A personal curriculum, the current phenomenon circling around TikTok, is a plan curated to explore new interests, inspiration, and more studious behaviors by forming units, reading, and taking notes. A personal curriculum highlights that learning can be enjoyable, so for individuals who want to continue learning about various subjects: this article is for you!Â
Created by Elizabeth Jean, this trend is helping the world stay curious. What’s making personal curriculums stick in an age where a new trend emerges every two business days is that they are a fun and free way to learn topics that you’ve always wanted to learn. Recently, I have taken part in this trend and have begun studying American Sign Language, cursive, and writing skills for the semester.
How to StartÂ
When starting a personal curriculum, pick a subject. Consider what currently interests you and what has interested you in the past. Some subjects that I’ve seen online are baking, money management, non-fiction historical reading, and dance. All topics are welcome because this is your curriculum and you pick what you’re learning!Â
After deciding your subject, choose how and where you want to learn. Before you start the process of creating a personal curriculum, become knowledgeable on whether you’re a visual, auditory, reading/writing, kinesthetic, verbal/linguistic, social/impersonal, or solitary learner.Â
When you figure out your learning style, strategize where you want to get your information from. On my personal curriculum journey, I have gotten my information through a variety of sources, from YouTube to my college library database. By using the tools at my disposal, I have begun to create my own units.
How to Create Units
Once you have your new found interest(s), it’s time to create your units. The word unit is a course you assign yourself that can be used to track your progress towards completion. Based on your own schedule, implement your topics into the days your schedule is the lightest. For example, my schedule is the lightest on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so that’s when I do work for my personal curriculum.
From this, your units come from how, who, and where you want to retain the information from. I suggest making a curriculum page at the beginning of the document you plan on using for the topic. Separate the units by weeks and create a daily routine with added durations on completing certain activities for the day. This tool will help you absorb the information you learn, just as you would in a classroom setting. In these units you can create scheduled readings, field trips, classwork assignments, experiments, and even homework. Units should progress by days and weeks so just remember to stay consistent! A personal benefit since starting a personal curriculum is the ability of focusing on a certain task for a longer period of time. Usually, I become easily distracted by my phone, but I have seen change on how my focus has gotten better. From here, my motivation to study my curriculum has grown more.
Overall, personal curriculums are great for expanding your mind on new things. It is important as adults that we never stop learning and growing as a society – and personal curriculums are making sure that continues to happen.