TUESDAY TEACHING TIP: Student-Centered Syllabi

By integrating inclusive teaching strategies and basic design principles, you can craft an engaging and appealing syllabus that conveys essential course information and encourages your students’ success. 

This week, we challenge you to make your syllabus more student-centered by making the document easily navigable and using rhetoric that fosters a sense of connection and clarity.

Here’s one way to do it 

• Come work on your syllabus in Academic Technology’s final Student-Centered Syllabus Clinic of the summer on Monday, September 15 and/or Faculty Development’s Shut Up and Prep Session on Wednesday, September 17. 
• Emphasize (and put at the beginning) the information that is most important to your students (e.g. contact information, course deadlines, assessments, class schedule, grading)
• Consider using the native table of contents structure in Google docs or Word to make your policies easily linkable and findable
• Use language that fosters positive, student-friendly course culture (e.g. “you/I/we” instead of passive voice, third person, or commands)

DID YOU DO IT?

Let us know how it went. We would love to hear your feedback about how you implemented today’s Tuesday Teaching Tip in your classroom. Click here to fill out our 3-question survey.

WANT TO READ A LITTLE MORE?

• SCU’s Digital Resources for Teaching (DRT) page on Syllabi

• The Accessible Syllabus website from Tulane University

 

This week’s Tuesday Teaching Tip was prepared by Eric Haynie and Loring Pfeiffer on behalf of the Faculty Collaborative.

Missed a teaching tip? Read them all here.

And check out our full calendar of Teaching and Learning events, including CAFEs and other Faculty Development and Faculty Collaborative events.