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When the idea of the personal curriculum started gaining popularity online, I was pumped. As the topics of this blog show, I’m all about personal development and helping others achieve their potential. Plus, my day job is in adult education. So, I love that so many people, especially young people, are finding creative ways to fight “brain rot” and keep learning new things outside of school.
As I explored other guides on the topic, though, I noticed some advice that will set people up to fail with their first personal curriculum. I wanted to do a series to share some of my specialized knowledge in the field of education to help others design and implement a personal curriculum that will actually work for them.
In this series of posts, I’ll take you through what a personal curriculum is, how to design one that works for you, some personal curriculum ideas for skills to learn and hobbies to try, and the best study tips for independent learning as a busy adult.
What Is a Personal Curriculum?
I answered the question, “What is a personal curriculum?” more fully in another post. But to summarize – it’s a way for individuals to support their personal growth and lifelong learning by designing a structured study path to explore a topic they find fascinating. It includes all the elements you might remember from syllabi in school – a schedule, readings and other learning activities, and assignments.
However, even if you hated the structured environment of a traditional school, stay with me! There’s a big difference. The entire learning experience is designed by you, for you. You choose your topic, you decide what and when you’ll study, and you set your assignments.
I’ve seen the trend of the personal curriculum for adults attributed to TikTok creator Elizabeth Jean (@xparmesanprincessx). And the primary reason many people – especially young people – have cited for participating in the trend is combat “brain rot” – the feeling that your mind is gradually weakening from constant passive consumption of quick, low-quality online content. But as I covered in my last post, there are many reasons you might create a personal curriculum.
People around the world are creating a personal curriculum to keep their minds sharp, find things to do instead of doom scrolling, and discover new skills to learn and hobbies to try. It’s incredibly refreshing to see a large movement of individuals finding ways to escape the algorithm’s grip and find new ways to inspire themselves and never stop learning.
What You’ll Need to Design Your Personal Curriculum
To get started, you don’t need anything more than a pen and paper or a Word document.
However, if you like organizational tools and want something a little more advanced, Notion is a great option for digitally organizing your personal curriculum. I’m also a fan of Monday.com. Both platforms offer free options that are perfect for an individual working on a single project.
Step 1: Choose Your Personal Curriculum Topic
Types of Personal Curriculum Topics
Some of you heard the phrase “personal curriculum” and immediately knew what topic you want to explore. If that’s you, skip ahead! However, others may need to do some thinking to narrow down what to learn.
In my view, there are 3 general types of topics for a self curriculum:
- Skills or knowledge that would be useful for your life/career
- Skills or hobbies that you just think are fun
- Interests you never have time to explore deeply
Things to Avoid When Choosing Your Personal Curriculum Topic
When it comes to choosing a topic for your curriculum, there are a couple of pitfalls you should avoid:
1. Topics that are too broad: If you don’t know much about a topic, it may be hard to determine if it’s too broad for a personal curriculum.
So, start looking into your research topics and see what subtopics come up. Decide if you need to narrow it further. Otherwise, you’ll get overwhelmed and burn out before you finish your curriculum.
2. Topics that are too technical: Some topics are too technical for most of us to learn on our own without guidance. We’re not likely to master organic chemistry or aerospace engineering independently. So, we need to be realistic when choosing our topics.
Similarly, if there’s a topic that would be helpful for your career, but it requires a certification, I recommend against dedicating a personal curriculum to that topic. Your knowledge won’t count for anything without the official certification, so you’re better off enrolling in a formal course or program.
3. Trying to implement several personal curricula about different topics at once. This is very tempting for those of us who have a lot of interests that excite us. I’ve even seen other creators specifically recommend this method.
But I strongly advise against it. If you bite off more than you can chew, you’ll end up giving up on all of your topics. It’s better to put your full energy into one topic at a time.
How to Narrow Down Your Topic – Step by Step
Now that we know the types of topics to choose from and mistakes to avoid, what’s the most efficient way to choose the theme of your perfect personal curriculum?
Here are a few ideas to help you narrow it down:
1. Look at unread books on your shelf, websites you’ve bookmarked, and podcasts you subscribe to. Do you have a Notes app on your phone titled something like, “Topics to research when bored”? What are the topics you keep coming back to? These are hints that you’re very interested in the subject, but you haven’t dedicated time to really investigate it. Jot these down.
2. Brainstorm skills and knowledge that would benefit you. The benefit may be changing careers, making extra money, or just improving your life. Write these down, too.
3. Brainstorm skills and hobbies you’ve always wanted to try. Is there an instrument you want to play? A craft you want to explore?
4. After this brain dump, read what you’ve scribbled. Are any of these topic ideas vital or time sensitive right now? Would any of them help you achieve your main goal for this year? Is there any information you need urgently?
5. If nothing is especially urgent, think about what excites you most. Which topic jumps out as something you want to get online and start researching as we speak? Pick that one.
6. Do some initial research on the topic. For example, check the Wikipedia page dedicated to it and review the subheadings. Does it seem like you can cover this topic fully in the time period you set, or do you need to select a subtopic?
Keep a list of the other topics. You can mine that for your next personal curriculum.
Step 2: Set Your Schedule
Pull up your calendar. Think about the following considerations when setting up your schedule:
- How many hours per week can you dedicate to this project? Use realistic time management! Don’t be too optimistic.
- Are there weeks coming up where you’ll be especially busy or traveling? Go ahead and assume you won’t be working on your personal curriculum at those times.
- How long do you want to dedicate to this one topic before moving to the next?
- Think about the scope of your topic. At the rate and within the timeframe you just decided above, how long would it take to cover the information?
- Finally, choose days of the week or specific dates you plan to study. Which days do you tend to have free time? Block those windows off in your calendar. Just like you would to attend a real course. (Again, you can be flexible when things come up. But planning for specific times greatly increases your chances of successfully completing your curriculum.)
Step 3: Choose Your Personal Curriculum Objectives
This step is something I’ve noticed is missing from all the personal curriculum guides I’ve seen. That’s understandable, as most people involved in the trend aren’t professional educators.
What educators can tell you is, even for an informal learning activity, you need to set at least one objective ahead of time. Your objective should answer the question, “What will I be able to do after I finish this curriculum?”
For example, if you’re studying a topic purely out of interest, your objective might be, “I will be able to explain Topic X to a beginner in plain language they can understand.” If you’re learning to play the guitar, it might be, “I will be able to play Song X on the guitar without mistakes.”
A tip often given to teachers is to use measurable action verbs. Instead of, “I will understand the causes of the U.S. Civil War,” write, “I will be able to list and describe 4 primary causes of the U.S. Civil War.”
Your objective is your motivation to complete the curriculum. It’s also your focus when you choose assignments for yourself in Step 5.
If you can’t think of a good objective, it may be a sign that you should choose a different topic. You may not be highly motivated for this one.
You might also have a few objectives. Stay within the scope of your topic and timeframe and don’t get too ambitious, though.
Step 4: Research Your Learning Activities
If you’re a nerd who loves research as a hobby like me, this step will be fun. Set aside some dedicated time to complete it.
Get online and start looking for articles, books, videos, documentaries, podcasts, and even “field trip” locations. Your personal curriculum doesn’t have to be limited to reading books.
A place to start might simply be Wikipedia. The subheadings will show you the various subtopics within your topic to help you narrow it down. Then you can review the references to find the sources you’ll review.
For books, check if they’re available at your local library. Depending on your location, you may be able to use the Libby app for e-books. There’s no need to spend money on your personal curriculum. Also, if you’re an auditory learner who hates reading, plan to use audiobooks instead. You can choose whatever helps you learn.
Field trips could involve going to a local museum, interviewing someone knowledgeable about the topic, or even traveling somewhere.
For a busy adult, I recommend 2-4 learning activities per week. For example, you might read 2 chapters of a book and do a field trip on the weekend. That will leave time for you to do your weekly assignment (see Step 5 below). Your learning activities and assignment each week should focus on one subtopic of your main topic.
*A note on language learning:
As a language educator, I urge you to consider this if you’re making a language learning plan. You will not learn to speak a language from DuoLingo or from reading, listening, and watching things in that language. You must speak to proficient speakers in that language. Regularly. Find people in your area (look for Meetups) or connect online. I know so many Americans who studied a language for years but “just can’t” speak it. Is it because they’re lazy or uncultured? No! It’s because English is so widely spoken throughout the world that native English speakers rarely need to speak another language to achieve a goal like traveling, shopping, or just making conversation. In order to learn, you need to set up situations which require you to use your new vocabulary and grammar. Ok, stepping off my soapbox now!
Step 5: Choose Your Assignments
I know assignments gave us all anxiety as students. But now you’re in the driver’s seat. Did you hate writing essays in school? Great, don’t do those!
Think about what helped you learn most as a student. Also think about you enjoy. An assignment should challenge you. But it should also be fun.
Formative and Summative Assignments
Sorry for the teacher jargon here, but this concept is important. You need both formative and summative assignments in your personal curriculum.
Formative assignments are shorter and focused on a specific subtopic. Sprinkle these throughout your curriculum at regular intervals, like at the end of each week. For example, did you read a book this week? Write one page summarizing the key ideas of that book for someone who has never read it. Did you watch a documentary? Explain to your partner what it was about and answer their questions.
Formative assignments are just tests for yourself to see what you’ve absorbed and what still needs more work. In the example above, if you find you can’t answer all your partner’s questions about the doc, you might go back and re-watch part of it.
A summative assignment is your final assignment. It comes at the end of your curriculum and tests whether you met your objective(s) or not. Go back to the objectives you wrote. How will you prove to yourself that you achieved them?
Some examples of summative assignments:
- Cooking: Hosting a dinner party and cooking several dishes
- Crafting: Knitting a baby blanket for a friend or sewing yourself a dress to wear at an event
- Researching at topic: Making a video essay for YouTube or writing a think piece defending your opinion on the topic
- Music: Recording yourself playing a song or performing it for a friend
Ideally, your final assignment should be something fun and celebratory. You should feel excited and accomplished to complete the assignment.
Step 6: Organize Your Personal Curriculum
The final planning step is to put all the elements above together. You want to put them in a format that you can reference during the entire timeframe of your curriculum.
You can organize your personal curriculum in a few ways:
- A paper planner or calendar
- A Word doc in a syllabus format
- A platform like Notion or Monday.com
- Excel (if you’re a lover of spreadsheets, you can totally build your curriculum here)
Here are your steps to organize your personal curriculum:
- Write out your objective(s) and the dates of your curriculum at the top.
- Gather links to all your sources.
- Write out all your learning activities and assignments. Include links where appropriate.
- Align your learning activities to specific dates. (Don’t worry, you can move them later if you need to.)
- Align your assignments to specific due dates, shortly after you complete your learning activities. Plan a due date for your final assignment.
- Add those dates to your calendar and block off windows when you plan to study each week.
If you’re a busy adult, you won’t always meet these exact deadlines. But putting them on your calendar (and moving them on your calendar when necessary) holds you accountable. This way, you’ll complete the course on time and meet your objectives.
Step 7: Get Started!
By now, you’re organized and ready to go! Start studying and enjoying using your time to massage your brain instead of passively consuming content on social media.
What Do You Think?
Are you interested in designing a personal curriculum? What’s the topic you’re exploring? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments!
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