Students begin the program by participating in a 2-credit Self-Directed Learning Fundamentals Workshop taught by the Coordinator of Self-Directed Learning. The workshop foregrounds pedagogies and principles of Self-Directed Learning and asks, “What does
it mean to be both the student and the teacher?” Students focus on creating a proposal that clearly defines the rationale, learning outcomes, and scope of their project. Students gain skills necessary to determine not only what they will do for their
project but also what they will learn, how they will learn it, and what resources they will need along the way. They engage in a process of self-reflection to assess their learning orientations, learning styles, and skills acquired through previous
learning inside and outside of the classroom. Students also conduct research to understand how their work relates to other work and to established fields or disciplines, and they identify a faculty mentor who will provide expertise in relevant areas.
To complete the course, students produce a cogent, rigorous, and well-structured final project proposal that includes a proposed number of project
credits, project rationale, fields of engagement, learning objectives, work plan, prior preparation, learning resources, deliverables, forms of evaluation, and timeline for engagement with a faculty mentor. Over the course of the semester, students
also co-create a strong cohort of their peers—a community of learners to draw on throughout their project semester(s).
Once a student’s project plan is approved and a faculty mentor is confirmed, students can start in the next semester to conduct their Self-Directed Learning Projects.