6 Part B: Humanizing Syllabus Statements

“Sometimes the words on the syllabus really make me anxious. I’m so worried I’m going to do something wrong.”- Anonymous student

“When I read the syllabus, it seems like the instructor sees teaching as a chore. They probably don’t mean it that way, but there are so many rules. Do we know why all the rules are there?”- Fourth-year Science student

The tone of your syllabus can set the mood for the entire course. The students we interviewed often highlighted how they felt their relationship with their instructor could be supported or impeded by this tone.

In practice, this can look like:

• Use positive, welcoming, and motivating language. Use first-person point-of-view and show enthusiasm for what ‘we’ will do together during the course. A suggestion is to start the syllabus with “Your success in this class is important to me.” Where possible, avoid language that sounds like rules and try to keep it more as a conversation about learning.
• Foreground your expectations. For example, “I see teaching as a partnership between everyone in the class…”
• List each week’s learning outcomes/goals on the course page instead of the syllabus to prevent the syllabus from being too long.
• Think carefully about where you place items in the syllabus as well. For example, one instructor places a statement at the top related to student mental health and creating a supportive environment. These details often get buried in the syllabus.
• Offer up a secondary, simplified visual syllabus (perhaps using one of these templates) CambrianCollege.ca/templates, or even create this with the students.
• Break up the syllabus to make it more readable, such as segmenting it into categories (instead of a 12 page-long document) and presenting it in Q&A format, e.g. What to do when I missed a class? How do I prepare for projects? How do I find helps and supports?, etc.
• Include a separate glossary of frequently used terms on metalanguage, theories, abbreviations, campus-specific words, and course survival expressions, etc.
• One instructor includes a “Dear students” letter that is typically one page in length. It identifies the challenges we are currently facing, and how we are all going to face them together. This includes text such as: “I want you to promise to take care of yourself first…Your health and wellness are more important than your work. If you are worried how doing what is right for your health and wellness might impact your ability to succeed in this course, please chat with me.”; “I believe this semester is going to be amazing. Will it be perfect? No. Will I mess something up? Probably. Will we experience growing pains and bumps along the way? Undoubtedly. But whatever happens, be reassured that I will do my best to make the semester as positive and successful as possible for everyone.”; “The semester may prove to be challenging, so let’s do our best to practice empathy, patience, and kindness for ourselves and for others.”
• Write syllabi in a way that moves away from “penalties” and towards what we are doing together. Headings include “where we learn is important”, “what are we going to learn together”, “when are we going to get together”, etc. – so that the students (hopefully) see that they are part of the class – it’s not just me talking at them.
• Try to remove “extra” stuff from the course that isn’t necessary to master the course learning outcomes. This can provide more flexibility during the semester, and may allow you to offer students a course “reading week” or “reading class”. Instead of coming to class, they have the option to catch up on other work (for any class), catch up on work for our class, sleep, go for a walk (or do some other thing that is good for their mental/physical help), or they can join you for an open question period.
• If your syllabus is in an infographic format, make sure that you also have a plain text one because some syllabi with too many images that are not alt-texted can be difficult to navigate for students with ADHD or blind, low vision students.