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Creating and Rethinking Syllabi to Open Learning

What would it mean to consider a syllabus as a dialogic document? As a pedagogical and curricular tool for connection? As a vehicle for belonging and mattering?

The resources on this pages are organized to support faculty across the syllabus design process, including origination (before), development (during), and revision (after). They include readings and example syllabi, together with direct student perspectives. Recognizing that there is no one "right" way to construct a syllabus that aims to honor diversity and support equity and inclusion, these resources represent a range of perspectives and practical wisdom from current and former students.

Emergent questions to consider during the syllabus design process:

What are the most important purposes/functions of a syllabus?

Are any of these in conflict with one another?  If so, how do or how might you address these conflicts?

What/who are the various audiences for your syllabus, and how do you mediate them in the text?

Who or what is privileged by your syllabus? Who or what is obscured, eclipsed, excised?

How do you imagine students using/interacting with/challenging/informing your syllabus?

Tools and Resources for Syllabus Development

Explore below.

“Education has always been a massive passion of mine. I’ve always loved learning about new things, thinking critically, and challenging the world around me. However, formal education can often curb that love and enthusiasm that we see in so many young people."

"He threw out any information that wasn’t absolutely necessary, and created a syllabus that looked more like a spread from a comic book than a contract. "

“Decolonization offers a different perspective to human and civil rights based approaches to justice, an unsettling one, rather than a complementary one. Decolonization is not an “and”. It is an elsewhere.”

“I envision a future where we can list the names of indigenous and person of color writers just as fast, if not faster, than white men. Sure, Emerson had some great things to say — “Nature” blew my mind as a teenager. But have you read Leslie Marmon Silko or LeeAnne Howe? How about Jesmyn Ward or Gloria Anzaldúa or Erika Wurth or Kiese Laymon or Tarfia Faizullah? They didn’t just blow my mind — they changed my life. But more than that, what I hope to see with the decolonization of syllabi is a reframing of the American narrative and a return to modes of thinking and knowledge that colonization tried so hard to destroy.” 

"The term culturally sustaining requires that our pedagogies be more than responsive of or relevant to the cultural experiences and practices of young people—it requires that they support young people in sustaining the cultural and linguistic competence of their communities while simultaneously offering access to dominant cultural competence....That is, culturally sustaining pedagogy seeks to perpetuate and foster—to sustain—linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling." (p. 4) 

  • Follow this link for a growing compilation of ways to support the movement for Black lives and the uprisings, in and out of the classroom

 

 

 

 

"The syllabus is an important document both for faculty and for the students. It’s often the first communication you have with the students."

A survey tool designed for you "to examine a particular syllabus and course design to get a broader perspective on inclusion in your actual teaching practices."

"Many students with and without disabilities have had their agency downplayed throughout their educations. To shift the rhetoric of the syllabus, instructors might explain what students can do as opposed to what they should not do."

“A better method would be to adopt the idea of the ‘promising syllabus,’ a concept developed by Ken Bain…'The promising syllabus,’ Bain wrote to me via e-mail, ‘fundamentally recognizes that people will learn best and most deeply when they have a strong sense of control over their own education rather than feeling manipulated by someone else's demands.’”

"The root of the problem is that the syllabus is really two different documents serving two different purposes. On the one hand, it is the most comprehensive guide that you will prepare detailing how you plan to organize a body of information in such a way as to reach your educational goals while having the greatest impact on student learning. On the other, it is seen as a quasi-legal contract that sets out your responsibilities to the students and what they must do in order to successfully complete the course. The first purpose is most often invisible and implicit; the second needs to be explicit and unambiguous."

"I take issue with the idea that once you’ve assigned a certain number of pages of weekly reading, you’ve accomplished something resembling "academic rigor." Faced with the question — How much reading should we assign? — I think most instructors would agree that the best answer is: 'It depends.'"

"An effective syllabus can stimulate interest in a course, help students see how it develops and coheres, and provide them with the rationale for the decisions we have made about what and how we want them to learn." 

"It can be helpful and interesting for the professor to talk a bit about themselves--it develops the idea that they’re human but also illustrates their approach and how they came to consider and do work in their field." 

"I also appreciate when classes seem organized – moving chronologically, or thematically, through whatever subject we are tackling. This doesn’t have to be a traditional kind of organization, but as long as the professor explains it, it’s great. It just helps me as a student get a handle on why we are studying what we are and in what order, which helps for making connections between different texts and topics. These connections could also be made explicitly in paper or exam questions, where we are asked to link between these texts…"

Campus Context Resources: