Writing an Independent Study Course

[EmmaSwan47]

Has anyone else done this? Any suggestions? Goals? Objectives? I just want more clinical in a different area, but in order to do this I have to write my own course and course objectives and I have never done this before!

Any help would be appreciated!

[llg, PhD, RN]

It will probably take you 3 or 4 drafts of your objectives to get them the way you want them. So ... the trick is to not try to write them perfectly the first time. Simply sit down and start making a list of the things you want to do and learn. Then review them to see what you can group together under one heading. Then put them in the format that your school prefers.

If you don't know what format your school prefers, you should ask your instructor to give you a little guidance on that. It might also help to look at the objectives the faculty has written for other courses -- and to write your own that are similar to those. Sometimes, schools use a particular format or system for writing objectives.

If you don't know what you hope to do and/or learn ... then you need to do some thinking on that before you go any further. Why do you want to have that clinical experience? How can you benefit from it? What technical skills will you learn? What intelectual skills will you learn? etc.

llg