It’s almost that time of the year again – time to turn your attention to the next semester. The ritual of updating your course syllabus can be exciting or it can be a chore. Sure, there are technical considerations (classroom policies, due dates, overview, etc.) that demand attention and precision.
But there is something else to consider, too. The experience students have when reading your course syllabus. We’ve briefly visited this topic before when we talked about rephrasing questions to demand engagement. “What questions do you have?” gives students permission and a safe space to ask questions that benefit the whole group. Or rebranding “Office Hours” to “Student Hours” (I’ve moved away from “hours” and now offer “Student Time” – an important signal to students that I am serious about dedicating time to them).
Language matters.
And once you go down this rabbit hole, you might find that there are a lot of nitpicky, small changes that have a large return on investment for your students’ comfort. I hope that the three ideas presented below can lead to a lean-in syllabus experience for your students.
SENTIMENT ANALYSIS
An interesting study at Baylor University explored some of the small changes that can be made to the wording in a syllabus. The intent of the study was to align syllabus language and teaching style with self-perception.
They developed a tool that scans your syllabus and matches the sentiment of it with a brief self-perception survey. The software attempts to reconcile your beliefs with the language in your syllabus and displays the results in interactive graphs. The software will also list the most negative words and offer softer recommendations. Note that this works only when running results across the Pleasure dimension of the analysis. And if you decide to do this exercise, you might want to remove the obligatory College Policies before you submit it. The software caught a lot of words from those sections (I never paid attention to the presence of the words “attack”, “victim”, and “criminal”). I also had to tease out some of the other words that surfaced. I had words like “stress” (as in, “I can’t stress enough”) and “pain” (as in, “I’m curious about the pain-points in this class”).
If you would like to go through this exercise, click here (you need to be logged into Google). It might look confusing but the instructions are clear. Press the “PLAY” button (gray circle with white triangle) at each step.
Going through this exercise made me recognize just how important language is. Reading the study was enlightening; the appendix offers examples of revised phrasing. Phrases such as:
- What I Think about Teaching and Learning
- My Invitation To You
- How to Demonstrate your Learning
- What Book You Need
- How to Be a Part of this Class
are brilliant examples of section headings in a course syllabus that are easy to use and lend an aspirational atmosphere of enthusiasm, co-creation, and optimism.
Language matters.
DON’T OVERAWE SOMETHING
On a less serious note, I’d like to share a fun way to increase engagement in the syllabus experience for the student. In the late nineteen hundreds I spent a few summers working at a camp on Keuka Lake. Kevin Dibble, the Program Director, crafted special games for the campers once a session and these games required handouts with instructions. Hidden in the instructions were special words and the cabin who found the most words would win a special prize (even the counselors didn’t know the words, so they were able to get in on the fun).
I’ve always wanted to include that mechanic in my syllabus but it was never a high priority. Then, on November 27, the New York Times had a clue in their mini-crossword:
"What's found hidden between words in 'deli meat,', 'little monster' and 'radio range'"
It took me a minute, but “lime”, “lemon”, and “orange” are in each group of words, respectively. The answer was FRUIT. And that rekindled an interest in my intentional design of my own syllabi. Over break I’ll be channeling my inner Kevin Dibble and hiding words in plain sight.
RICKROLL YOUR STUDENTS
One last way to bring wonder into the syllabus experience. In 2014 the Independent ran a piece about a student who Rickrolled the professor. While the image below isn’t the exact paper, the idea is still captured:
Now I’m not suggesting that you Rickroll your students, but I’m not suggesting that you don’t Rickroll your students, either. But if eighties pop songs don’t do it for you, I’m sure you can find your own messages to encode.
As you are updating your syllabus this winter, share the unique, exciting, engaging techniques you are using with your colleagues.
