Dear Fellow Seminar Participants,
I can’t believe we are at the end of this seminar! It’s been a journey learning from the instructors and participants this semester.
After attending workshops and sharing ideas via blogs/vlogs, I have decided to focus on two goals while working on my teaching artifact (my course syllabus.) My two goals are:
1. To increase accessibility for students, and readily provide access to the tools and resources available to them to set them up for success.
2. To move away from a “contract” style syllabus and embrace more humanizing community-building content.
I believe both will increase student engagement and allow students to get more out of the course.
Some (highlighted) changes I have made so far:
-I have added learning goals beneath course objectives.
-I have made some small adjustments regarding accessibility that I have encountered as a challenge for students this past semester.
-I am adding a section entitled “How to get the most out of this course” which includes helpful tips and student resources. This is a work in progress.
Some changes I have yet to make:
-Every syllabus I have received in my life has looked the same and therefore the syllabus for my course has followed suit. The document is mostly text and I highly doubt my students are reading it in its entirety. I would like to revamp the look so the text is broken up with images, important information such as contact info is more prominent, and so that the doc is less boring/intimidating overall. I like how the Student Guide to Online and Hybrid Learning is laid out and I’m also considering a slide deck format that was presented in the “It’s on the Syllabus!” Workshop.
-My current introduction was taken from the standard course syllabus I inherited from my department. I am considering crafting a warmer introduction.
Finally, it has been challenging to keep up with the deliverables for this seminar while balancing life’s other priorities, but this has been a reminder that the students we serve are doing the same balancing act at a different, potentially more challenging time in their lives (in a pandemic no less!) It has been great learning with you all and I hope we can stay in touch.
Please see my draft for my teaching artifact below.
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5 replies on “P. Baltazar’s Open Letter +Teaching Artifact Draft”
This looks really good already, I absolutely love the addition of the resources as a way to offer students an overview of all of the help that is available to them!
I received a syllabus at one point for an ACUE professional development seminar which I will post here. It’s very colorful and though I found it a bit odd (it IS different from any syllabus I’ve ever received, of course), some parts of it might be inspirational to you — https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zsNI4KaurnvbQeBSBpdA62uKVwbi9n1k/view?usp=sharing .
Also (and this is just me pulling in something I learned about recently (thanks CTL!) — what about having the students use hypothes.is to annotate the syllabus so you can see their engagement?
I agree with Molly – the resources/”How to Get the Most …” idea is a great addition.
And yes, it has been an interesting reminder to again have homework that I didn’t assign myself!
Hi, Paulina, I like the changes you’ve made to your syllabus, particularly the highlighting and the section on How to Get the Most Out of the Course. I’d like to add something like what you have here to my syllabus project. I agree with what you’ve written in your reflection about syllabuses looking and sounding the same. They have been that “thing” on the first day of class that you had to get through as a professor and student. Making this engaging, like what you have in your project, makes this “requirement” more exciting! Thanks for sharing your work and ideas!
Pauline–I agree so much with your comments regarding how this seminar has remined me what our students go through–juggling life/work with going to class/doing assignments etc.!! I also enjoyed being the student during the seminar (going to breakout groups for example as our students do!).
Anyway I love how you have modified your syllabus. If I had been more courageous that would have been my artifact for this class! I used to think as you say in your letter that students don’t read every line of the syllabus but recently I have retought this. In fact some students **do** read the syllabus closely, very closely! Having a more engaging syllabus is a great goal–one I hope to reach as well.
And I love the example of Syllabus that Molly posted.
Paulina, I’d like to echo the wonderful comments above and also to share this “Accessible Syllabus” (https://www.accessiblesyllabus.com/) resource which may provide some additional inspiration about welcoming language and including images.