How I initiated & designed courses there were no precedent for (incl. one I was later invited to deliver at Oxford)
Here are a few of the things I did when I first began creating courses in contexts there was no precedent for about content there was little research & literature about at the time, such as the Jazz Composition pathway at The Guildhall School when I was its SU Vice President, & the creative studies classes at The Centre for Young Musicians. I’m sure I’ll actually need this list again soon as things in both education & technology are changing at a pace & I wonder what I’ll have to design next:
Modelling 1: I looked to people who’d done the same in their fields; no area of study is without its roots in something. A few of my favourite examples from when I first started include:
Julia Cameron, who designed a self-help course in creativity called The Artist’s Way
Tunesaburo Mackiguchi, who wrote treaties on educational reform in post-war Japan
Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ merging of psychoanalysis and folk tales
(their bibliographies are a great next step)
Modelling 2: I asked ‘What do those in related fields do at the moment? & what from there might be relevant to my class?’ ‘Is there anything in any course I’ve taken so far that might have threads/leads into this?’
Adapt & appropriate: I wondered what could be adapted &/or appropriated? e.g. the aforementioned Julia Cameron was apparently inspired to write The Artist’s Way by twelve-step programmes.
Embodied learning: I spent time figuring out how it felt to tackle the tasks that would need to be there & then taught what I’d learned.
Shortcuts: When I had some idea of how things (might) fit together, I asked: ‘how can I create hacks or shortcuts to this end result?’ I created pro formas, spreadsheets, journal prompts etc. that students could download/work through.
Inclusion: I specifically designed these materials (above) so that regardless of their ability, taste, style, technology available to them, any student could complete them… & hopefully they were fun too.
Acknowledging the non-replication phenomenon: I had to acknowledge that students can read novels but not necessarily write them yet. Students can listen to sonatas but not necessarily compose one yet. They’re not necessarily missing exposure to what they need to do, they’re missing techniques - the ‘how’s’, and I realised this is what I needed to deliver on.
Analyse: I analysed what was then the current state-of-play in the area I was looking to design on & asked what I learned through the analysis &/or what patterns I spotted. I then taught that.
The student has to be at the heart of the syllabus: I thought that if I did this, the organisation would naturally benefit.
Complaints & ethics: I looked to get ahead of any ethical issues &/or complaints that might arise, & built preventing them into the course. The same went for complaints.
Colleagues & allies: I bounced my ideas off a (trusted) colleague… & remembered to thank & credit them.
Tweak: I tweak my course materials often in their early days. If it’s not clear whether something’s been helpful, or if an exercise didn’t quite get the results I wanted, I found out why & tweaked.
Read: I read what there was to read, & read as much as possible both in & around the subject, & asked ‘how would I make this relevant in class?/‘Is this relevant to my class?’ When I found something relevant I’d bring it in & read it to the group & ask for their reflections. I read the latest research & brought that language & discussion into the room.
Passion: I was really passionate about the subject I was looking at and determined to crack it!