Register for courses in this series now through June 30, 2013!
Welcome to the University of San Diego, Division of Continuing Education's Content Course Series. Exciting and stimulating content based lecture courses will enrich and broaden your base of subject area knowledge.
Choose from many lectures available such as:
- "Renaissance, Reformation and Rise of Nations"
- "Great World Religions"
- "Masterpieces of the Imaginative Mind: Literature's Most Fantastic Works"
- "Nature of Earth: An Introduction to Geology"
- "Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics"
- "History of Rome and History of Ancient Egypt"
- and many more
The major focus of this Series is to encourage teachers to explore in-depth teaching areas such as:
By experiencing stimulating lectures by the most knowledgeable professors from major universities throughout the United States, teachers will gain new insights and information enabling them to add excitement and interesting content to their own classes. The course(s) can be taken multiple times by using a different lecture set each time. A new course number is assigned each time.
To participate in these USD independent study courses, you will view or listen to one of the Great Courses from The Teaching Company (all lectures within a set must be viewed or listened to) and complete written assignments to be evaluated by a USD grader. One Great Course per registered course. Participants can earn from one to three semester units depending on the number and length of the lectures per set which are available in many disciplines and in audio and video formats. Be sure to calculate the total number of lecture hours prior to registering for the appropriate number of units. USD will not issue a grade to lectures with a lower amount of total hours required for each course registered for.
After choosing a lecture set from the Great Courses selections, you can register for the correct course determined by the total number of lecture hours. The Teaching Company lists the number of lectures, with most courses having 30 minute lectures. Take the number of lectures and multiply by 30 minutes then divide by 60 to arrive at the total number of hours per lecture set. Lectures from two or more courses cannot be combined to sign up for a greater amount of units course.
- ONE UNIT COURSE, EDU 533S for lecture series totaling 12-23 hours
- TWO UNIT COURSE, EDU 533T for lecture series totaling 24-36 hours
- THREE UNIT COURSE, EDU 533U for lecture series totaling 37-48 hours
USE THIS FORMULA TO DETERMINE TOTAL NUMBER OF HOURS:
"number of lectures" multiplied by the "number of minutes per lecture" divided by 60 = TOTAL NUMBER OF HOURS PER LECTURE SERIES
For example 48 lectures X 30 minutes per lecture divided by 60 = 24 hours which qualifies for a two unit course, EDU 533T.
I. Course Numbers and Titles
A. Course Number
There are three (3) different course numbers based on whether it is a one, two, or three semester unit class as follows: 1 unit (EDU 533S), 2 unit (EDU 533T) and 3 unit (EDU 533U). If you register more than once for a same unit course, the number will automatically change by placing an A, B, C etc. after the course number. For example, the first time taking a one semester unit course, the number is EDU 533SA. The second time you take a one semester unit course, the number will be EDU 533SB and the third is EDU 533SC.
The number of semester units awarded is based on the number of lecture hours in the set.
B. Course Title
The course title will state the curriculum division and then the title such as, CONTENT/ SCIENCE: GEOLOGY
C. Examples
If you took (2) one unit courses Geology and Calculus, the transcript would read:
EDU 533SA IS/CONTENT/SCIENCE: GEOLOGY
EDU 533SB IS/CONTENT/MATHEMATICS: CALCULUS
II. Tuition and Material Costs for this Series
A. Tuition
Only tuition cost is paid to the University of San Diego's Division of Continuing Education.
a. One semester unit courses - $115 ea
b. Two semester unit courses - $211 ea
c. Three semester unit courses - $275 ea
B. Materials
All content for this series come from the Great Courses published by The Teaching Company. Great Courses lectures can be purchased in the format of DVDs, CDs, audio tapes, transcript books or audio downloads. USD does not have a preference of what format you choose. Cost may be a factor in making your format decision. These materials can sometimes be found in libraries or on eBay.com, Amazon.com or Craigslist.org. The Teaching Company puts each course on sale once a year, so you may want to keep checking their site, www.teach12.com.
III. Course Requirements
Upon registration, you will receive instructions for the following written course work to be completed and mailed to a USD grader.
- Write brief lecture summaries
- Discuss a topic that fascinated you
- Discuss what you learned or relearned
- Discuss what you found most controversial, disturbing or uplifting
- Give a description and critique of the chosen course
- Discuss if and how the course can enhance your teaching
| COURSE TITLE | CLASS CODE | SERIES | UNITS |
| Content Course - One Unit | 533S | Content Course Series | 1.0 |
| Content Course - Two Unit | 533T | Content Course Series | 2.0 |
| Content Course - Three Unit | 533U | Content Course Series | 3.0 |