Engaging Students with an Interactive Graphic Syllabus

Sarah Schaller, University of Northern Colorado
Brianne T. Dixon, University of Northern Colorado
Molly M. Jameson, University of Northern Colorado
Angela L. Vaughan, University of Northern Colorado

How often do students ask questions that are easily answered by consulting the syllabus? Syllabi contain a wealth of information to benefit students—everything from course requirements to campus resources. But lengthy textual syllabi are boring and hard to understand, and the information is effectively lost. What’s more, syllabi typically give students an undesirable first impression of the class. They read like a subpoena to a dull, uninteresting semester and are crammed full of policies that may present the instructor as an adversary rather than a helpful resource. Clearly, syllabi must be presented in a way that doesn’t hamper understanding and motivation. In this issue, a simple one-sheet interactive graphic syllabus is recommended that can benefit students and instructors.

As an educator, you know the uncertainty on your students’ faces as they enter the classroom for the first time. They enter warily, perhaps wondering if they’re in the right place. First-year students are in a period of overwhelming transition. They’re on their own, navigating new freedom and new responsibility. During this time, students are inundated with communication—in the classroom, across campus, and through electronic platforms. Receiving this flood of information is like drinking from a firehose.

One of the first things instructors do in the classroom is drag students through the syllabus. This might be five or fifteen pages of 12-point font, detailing course requirements and campus resources, paragraph after paragraph groaning under the weight of “legalese.” Simply put, syllabi are boring and hard to understand. Even in the field of marketing, where faculty are experts in effective forms of communication, instructors create “dull, difficult-to-read textual documents” (Taylor, 2019, p. 271). For some students, this syllabus finds a place neatly organized in a binder. For others, it ends up in the trash or on the floor of their dorm only to disappear under their bed.

Syllabi are information-heavy because they need to be: the information they contain is important. Even items that don’t seem relevant to the student right now might be critical later. Yet because syllabi are inaccessible (Wilson, 2017), most students will not know how to find support when they need it. They may be confused about something as simple as getting the proper textbook, or students may have more serious problems, such as finding services in times of crisis. For example, Gray and Pin (2016) found that when 88% of students received information about sexual assault, 78% of them still didn’t know how to report it (as cited by Magnussen & Shankar, 2019). Clearly, syllabi need to be accessible and engaging. Students with diverse needs and backgrounds should easily understand what is expected of them and how they can get support (Beyene et al., 2020; Thompson, 2018).

Even before students enter the classroom, the syllabus shapes their expectations of the instructor and the course. Research on student responses to syllabi shows that after viewing a traditional syllabus, students expect the course to be uninteresting—a lecture class with an instructor droning on at the front of the room. These syllabi are packed full of rules and policies that leave students feeling like their instructor is “cold, uncompromising, and unfriendly” (Palmer et al., 2016, p. 40). Worse, these students believe their instructor does not expect them to be successful. On the other hand, syllabi that are student-centered and visually interesting indicate that the instructor is enthusiastic and approachable. Students with these syllabi feel more comfortable and more motivated (Palmer et al., 2016). When you send your syllabus to students, you are sending them an invitation to a learning opportunity. Does the invitation you are sending match the tone of your class?

The more you know the more you see, buy the converse is also true, the more you seem the more you know.

- Aldous Huxley, English writer and philosopher (1894-1963)

It is proposed that a more effective alternative could be used in a first-year seminar that matches the purpose of supporting students’ successful transition to the university, a one-page graphic syllabus summary as an interactive guide to the course. By making the syllabus a welcoming, practical tool that students will keep and use, we break down barriers to student success. New evidence has shown that students are more engaged with a one-page graphic syllabus, and they find it more useful, which improves their attitudes toward the course and their instructor (Taylor, 2019). Students with an infographic syllabus retain more information (Mocek, 2017), and report feeling more excited (Mikhailova, 2018) and less anxious about the course (Kaur, 2021). When students access the simple, colorful syllabus through the learning management system, they have hyperlinks to course content and campus resources right at their fingertips. At first contact, students are invited to an interactive learning opportunity. Students can also screenshot this visual “big picture” syllabus for information at a glance.

Look at the syllabus in Figure 1:

• The upper half of the syllabus has everything students need to get started. At the top, instructor, and department information: email address, student hours, and office location or Zoom link.

• Contact information for the peer mentor is also provided. With the peer mentor’s permission, their phone number or GroupMe link provides one-touch access to communication.

• The class time and location are at the center so students can plainly see when and where to show up.

• In the Course Materials section, hyperlinks take students directly to the textbook purchase page and to the online research supplement.

The lower half of the syllabus gives information about course content and grading:

• A simple summary of the course objectives answers the question, “What will I learn in this class?”

• The major course requirements are listed with hyperlinks to the assignments on the campus learning management system.

• Through these links, students have access to comprehensive assignment instructions, rubrics, submission portals, etc.

• The section titled Grading is sure to attract students’ attention; this shows how different units of the course are weighted in their grade. For other classes, a breakdown of numerical points may be more helpful.

Quick access to university webpages is provided to connect students to support on campus:

• Whether this is for reporting sexual violence, requesting accommodations with disability resources, getting help from the Writing Center, or other concerns, students are more likely to explore these resources when they are just a click away.

• In the bottom corner of the syllabus, links take students to the full assignment checklist, course schedule, course homepage, and finally, the traditional syllabus which provides full details for everything highlighted on this tidy summary.

By now you’ve used technology in many effective ways to reduce the load on students. Why not your syllabus? Why is this key resource the last hold-out from a time of chalkboards and trapperkeepers? Whatever your legitimate answer to this question, weigh it against the success of your students. How can you make a graphic syllabus your own?

References

Beyene, W. M., Mekonnen, A. T., & Giannoumis, G. A. (2020) Inclusion, access, and accessibility of educational resources in higher education institutions: Exploring the Ethiopian context. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2020.1817580

Kaur, A. W. (2021). “Dope syllabus”: Student impressions of an infographicstyle visual syllabus. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 15(2) https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2021.150206

Magnussen, J., & Shankar, I. (2019). Where is it? Examining post-secondary students’ accessibility to policies and resources on sexual violence. The Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 49(2), 90-108.

Mocek, E. A. (2017). The effects of syllabus design on information retention by at-risk first semester college students. Syllabus, 6(2). (Publication No. 10106076). [Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University of Pennsylvania]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.

Mikhailova, E.A. (2018). Enhancing soil science education with a graphic syllabus. Natural Sciences Education, 47(1) 1-6. https://doi.org/10.4195/ nse2017.12.0025

Palmer, M. S., Wheeler, L. B., & Aneece, I. (2016). Does the document matter? The evolving role of syllabi in higher education. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 48(4), 36-47. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2016.11 98186

Taylor, D.G. (2019). First impressions: The impact of graphic syllabi on student attitudes: An abstract. In: Rossi, P., Krey, N. (Eds.), Finding new ways to engage and satisfy global customers (pp.271-272). Springer International Publishing. https://doi-org.unco.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/978-3-030-025687_66

Thompson, T. L. (2018). Disability resources in higher education, part 4: Digital accessibility. Dean & Provost, 19(9). https://doi.org/10.1002/ dap.30453

Wilson, J. D. (2017). Reimagining disability and inclusive education through universal design for learning. Disability Studies Quarterly, 37(2), 8. https:// doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v37i2.5417

Contact

Sarah Schaller
sarah.schaller@unco.edu