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Some of you remember my syllabus redesign assignment that I& #39;ve talked about on here before—it asks my document design students to redesign a syllabus from one of their classes in an effort to make it more useable.
An observation as this is now my second go-around with the project:
some students have a hard time even getting their hands on a copy of syllabi for their classes because...
some students have a hard time even getting their hands on a copy of syllabi for their classes because...
- the instructor only provides a hard copy on the first day of class that inevitably gets lost
- the instructor only provides the syllabus as embedded text on the LMS; no option to download as a PDF
- the instructor doesn& #39;t provide a copy of the syllabus at all
- the instructor only provides the syllabus as embedded text on the LMS; no option to download as a PDF
- the instructor doesn& #39;t provide a copy of the syllabus at all
Of course, this opens up my class to conversations about accessibility and user-centered design/delivery, which I& #39;m grateful to have with them, but not like this, y& #39;all.
My my my my my... we need to do better for our students with the bare basics of our classes.
My my my my my... we need to do better for our students with the bare basics of our classes.
And just like with last time I taught this assignment, a large number of students in the class redesigned syllabi that are literally just pages and pages of text.
No headings. No bolding. No spacing between sections. No images. Just text. Lots of it.
No headings. No bolding. No spacing between sections. No images. Just text. Lots of it.
In the style of Moby Dick, just text. A lot of text.
I& #39;m not here to shame anyone who does this, but y& #39;all: it& #39;s a really good reminder that we should be sharing our teaching materials with others for feedback (and best case scenario—wouldn& #39;t it be awesome if we usability tested our syllabi with actual students?!).
These things take time and labor, sure, but they& #39;re worth it.
