes that pressure of thinking that there are people out there looking at what you are learning might motivate you to keep up with the course when you are tired, overwhelmed, or busy.

Making sure you've found good sources is important. The internet is full of propaganda as well as non-professionally produced "studies" of various topics. The things to look for are the author's credentials. Researchers and professors are trained in how to conduct non-biased research and are superior authors to read in comparison to journalists, who are taught how to represent a story in an engaging way to readers or viewers. Journalism isn't bad, it's just not thorough as it must be related to what is circulating "right now." Professors and scholars can take up any issue, whether it's in public conversation or not, and write about it. They have significantly less pressure, and more years, to develop positions about different topics and represent deeper, more complete opinions on them.

Looking for who wrote or who paid for the creation of a book or video is important as well. Not all sponsorship is bad, but certain political organizations have strong motives for putting material out. It is a good idea to research these sponsoring organizations so that you are aware of any possible influence in the direction of the lecture or the text that would be to their benefit. They might not be trying to misrepresent an issue or idea, but have very firm commitments about the nature of the idea. It is good to be aware of that so you can make up your own mind about what you are reading and watching.

Products

At the end of a formal course usually there is some formal exam. In your course there won't be. It is still good to test yourself by trying to write or create some formal document or text that attempts to show you've reached the desired outcomes. Maybe you can record yourself presenting your ideas in a short video, write a blog post for Medium or Vocal, or set up a podcast where you relate what you learned and how you feel about it.

Creation is one of my favorite parts of the class. I always assign students a lot of work where they present their own ideas to one another. Maybe you can share your ideas with family and friends, or encourage them to take the course along with you. Sharing what you create at the end of a course is the most rewarding part of learning.

I hope you find these steps useful in the creation of your own course. It's never too late to learn, and with the resources out there now it's easier than ever to find expert resources for free to help you learn what you wish you had spent more time on when you were in college.