Long overdue post: A syllabus is worth a thousand words
At the start of every school year, I find myself faced with a dilemma. No, not what to teach. See my post on How I started the year to see why that isn’t a stressor for me. My dilemma surrounds my syllabus. Syllabi. I know there is important information I want students to know. I know that students don’t want to read a long document. These are 21st century kids. Snapchat kids. Twitter kids. They want fast, brief information. How can my grading practices possibly be described in 140 characters. Well, okay, they can’t. I’m just not that good. But I am moving my syllabi toward a format compatible with their “just in time” brains. They no longer learn and memorize things “just in case” they need it. They have smartphones at their hips. Well, if those phones ever leave their hands, that is! They are “just in time” information consumers. Information doesn’t become important to them until it becomes relevant. And on the first day of school, my grading percentages are NOT personally relevant.
I looked at my old syllabi and found pages upon pages of information. Stuff that I had thought I “should” include, but really I can’t imagine caring about when I was a student–and I was a nerdy kid who would have read the whole thing! So I got to thinking…like this e-card says.
Why DO I write a syllabus? To let kids know what to expect? To tell parents what to expect? To cover my butt in case of an issue? Because it’s what we’ve always done? Because it seemed like the thing to do? A little bit of all of those! As someone who has been a reflective teacher for some time, I was used to analyzing my practice: My use of target language, my use of compelling comprehensible input, my assessment techniques, how I grade. But my syllabus was never something that got much attention, reflection, and evaluation. Until now.
So my first attempt to make my syllabus more than a long document full of lots of information, led to a poster-inspired, infographic-inspired document I made using Canva. Here are the two I developed for this year’s Spanish 3 and Spanish 4 courses. Are they perfect? Gosh, no. Are they good? Maybe. Are they better than what I’ve had before? Yes. I think if nothing else, the more graphic format makes them stand out to kids and their parents that I’m a teacher who works creatively and carefully, putting effort into what I do. Maybe that is a good thing in its own right.
Where do I go from here? I am considering making the document even more tech friendly, including a couple of QR codes linking to a page with my gradebook percentages, or to a post on my class website about how comprehensible input works, and will include a large invitation for parents to visit class and see what their kids are learning, especially in next year’s Spanish 1 group. The family connection is something I really do want to work on. Perhaps I will begin a regular blog for students and parents to keep them posted on what is happening in my room.