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Teaching Students How to Do College: making the syllabus available

A lighthouse shining in twilight as a metaphor for how a syllabus may guide students.

The syllabus is a useful tool for teaching and learning. If you search for ‘syllabus’ on the Teaching Hub (see the ‘magnifying glass’ in the upper-right corner?), you can find useful insights.  Several faculty have already written on topics related to creating and using a syllabus. The University of Alabama now uses a syllabus database tool called “Simple Syllabus.” The Center for Instructional Technology has created a must-see page with instructor resources to make good use of the Simple Syllabus […]

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Teaching how to do college: do grades help students learn? Part 2 of 2.

A masculine-presenting person of color showing a big smile while sitting on a green lawn holding papers in both hands and a laptop on their lap.The person’s expression of glee is what I hope students in my courses feel about learning!

by Lisa Beck, Psychology Another option, especially after having the above “let’s get curious” conversation with students part 1 of my post, may be to creatively remove the grading fixation altogether. This leads us to the spectrum of possibilities commonly referred to as “ungrading,” which has become quite the buzz word and hot topic in higher education over the past few years. According to Amy Kenyon, the Assistant Director for Teaching Innovation at Duke University’s Center for Instructional Technology: Ungrading […]

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Teaching how to do college: do grades help students learn? Part 1 of 2.

sculpture of a hand holding up a massive tree branch.

by Lisa Beck, Psychology. Do grades help students learn? As a professor, I find myself frequently asking my students some variation of “what is your intention with their work… … this sentence, your research methodology, this intervention, fill-in-the-blank with other activities of the academy?” In mentoring conversations, this may be “what is your goal, and how is what you are doing now helping you to get there?” I also find myself asking similar questions of my own pedagogy: “why am […]

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What Does a Syllabus Convey? Insights from the Student Experience Project

colorful sign saying "you belong" surrounded by plants

by Deborah Keene, Blount Scholars Program, and Luvada Harrison, Department of Theatre & Dance This past summer, we were able to participate in the pilot program for the Association of Public and Land Grant Institutions (APLU) Student Experience Project’s First Day Toolkit initiative. The workshop provided an opportunity for us to review our course syllabi and the tools to conduct a syllabus review. As the most powerful tool for planning and developing courses, conducting a syllabus review gave us a […]

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The Disappearing Student: How We Can Support Students Battling Depression and Anxiety

person sitting alone in a long, empty hallway

by Lauren S. Cardon, Department of English A familiar situation? Many of us have encountered students who follow a certain pattern: they begin the semester as full participants in the class, turning in assignments on time, and then all of a sudden disappear. They may trickle off­­ — missing a class here and there first — or they may simply fall off the radar. Then, after missing most of the semester, they resurface, explain they’ve been struggling with something personal, […]

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How to Create an Inclusive Syllabus

Welcome

by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies Our syllabi are among the first points of contact with our students. And if the scholarship showing that students’ first impressions of our courses typically last for the entire semester, then we should pay attention to how the syllabus is a crucial document. An ad-hoc group of 21 faculty and staff met at the Inclusive Campus Engagement Breakfast drafted a set of suggestions for inclusive syllabi. These suggestions were inspired by last year’s post […]

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The Intersection of Early British Literature Surveys and Anti-Racist Pedagogy

busy intersection

by H. Austin Whitver, Department of English Recent political and cultural movements anchored in ethnocentric ideological beliefs pose a grave, if sometimes overlooked, threat to the English literature classroom. In his opening chapter of Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, Charles W. Mills writes, “Ethnocentrism is, of course, a negative cognitive tendency common to all peoples, not just Europeans. But with Europe’s gradual rise to global domination, the European variant becomes entrenched as an overarching, virtually unassailable framework, a conviction of […]

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Use Your LMS to Reclaim Your Syllabus

neon sign saying open 24 hours

by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies Cutting to the chase Here is how to make your syllabi openly accessible online. Have your syllabi do less and then use your institution’s Learning Management System (LMS) to make up the difference and then some! I previously challenged the notion of “learning management” and championed what an LMS does. Now I want to think about how to divide tasks between publicly accessible syllabi versus password-secure course pages: Keep your syllabus basic with a […]

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Reclaiming My Syllabus

woman using metal grinder

by Angela Benson, College of Education I have lost control of my syllabus. I’ve focused so much on making it meet the standards enforced by the online syllabus management system that I’ve lost sight of its true purpose: to invite students into a safe space where they can show and develop their greatness. I have long had a love-hate relationship with the online syllabus management system. I immediately embraced the online system when I joined the UA faculty. My previous […]

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How to Create a Syllabus

Hands of people collaborating on a document.

“Syllabus” is a Latin term which is used to perform a variety of functions. For the Roman Catholic Church, it is a list of errors. For most educators, syllabi orient the program of teaching and learning for a specific class. Some teachers see their syllabus as a manifesto. Others understand how the syllabus enacts particular formations of power that threaten positive classroom dynamics. Examples of syllabi abound due to mapping projects like the Open Syllabus Project. Useful generic tools and fast […]

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