Part 1:

It Starts with an Idea: Find Your Big Bang!

“I wouldn’t have minded school if they taught you important things like how to have good sex and what brand of wine is the best… But for some reason they were hell bent on teaching me algebra.” -- Ben Mitchell

TO DO:

Read all the sections on this page
Come up with three possible course ideas.
Explore those three ideas using the funnel technique.
Once you've refined them with the funnel, try interacting with ChatGPT to develop them further.
Discuss your ideas with your mentor and/or others.

It Starts with an Idea

Think back to courses that you’ve taken at BOLLI, or even back to courses you took in college. Which ones stand out? What made them special? Was it the subject, the teacher's knowledge, the classroom interaction? All of these likely played a role in delivering a memorable course for you, and all are considerations in designing a course.

The starting point, of course, is choosing a topic. A great topic will appeal to a lot of people; conversely if you decide to teach “Current Issues in Corporate Tax Accounting,” you’ll draw far fewer students. Picking a topic is your first and perhaps most important job, so how do you do it? It’s not a task, it’s an iterative process that begins with an idea that you'll explore and refine:

Explore your passion, imagination and observation to come up with some ideas.
Discuss those ideas by bouncing them off peers and friends.
Research the topic through books, the internet, and maybe even artificial intelligence (AI).
Then refine and reorient, maybe dropping some ideas and adding others.

Ways to Assess Your Ideas

As you go through the process, how do you determine whether a topic idea is good or bad? Here are some guidelines to keep in mind:

The topic should be complex with multiple ways to approach it, allowing for multiple points of view, leading to animated discussions. Ambiguity is your friend, black and white, right and wrong will be boring.
You should be interested in the topic, even better—passionate about it. It’s very hard to teach something you’re not excited about. On the other hand, you may not want to teach something you’ve studied all your life. Leading a study group can be an experience where you can grow and develop a new inner talent, together with your class.
The topic should be relevant to BOLLI’s age cohort. And there should be ways to link the topic to people’s lives today.
Is the topic broad enough to allow a progression of learning over the course horizon? Or is the idea too broad to cover in 5 or 10 weeks? You want it to be the right size to fit the course time frame and allow enough space for the students to consider, explore, and absorb. Nobody likes a fire hose of information.
Can you develop a narrative arc for the course? Will each session build upon the one before? You will want each week to have a full and engaging discussion, but the following week you will need to move on to another aspect of the topic, hopefully building on what has been learned to date.

You don’t have to be an expert in the subject, or even know much about it. You will learn, exploring the topic as you research and design the course. Then you, as a guide, will take your class through the same journey of exploration that you just went through. As the guide for the course, you want the participants to experience the same sense of discovery that you felt when researching your idea. Rather than telling them the "answer," can you guide them and give them the opportunity to discover things for themselves? You may even find that they discover things that you overlooked.

Funnel Technique for Focusing Ideas

The funnel technique is a great way to refine a broad course idea into a focused, engaging, and manageable topic—especially useful when designing for BOLLI learners who bring diverse interests, backgrounds, and motivations. Here’s a step-by-step example of how the funnel technique works, using a hypothetical course development process:

1. Start Broad

Begin with a general area of interest. Example: “American History”

This is too broad for a single course. BOLLI learners may be interested in many aspects of American history, so we narrow it down.

2. Narrow by Theme or Time Period

Choose a smaller slice of that broad topic. Refinement: “The Civil War Era”

Still large, but more focused. Now consider what specifically within this era might appeal to your audience.

3. Focus on Perspective or Question

Dig into a particular angle or guiding question that shapes the learning experience. Refinement: “How the Civil War Transformed American Identity”

This gives the course purpose and focus. We’re now centering on transformation and identity—key ideas that resonate across disciplines.

4. Sharpen with Relevance or Format

Ask: what aspect of this would spark discussion, curiosity, or connection? Can it be made even more specific?

Final Course Topic:

“Voices from the Civil War: Diaries, Letters, and Personal Accounts That Shaped the Nation”

Has a clear focus (personal narratives)
Invites engagement with primary sources
Encourages reflection and discussion
Is appropriately scoped for a 5-week course

The next step for this idea is to identify appropriate sources to support the topic.

Basic Questions for the Funnel Process

What’s the big idea or passion you want to explore?
What time period, theme, or perspective could focus it?
What would surprise or excite your learners about this?
What’s the through-line or question that holds it all together?

Examples of the Funnel Technique

Another Process for Exploring and Refining Ideas

This iterative process works particularly well when you can discuss your ideas with others. It's always good to have a sounding board as you look at different ideas.

Common Course Categories

Here's a distribution of courses offered in Spring 2025. History, literature, and art generally have the most offerings each term, but there is plenty of room for courses across the full spectrum. Generate a course topic in any category that sparks your interest and present it in a way that ignites interest in others.

There's More Than One Path Up the Mountain

When exploring ideas, keep in mind that there are many different ways to design a course. Here are just a few of the ways that others have approached BOLLI courses:

Explore a series of five films that share a common theme or genre. Example - Women Behaving Badly
Discuss a curated set of TED Talks around five related themes. Example - TED TALKS: Ideas You Can't Ignore.
Read and discuss short stories by a single author, covering one or two each class session. Example: Exploring Lorrie Moore.
Guide others in a hands-on exploration, such as writing, drawing, collage. Example - Yes, You Can Draw!
Teach others to use a tool, such as artificial intelligence. Example - Applying Chatbots.

And, you don't have to do it alone. Some have co-taught a class with another SGL or have invited a series of guest lecturers.

Other sources to Help Generate Ideas

Here are some sources that may give you ideas for your course topic:

The NY Times Book Review is a great way to spot both fiction and non-fiction books that might create an anchor for a BOLLI course.
Open Culture's List of 1,700 Free Online Courses from Top Universities
TED Talks Their tagline is "Ideas Change Everything," and not only are they a great source of ideas, but people have built courses around a series of TED talks on a common theme.
Look at the course offerings of other lifelong learning programs: Dartmouth OLLI, UC Berkeley OLLI, USF OLLI. There are plenty of others across the country; check out the Bernard Osher Foundation for a list of other OLLIs.
Look at past BOLLI catalogs - Spring 2024, Fall 2024, and Spring 2025.

Using AI to Explore Ideas

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT can be helpful in exploring and refining course ideas. In fact, it provides a more targeted and sophisticated exploration than a simple internet search. Success depends on shaping your query using the parameters specific to the course you are contemplating. Whether you use the results from you chat or not, you will find it a very useful--and fast--tool for exploring potential course. And ChatGPT can complete these explorations in 2-5 minutes. Here's an example:

Warning - Not everything ChatGPT and other AI apps tell you is true. So, be sure to check the information. In particular, it will often provide bad URLs to articles that may or may not even exist. This happened recently with RFK Jr.'s health report with fake citations.

The Meaning of Love

Prompt - Please design a 5-session course for retired professional lifelong learners about the meaning of love. Recommend a book and select 5 Ted Talks to serve as the assignments for the course.

Here is ChatGPT's response:

Absolutely. Here’s a 5-session course titled "What Is Love? Perspectives on an Elusive Emotion," designed to invite reflection and conversation about the meaning, complexity, and lived experience of love across emotional, philosophical, and cultural contexts. The course blends one anchor book, five TED Talks, and thought-provoking discussion prompts for each session. ChatGPT generated this course in minutes.

What Is Love? Perspectives on an Elusive Emotion

Course Overview: This course explores the meaning of love through interdisciplinary lenses—psychological, philosophical, biological, and cultural. Each session pairs a TED Talk with excerpts from a central book, fostering discussions on how love is defined, practiced, and misunderstood. Participants will reflect on personal and collective narratives of love.

Text: All About Love by Bell Hooks [BOLLI note - this is a somewhat controversial book by a feminist cultural critic. Of course, that could be a good thing to spur discussion. And TED Talks could add balance.]

A brilliant blend of theory, memoir, and cultural critique, Hooks’s work provides an accessible yet deep framework for talking about love as an ethic, a practice, and a transformative force. Each session will draw on select chapters.

Session 1: What Is Love, Really?

TED Talk: Yann Dall'Aglio — "Love — You're Doing It Wrong"(https://www.ted.com/talks/yann_dall_aglio_love_you_re_doing_it_wrong)

Topics: Defining love, desire vs. attachment, self-worth and capitalism

Hooks Introduction & Chapter 1: Clarity—Give Love Words

Discussion Questions:

- How does Hooks define love? How does that compare to common cultural ideas?

- What happens to love when it becomes transactional or performance-based?

Session 2: The Science and Biology of Love

TED Talk: Helen Fisher — "The Brain in Love" (https://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_the_brain_in_love)

Topics: Chemistry of love, evolutionary psychology, romantic obsession

Hooks Chapter 2: Justice—Childhood Love Lessons

Discussion Questions:

- How does biology shape our emotional experiences of love?

- What are the risks of reducing love to hormones or evolutionary drives?

Session 3: Love, Fear, and Vulnerability

TED Talk: Brené Brown — "The Power of Vulnerability"(https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability)

Topics: Shame, vulnerability, connection, emotional courage

Hooks Chapter 3: Honesty—Be True to Love

Discussion Questions:

- What does it mean to show up in love with courage and vulnerability?

- How can fear prevent us from fully experiencing love?

Session 4: Love Beyond Romance

TED Talk: Barbara Fredrickson — "The Science of Love"(https://www.ted.com/talks/barbara_fredrickson_the_science_of_love)

Topics: Micro-moments of connection, love as a verb, non-romantic love

Hooks Chapter 8: Community—Loving Communion

Discussion Questions:

- How might we rethink love as a fleeting moment of connection rather than a grand narrative?

- In what ways does community play a role in sustaining love?

Session 5: Love as a Radical Act

TED Talk: Bell Hooks — "Reclaiming the Legacy of Love" (not on TED's site, but a must-see from The New School) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egFq_9QxQcw)

Topics: Love and justice, love as political, love in resistance

Hooks Chapter 13: Destiny—When Angels Speak of Love

Discussion Questions:

- What does it mean to love in a society that often promotes domination over connection?

- Can love be revolutionary?

After delivering this course outline, ChatGPT asked: Would you like this turned into a syllabus handout or Google Doc? I can also include reflection journal prompts or supplemental readings if you're planning to run this in a classroom or workshop setting.

Take a look at ChatGPT's extensive answer here.

Facing Ethical Dilemmas

Here is another example. In this case the initial prompt was: What book or books would you suggest for guiding an adult class in solving ethical dilemmas together? From here, the conversation goes on to have ChatGPT narrow the texts down and design a course. Take a look at the extensive answer here.

Motherhood in Short Fiction

Here is another example. The initial prompt was: I would like to explore the theme of motherhood through the reading of short stories that are accessible on the internet. Can you provide a syllabus for a 10-week course and include the readings. Further dialog with ChatGPT resulted in a full syllabus, with URLs to all the readings, and discussion questions for each week. All of this took ChatGPT just 3 minutes to produce. See the results here.

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