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Creative Approaches to the Syllabus

August 26, 2011, 11:23 am

By Jason B. Jones

syllabus prep

There’s no denying that syllabus bloat is a real phenomenon. Every semester, it seems, there’s a push to put more and more in the syllabus. And there’s no denying that it can sometimes be useful to treat the syllabus as a meaningful resource for the whole semester.

However, as Barbara Fister complained at Library Babel Fish this morning (via Mary Churchill), the syllabus is increasingly seen not as a resource, but something everyone skips without reading–Terms of Service agreements :

When you add all those rules to the traditional stuff – course description, the list of assigned texts, the class-by-class schedule, and information about major assignments – these documents get incredibly long and complex. . . . We traditionally go over syllabi on the first day of class, and then we’re annoyed when students miss an assignment or fail to adhere to a rule because “it was in the syllabus.”

And even as the syllabus has bloated beyond all recognition, its basic format has been basically unchanged: the professor’s contact information/office hours, a description of the course, some policies, and a course calendar. While different professors provide these in varying amounts of detail, they still look pretty similar.

As it happens, last week I asked for some examples of visually creative approaches to the syllabus, in response to Elaine Young’s syllabus for a 400-level marketing class. As promised, here are the results:

This isn’t the semester for me to put much effort into too much redesign, but I did think it was only fair that I share an example of my current syllabus. (Which, in fact, I’m no longer distributing as a single document, as you’ll see.) The assignment descriptions are going up this weekend–provided, of course, I don’t lose power from Irene!

Do you have a creative syllabus? Link to it in comments!

Photo by Flickr user g_kat26 / Creative Commons licensed

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  • mottgreene

    A lot of good ideas, though right margin sidebars (where they put the ads in newspapers and facebook) tend to be visually skipped as irrelevant content by students in syllabi :)

     One of the functions, which sounds legalistic, but if you explain it to the students actually helps, is to treat the syllabus like one of those software license agreements with a button that says “I agree.” This is, as they say in the legal world, a “contract of adhesion,” where proceeding indicates your agreement to the conditions, irrespective of whether you have read them all the way through or not.
    I tell my students that the syllabus is a contractual agreement  that specifies our mutual obligations in the course of the semester: when they turn things in, when I give them back, what the rules are and all of that, in addition to the calendar of day-to-day work, that is the actual “syllabus.”
     I actually say in the syllabus that continued registration after the add drop period  Indicates their acceptance of the conditions spelled out in the syllabus.

     Further note: using lots of background colors whether or not they are Internet friendly can be problematic for visually challenged students, and especially for that 25% of the male population that is effectively colorblind across a certain spectrum.

  • http://www.samplereality.com Mark Sample

    I’ve noticed that most of these examples are meant to be printed and distributed on paper (why else use PDF), but I’m more curious about creative syllabi designed for the web. Both as part of my own paperless philosophy and encouraged by my institution’s austerity measures, I am not handing out paper copies of my syllabi this year. Nor do I expect my students to print them out either.

    So, what examples are out there of online-only syllabi that break out of typical WordPress styling?

  • http://www.patheos.com/community/exploringourmatrix/ James F. McGrath

    I started adding a humorous disclaimer to the end of my syllabi, partly to liven it up but partly to check whether students were actually paying attention. Here’s a link to one such disclaimer I added this semester:  http://www.patheos.com/community/exploringourmatrix/2011/08/24/syllabus-disclaimer/ 

  • http://twitter.com/AlecHosterman Alec R. Hosterman

    I went from traditional syllabi to an 11×17 fold-over to my current iteration, a web-based syllabus. I find them to be easy enough to update if the semester encounters “hiccups” or cancelled sessions. For my upper level courses I will try and include pictures of each student along with requisite links (blogs, twitter, etc.). Here are a few examples (which naturally will be changing in the next week with the start of the semester):
    Visual Communication: http://mypage.iu.edu/~ahosterm/j210semester/index.html
    New Media Studies: http://mypage.iu.edu/~ahosterm/j410/index.html
    Deception & Lying course: http://mypage.iu.edu/~ahosterm/s322/index.html
    Public Relations Research: http://mypage.iu.edu/~ahosterm/j428/index.html

    Alec

  • drnels

    Mine had to be paper for my tenure/promotion files. So far, they are not fans of non-paper syllabi.

    I want to use Prezi for my syllabi, but I’m not sure how to get what I’ll need when I go up for Full.

  • drnels

    Yep, Comic Life.  It’s what students were going to use for their final project, so I experimented.

  • http://www.samplereality.com Mark Sample

    Good point, Nels. I have to hand in paper copies for those reasons too, but I usually just convert my online syllabi into PDFs. These aren’t PDFs the students ever see or need to print out; they’re for administrative purposes only.

  • http://www.samplereality.com Mark Sample

    Also — a Prezi syllabus could be very neat. Doesn’t Prezi have a “print” function, so you can at least hand in a paper copy?

  • drnels

    Prezi does, but it prints too oddly for people at my institution (some of whom avoid email) would be comfortable with.  And I find it’s easier just to get it into the PDF from the start.  And about half my class prints a copy and uses the paper one (I can see them pull it out when I talk about upcoming assignments and such). And our tenure/promotion meetings involve an interview at the college level, and I have gotten questions about why I design my syllabi the way I do, so they want to see what students see to judge what students get.

    Also, we have to have a version we can email to course supervisors, some of whom are willing to take electronic versions (like me) and some who will only take paper.

  • http://twitter.com/pwolsen Porter Olsen

    Thanks–a timely and useful post. I’ve moved most of my syllabi to WordPress, but it’s clear from the examples here that I haven’t taken full advantage of what WordPress can do. I’d also be interested in any insights you all might have regarding how to engage students in the syllabus on the first day of class. I have a number of fun “ice breakers” I like to use, but any tips on how to actually communicate the content in the syllabus would be welcome.

  • missoularedhead

    All of these examples look really cool.  But I’ll be honest…as a student, I would want to find information quickly, and while visual fun is great, where do I find X?  This may just be a function of the requirements at my school that I include 8 million different things, none of which actually relate to my class (legal mumbo jumbo has eaten my syllabus!).  

    I actually don’t give out paper copies anymore, but there’s a printable copy on the course site.  And I break out the readings/weekly stuff to do into a separate document.  That way, no one can say they didn’t know what the assignments were.
    Oh, and boy, would I like to add a “I have read and understand the syllabus” button!

  • drassessment

    I have the students in structured classes sign a slip stating that they have read, understand, and agree to abide by the policies contained in the syllabus. In my online classes I provide a dropbox where they can type in their name and date for the acknowledgment,

    I also have them take a quiz over the syllabus and the points earned on the quiz are included in their grade along with the points earned for other assignments.

  • missoularedhead

    I do the same for f2f classes, but had not thought about the dropbox for the online classes.  Thanks for the idea!  (I do have the online students take a quiz…)

  • rorabaughj

    I tried something new this semester for my two online classes. I used FlipSnack (free version) to turn my syllabus into an interactive, animated flip book. In addition to putting it as a PDF file where our college mandates in our LMS, I posted it in a content module on the home page of each course, too.

    When I saw this article, I thought 1) Kudos to me for being on the “cutting edge” and 2) Hmmm…let me check the Stats on the FlipSnack site to see if any students had actually clicked on it. I was AMAZED at the stats: 1126 Views, with an average of 125 a day since classes started last Thursday! I have two sections with a combined total of 43.

    Now…if only they’re READING it, and not thinking it’s an online role-playing game. :-)

  • loutzl

    rorabaughj… can we see it?

  • http://twitter.com/hmprescott hmprescott

    I have course blogs instead of paper syllabi, e.g. http://you.ccsu.edu/publichistoryproject/

  • dpmccain

    I couldn’t access a couple of the docments, but I wanted to advise Tonga Hangen (US History) that her syllabus is incrediblly formatted, and entertaining, but there is a mis-key in her remarks about plagiarism.  Whoever keyboarded the document missed the e on the end of paste, and the word reads past.  I am famous for not closing my parentheses…

  • dpmccain

    Where I teach we are required to provide each student with a  hard copy of the Syllabus for the class…I have no idea why.  I would think posting it on the class web site would suffice…but I am not in charge. 

  • dpmccain

    I would be interested in knowing how you like Prezi.  I find it to be very entertaining, but some students are so caught in the ” magic”  they lose the content/purpose. 

  • fprasuhn

    Nice. How does anyone get time to be that creative???

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=23116780 Pisarn Bee Chamcharatsri

    Here is my (Passionate) Research Writing syllabus. My topic revolves around the idea of “writing with passion”. Though my syllabus might look typical, the creative part would be the readings and assignments that students can choose from.

    http://beengl202.wordpress.com/

  • geodescriber

    Have you ever had students who didn’t sign the slip? If so, what have you done about it? Just wondering.

  • k333koz

    I just find it interesting that people are making students sign pledges when academic honor policies cover that kind of thing. One should perhaps consider making the parents sign one acknowledging that their student has an obligation to complete in order to pass, let alone perform well in the class. Next thing you know, we’ll be setting up ticklers and reminders on a class app to REMIND the student of those obligations. It all seems so paternalistic. No one ever had to tell us that classes meant obligations, work, assignments, completed assignments, turn-in dates, projects, reading and whatever else is there to do. Simple, you go to college? You do this to get it done. Leave it up to the student as to best organize and complete their obligations. If you want to haul out the graphic skills, great. But as many people pointed out, I wouldn’t wade through something that looks like a newsletter or a pocket / easter egg online version where I have to click on graphic images to find out my assignment. No fancy fonts, some are very difficult for people to read whether or not they are physically impaired. People skip over margins too, anything off to the side automatically reads as unimportant to the average reader; unless your schooled in the Cornell note taking process. There’s nothing wrong with working with students, but doing the thinking for them? Seems to be a self-defeating proposition.

  • pacifica888

    I have been composing my syllabi in Dreamweaver and loading them on the department server since the late nineties, and students seem to like this form a lot. It enables me to adjust assignments as we go (and as a function of how students are performing), insert an occasional graphic that, when clicked upon, sends some of my philosophy with comic relief, and most of all, use the syllabus as a cyber-living entity that will eventually become the publication venue for students’ collective work, as in this example: http://www.english.hawaii.edu/henry/464/home.html

  • translog

    In a business syllabus, the origin of the structure is very important esp when it covers environment and sustaianability . The definition varies ikn this context from campus to campus and cultures to cultures.

    ‘Business’ is a business studies option within the established Leaving Certificate programme. It is concerned with the understanding of the environment in which business operates in Canada and in the wider world. It also involves equipping the students with a positive view of enterprise and its applications in the business environment, in both the public and private sectors.

    Consequqnrly. we have the sustainability index and the learning outxomes in the program.

  • pacifica888

    I have been composing my syllabi in Dreamweaver and loading them on the department server since the late nineties, and students seem to like this form a lot. It enables me to adjust assignments as we go (and as a function of how students are performing), insert an occasional graphic that, when clicked upon, sends some of my philosophy with comic relief, and most of all, use the syllabus as a cyber-living entity that will eventually become the publication venue for students’ collective work, as in this example: http://www.english.hawaii.edu/…

  • proftowanda

    PDF’s have advantages, mainly that they often upload faster for students (using older computers, using smartphones, etc.) than do long documents — and they cannot be edited by students catching us on the run in the current semester or complicating grade appeals long afterward.  As for examples of online syllabi, see campuses (there are many now) that post syllabi on their schedules of classes.

  • proftowanda

    After years of joking about need to add to tests a “syllabus quiz,” I finally did so — an online quiz on the course CMS — and I heartily recommend doing so, prior to or at the start of a course.  Several students dropped, making room for more on the waitlists.  And among those remaining, their volume of emails asking questions for which my answer would be “see the syllabus” dropped even more.

  • proftowanda

    I also have instituted a “course contract” to be sent to me — email or dropbox, depending — after students take a “syllabus quiz” that I also have instituted, both on the course CMS and both to be done before or on the first day of the course.  Upon first instituting these practices, I was surprised to see that almost all students did so willingly.  However, there were laggards.

    So I learned to state that doing so would earn extra credit even before a course began, and I have had 100 percent participation.

    And I also never have had a student ask how much said extra credit will count in the final grade.  (My answer would be: minimally.)

  • prosper02

    Here’s a new syllabus for Teaching Shakespeare, a graduate course for high school teachers. It has the graphics and links I use in all my Shakespeare courses, but also features all the requirements of an Education program as well as an English course:
    http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/rjregan/rrTeachingShakespearef11.htm
    My home page:
    http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/rjregan/

  • brooklynny

    The history syllabus is beautiful but I cannot imagine my department appreciating this.. ah, I can’t wait until tenure..

  • parme

    Our college’s CMS includes electronic portfolios which many of us now use for the syllabus.  They offer the flexibility of a website so we can link to online/database readings, to videos/images/sound files and they include images.  A bit more work initially but I would never go back to a paper syllabus or a PDF.

  • sortaretired

    This requirement is leftover from pre-LMS days. Perhaps you can work with your colleagues to instigate a policy revision. It’s happened on other campuses.

  • drassessment

    I have the students sign the acknowledgment: 1. So I don’t have to take up precious class time going through it; 2. So that when they claim they didn’t know something was in the syllabus, I can remind them that they said they had read it.

    I recognize that as you put it, “No one ever had to tell us that classes meant obligations, work,
    assignments, completed assignments, turn-in dates, projects, reading and
    whatever else is there to do. Simple, you go to college? You do this to
    get it done.” Yet I have learned from experience that many students today do not have that same work ethic when it comes to doing their coursework. And even after agreeing to abide by the policies described in the syllabus, they want to be exceptions. Just this summer, in my online class which lasted 8 weeks, I had between 25-30 requests by students to be allowed to submit assignments late, even though the policy is clearly stated that late work is not accepted.

    We do what we can and hope for the best.

  • sortaretired

    I wonder how typical we were of student in our classes. Most faculty members graduated college with far better than a C average, or we never would have been accepted into graduate school. Even disregarding possible cultural changes, the students we teach aren’t the students we were.

  • ellsware

    Thank you for the wonderful examples! I often hear students complain about seven and eight page syllabi and about “goofy” syllabus quizzes. Your discussion offers healthy alternatives….

  • poppysabina

    I really enjoyed the inspirational samples.

    But….
    The composition one was a spoof….right?
    Or a pedagogical tool…?

    Please say yes.

  • http://who-will-kiss-the-pig.blogspot.com Richard Grayson

    I was an undergraduate from 1969 to 1973 and very few of my professors gave us a syllabus.  Even in grad school over the next three years, a syllabus was a rarity.  Even as a teacher starting in 1975, I don’t recall having to submit an obligatory syllabus to the departments where I taught. Am I simply misremembering this or was there a time when syllabi were optional and rare?

    (Most departments didn’t have photocopy machines back then; maybe that had something to do with it?)

  • http://tonahangen.com Tona Hangen

    Good catch, thanks; I will correct it.

  • proftowanda

    We were in college in approximately the same era, and I do remember syllabi.

    No, there were not photocopy machines.  But for syllabi, handouts, tests, etc., who from our era can forget the unmistakeable odor of mimeographs?  Ugh.

  • rorabaughj

    http://www.flipsnack.com/flips/fecfe1219a0ad8e6c3c37e03aq238568
    Sure! Here it is. The “hits” have slowed down on it, but I really think that the students are more syllabus savvy than in semesters past!

  • http://www.samplereality.com Mark Sample

    I like Jason’s idea of a 1-page mini-syllabus for day one that points towards the full syllabus online. It gives students a piece of paper to put in their binders, but it also avoids printing out reams of paper. I used this method for the first time this afternoon for my Science Fiction class. This 1-page visual guide to my syllabus highlights the course themes, the readings, and the assignments, but then points students to the fuller online version. Nobody complained that I didn’t distribute the full syllabus, and in fact, somebody remarked that this hybrid system was much more orderly than the usual means of distributing documents at the beginning of the semester.

  • teprusa

    We’ve been told that for on-ground classes we must give hard copies of all required parts of the syllabus (as well as any other required materials) to the students. Only for on-line classes and classes with a scheduled lab can we have a requirement be only on-line. Apparently this is an access issue.

  • 22122118

    I teach a course on 20th century dictatorships on a regular rotation. Last time out, I decided to jazz up the syllabus with some pop culture references. Thus, at the end of the syllabus I included a graphic of (Handsome) Dick Manitoba and the Dictators, in an album cover take-off from the original King Kong movie. Fun stuff, I thought, and a nod to (Handsome) Dick whom I’d seen perform in NYC long ago. I also included a link to Crime and the City Solution’s epic B-side, “The Last Dictator,” from the _Paradise Discotheque_ album, which although specific to the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu has continuing revelance (think Mubarak and Khaddafi).

    Result? Zip (although one student was sharp enough to know that Crime…had given Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds a brief run for the money in the late eighties, only to sink into oblivion).

    So I stick to straight form legalese syllabi, but garnished with lots of nifty graphics.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=23116780 Pisarn Bee Chamcharatsri

    was this referring to my blog? No, that is the actual syllabus that I created. It is currently being used in my class at the moment. :-)

  • louisekraz

    Inspired by the examples you linked above, I hacked my syllabus for this semester. It looks a bit fussy but still is more fun to look at. Of course, teaching a course on the mythology of zombies gives me so leeway to look a bit more wacky!
    LINK: http://professorkraz.wordpress.com

  • poppysabina

    No, no! Actually, I was intrigued by your reading list, so thanks for sharing the syllabus!

    It was the link above (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/610087/Fall_2011_EN120018.pdf).

    I was, frankly, floored by sentences such as:
    “More than five (4) absences will result in a failing grade for this course.”

    “That being said, if you do not complete either the Multi-Genre Project and the Reflective Portfolio, you can not pass this course.”

    Since this is just the tip of proofreading iceberg, I hoped it was a pedagogical approach. But because it concludes with the motto, “Perfection is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people,” I also wondered if it was a spoof!

  • simpsomw

    After reading this post and viewing the various sample syllabi, I went to town on one of mine. It still needs work but it’s web-based and ideal for my online classes.  I
    created it in a PowerPoint based on my regular course syllabus, edited lots,
    added graphics and music, and uploaded it to SlideRocket. I then embedded it in
    my Angel course and it works well. This link will take you to the web-based
    version. I think students will appreciate this one more than my usual text-based
    one…they might even read the info presented?!?…

     

    Maximize the screen by clicking on the button in the lower left.
    Click through the slides. Enjoy…

     

    http://portal.sliderocket.com/AXFZV/Fall-2011-Course-Syllabus-TSL-4340-PP-for-SlideRocket

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=23116780 Pisarn Bee Chamcharatsri

    Thank you for your reply! My students will choose one out of the list. I also told me students that I am reading with them as some of these titles have just come out.

  • philostitute

     The syllabus is great, the headings are clear and this is very well done!  I love that all of your readings are accessible online.  How did you get the permissions?

  • http://twitter.com/yogiconomist Katie (Sauer) Hart

    Sorry this comment is so old … but I just came across this post while doing some internet searching for an upcoming conference.  

    Anyway, you can see my version of graphic syllabi here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/61259735/Graphic-Syllabus-Principles-of-Microeconomics   and here:http://www.scribd.com/doc/61259800/Graphic-Syllabus-Intro-to-Economics and here:http://www.scribd.com/doc/61259845/Graphic-Syllabus-Public-Economics

    This was my first try and I’m sure I’ll get better :)

  • http://twitter.com/BabaKristian Kristian Petersen

    If anyone returns to this post I created my course schedule for “Cinema and the Sacred: Religion and Film” from some of the inspiring pieces here. My class site can be viewed here
    http://homepages.gac.edu/~kpeter15/Gustavus/Religion_and_Film.html
    and the schedule can be viewed here http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38674838/Religion%20and%20Film%20Course%20Schedule.pdf
    Many thanks!

    Kristian

  • http://tonahangen.com Tona Hangen

    I just came back to this post while putting together a presentation on syllabus design and was delighted to see some of the recently-added examples. Thanks for posting and sharing them; the disclaimers are interesting too (“first try… still needs work… a bit fussy but…”). Why should we feel the need to apologize for imperfection when experimenting with new techniques or new modes? Teaching is a creative process and creativity can be messy, and messy is good!

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