Continued professional development is important in any field. In the past few years, I have been expanding my professional development experience to beyond the annual teacher or musician conference I would attend. One valuable resource I have learned to tap is the world of Massive Open Online Courses. These are online courses open to the public, typically with thousands of enrollees.
I am a big fan of coursera.org. This site currently aggregates over 400 mini-courses (typically 5-6 weeks long) presented by respected universities and colleges across the world. There are more than a handful of courses related to music that I have on my watch list for future participation.
As part of my mini-sabbatical, I am taking a 6 week class from the Berkelee School of Music entitled Songwriting. Pat Pattison, the professor leading the course, is very entertaining. The focus of the course is learning to write effective song lyrics – something I’ve always wanted to do, and something through which I’d like to be able to guide my students.
I have already taken two other coursera classes: Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, led by Curtis’ Jonathan Biss, and Write Like Mozart: An Introduction to Classical Music Composition, led by Peter Edwards of National University of Singapore. A number of my students started Write Like Mozart along with me, but only one finished it (my son). Other music courses on my watch list include Jazz Improvisation and Fundamentals of Rehearsing Music Ensembles. I also keep courses on my watch list to recommend to my students.
The videos of the courses are professionally produced, and the format is similar for each course. You watch one or more videos, take a quiz, repeat, and perhaps do one or more assignments to be peer reviewed by the community. There is also an optional forum filled with classmates who can answer your questions or who ask questions you or others can answer. There is a start and an end date to each course, but you can schedule your “class time” during any part of each week within the course. You can download the videos to watch when you do not have access to the Internet.
It can be tricky to carve out the time to take these classes. The video lectures alone might add up to 2+ hours a week, and the homework may be time consuming. Never being particularly strong in the Liberal Arts (I was a double major in Engineering and Music), I find that the Songwriting class takes some effort.
The courses offered at coursera.org are not courses you can take for college credit, even though they may contain the same content as college credit courses. Many of them offer a free “Certification of Completion,” which is suitable for proving continuing education to maintain membership on the Roster Artist List of the Arizona Commision on the Arts. Some courses offer the option of paying a fee so that you can credit the course towards a “Specialization” – something like a miniature-degree on a topic. If I was looking to build up my resume, I might choose the paying option.
The Songwriting class started last week, and it will end two weeks after my mini-sabbatical ends. I am determined to finish it (I tried it last April & May, but that was a crazy time of year), and I am looking forward to writing songs that I can sing around the campfire or on the concerts Maria and I do for children.