7 Part C: Humanizing the Syllabus to be Liquid and Flexible

“Hmmm…I’m thinking of windows…I wonder if it would be possible to have due weeks instead of due days… Like, we have a week-long window to submit our work and maybe get a bonus mark if we submit it early.” – Fourth-year Information Studies student

“Mid–day or morning deadlines always cause more stress. Most students are busy during the day and have class, so you sometimes end up missing class when you are rushing to meet a mid-day deadline. Also, if an assignment is due lets say at like 9am vs. 11:59pm, you may find yourself pulling an all-nighter to complete it on time.” – Recent Religion graduate

“While the time to study and catch up is appreciated – there should be dedicated time to rest. Students are experiencing increased stress and mental health pressures. If we care about students we have to care about their rest.”– Habon Ali, graduate

“One of my all-time favorite professors from my BSc said during the first lecture that there were no due dates. There were times when he wanted assignments submitted, but as long as all the assignments were submitted two weeks before the exam, he was happy. We were given bonus marks if we submitted by the time he wanted them in, but not penalized otherwise. The majority of the class handed things in when he requested them and he was always a favorite of the students.” M. Ward, MSc. Candidate

A humanized syllabus has flexibility at its core. Fabrey & Keith^[1] suggest that instructors incorporate holistic student support, and emphasize student well-being in courses (e.g., on the syllabus), in order to make online teaching more flexible and sustainable. Guzzardo et al.^[2] note the importance of “being flexible or willing to adapt course policies and requirements to students’ needs or unique characteristics so that they feel supported in their efforts for academic success.” Where possible (depending on your institution and teaching load) the policies and requirements that are laid out in the syllabus should be open to adaptation and change. The instructor should also be open to adapting the syllabus to support the unique and evolving needs of learners. Casey & Wilson^[3] suggest learner choice as an important component of flexible teaching and learning. Guidelines for resilient course design are offered by Quintana and colleagues,^[4] and include designing for flexibility and extensibility, as well as focusing on “the capacity of instructors to rethink the design of learning experiences based on a nuanced understanding of changing educational contexts.” In designing the course syllabus, instructors should be open to allowing learning activities, evaluations/assessments, and experiences to change and evolve, based on the surrounding context and environment.

In practice, this can look like:

• Deliverables may be accepted in whatever format and medium students choose to express their thoughts and ideas, though this may not work in all courses because learning outcomes may require that students master certain formats.
• Keep the best out of a set range of scores for an assignment with multiple submissions.
• List deadlines as “due the week of” or within a range of dates, rather than on a specific date.
• Include an opportunity for a mid-course check when students and the instructor(s) can speak openly about their experience so far, and possibly re-assess or negotiate regarding assessments, tasks, or other obligations (if the students are finding 3 weekly posts too much, drop it to 1, etc.).
• Give students ownership over choosing deadlines for some assignments.
• Give students ownership over choosing assignment topics or points of focus.
• Move traditionally completed in-class assessments online and make them default double or triple time.
• Provide room for students to modify or add to the assigned reading list to fit learning goals.
• Allow students to pick the dates when an assignment or presentation is due. This enables them to pick weeks that are better suited to their schedules and to plan their own timeline to complete the work.
• Give students an opportunity to discuss how they would engage with each other in the course in terms of humanizing their interactions. What does respectful discourse look like on discussion boards, in chat boxes, and in-class conversations.
• Involve students in the articulation of learning outcomes. Since learning outcomes need to be finalized for course outline purposes, one instructor conducts a “choral explanation” of the course. Choral Explanations are a practice that asks individuals to describe or explain something in their own words and share their response. As we read through multiple explanations of a single idea, we each have a chance to make deeper connections and understandings of the concept. The instructor applied this exercise to course learning outcomes by asking each student re-write them to explain what that outcome meant to them in their own words, and to give an example of how they might teach this outcome to students.