A reminder to myself, sharing for whoever needs to hear it:
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@inthehands I've always thought of a syllabus as a table of contents for a course. When I read a book, I don't pore over the table of contents-- I glance at it and perhaps look forward to some sections--- but since I'll be reading the book (taking the course), I know I'll get there.
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@inthehands I always gave them the "read everything before you do anything" trick test at the beginning of the term. At least I got to see who my star students were going to be, a minute later.
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Paul Cantrellreplied to Paul Cantrell last edited by [email protected]
And…that makes sense. Why would we reasonably expect a giant a wall of text delivered in one huge drop at the busy start of the term to work? I don’t like when people dump a giant wad of prose in my lap; why would the students?
I’ve had success with directing students to specific sections •in context• and •at the time• they are relevant in class. First week of class? Look at those learning goals. First homework? Read the section on copying. etc
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@shonin
Yeah, I’ve known people who did a non-trick syllabus quiz, and that can help.The trick test, though…I don’t know, I don’t like playing gotcha with my students. Often “star students” really means “students who’ve already received the hidden curriculum about how to work the prof,” and not “students who have the greatest potential if properly nurtured.”
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Paul Cantrellreplied to Paul Cantrell last edited by [email protected]
There’s often an air in education surrounding this stuff of “students are so stupid,” a sense that students are inherently the •adversaries• of teachers.
This bothers me immensely. If something •consistently• does not work for a large subset of students, even a majority, but I insist on continuing to do it, then who’s at fault: the students for not being •my• imaginary version of themselves, or me for failing to heed evidence?
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The answer to this question depends entirely on whether you think the primary purpose of school is education or gatekeeping.
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@inthehands I remember when the class year after me in my physics undergrad were struggling with most subjects because the uni had changed the degree structure drastically for that year. One day they went to the most, let me say genuine, lecturer there is and when they were complaining how no one is doing anything about the fact that they're all getting poor grades and failing, his response was, "we're under the impression that this is a particular bad year of students"
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@inthehands and I really wanna hammer in home that's this lecturer is one of the best in the faculty in the sense that he actually cared about us and didn't see us as a burden. I'll let you imagination paint a picture to how the rest of the faculty members were
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@engravecavedave oof
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young man yells at the cloudreplied to CaveDave last edited by
@engravecavedave @inthehands Assuming the "badness" of each year of students follows a normal bell-curve distribution, "this year of students is particularly bad" *is* a statement that can be true. However, I don't think the solution is to shrug and say "oh well, what can ya do, these kids just suck."
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Paul Cantrellreplied to young man yells at the cloud last edited by
@bamboombibbitybop @engravecavedave
Ask me about the 2020-2021 school year -
Framing it with an analogy:
I think for students, the syllabus feels a lot like the EULA for the course.
Do •you• read and absorb every EULA software throws in your face? Do you even scroll through it? (And of course some few of you can honestly answer “yes,” but that doesn’t mean that EULAs constitute good communication, much less meaningful consent.)
True, a syllabus isn’t written in legalese, but for students the experience is more similar to an EULA than we profs like to admit.
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@inthehands Our local school district has instituted a fairly aggressive policy on retakes and the dialog in local parent forums is just an astonishing wall of folks telling on themselves that way. Whenever I interact with them with my stock “are we doing better for the student long-term by working towards mastery of the subject or by issuing grades to assess knowledge at a specific point in time?” I get back various sputtering about consequences and rewards for high achievers.
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@donw
I am completely unsurprised by all of this. -
@inthehands perhaps one issue with the syllabus for students is that to absorb the syllabus fully often takes knowing the subject of the course already - knowing the jargon and terms and context, recognizing the works cited or the issues noted as being discussed.
But if the students had that knowledge they often wouldn’t be in the class. Upper level students (and grad students) may more often have the context to make sense of it snd use it for insights into the professor’s focus and goals
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Michael Dekkerreplied to Paul Cantrell last edited by
@inthehands with all due respect to Tufte, the cognitive style of powerpoint breaks up a wall of text into digestible chunks, often adding memorable images that function as memory aids. A slide show is a great application for syllabi.
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Paul Cantrellreplied to Michael Dekker last edited by
@dekk
Maybe? I feel like a well-organized syllabus with basic structural attention — good organization, good headings, visual anchor points — is going to serve as a better reference than a slide deck. And ultimately I feel like a syllabus should work primarily as a situational reference, not a linear read.