The “Self and Syllabus” tool from Baylor University allows instructors to compare the language in their syllabi to their emotional associations of teaching. The syllabus is often the front door of a college course, but research has found that professors’ positive feelings about teaching — excitement, say, or enjoyment — are often not conveyed in what can sometimes be a pretty clinical text.
The tool was developed by Baylor’s Academy for Teaching and Learning and its University Libraries. The idea for it came from a session on digital humanities tools that the academy hosted several years back, explained Christopher Richmann, the academy’s associate director, in an interview. The session covered how language-analysis tools could be used to evaluate emotional valence in historical accounts, like sermons and letters. “And I thought, well, a document is a document, right?” Richmann said. He decided to use the same technique to analyzesyllabi and created an open-access tool to do so.
Richmann worked with the university’s digital humanities-scholarship librarian. They came up with an approach that measures congruence between the language on the syllabus and the way instructors view themselves as teachers. The idea is to provide an evidence-based answer to the question, “Do you show up on your syllabus?”
After viewing their results, instructors can try to improve the congruence wherever it’s lacking, if they so desire. The tool includes a thesaurus to spark some ideas on alternative language. Of course, not every synonym will fit the bill. But professors might have more choices on hand than they initially believed. Even common terminology need not be followed.
Richmann gave a few examples of changes he has made. He no longer lists “required texts,” saying instead “books that you need.” And he’s jettisoned “learning objectives” for “what you will do to demonstrate your learning.”
The Teaching + Learning Lab at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology has created a checklist tool for instructors who want their syllabi to convey their use of inclusive teaching practices.
The checklist is a streamlined, instructor-facing version of a tool developed for researchers studying teaching practices, said Ruthann C. Thomas, associate director of teaching and learning at the lab.
It’s broken into three sections, “Transparent + Purposeful Communication,” “Structured Support,” and “Community and Belonging.”
Each category has a checklist of items instructors can click through, and many of the items are paired with good examples from the syllabi of MIT professors teaching in many different disciplines.
Instructors perusing these examples, I imagine, might get ideas both for how to better convey inclusive practices they already use and of additional practices they might want to adopt. Going through the exercise, Thomas said, could prompt professors to consider: “How can I be more purposeful in my teaching more generally?”
If using one of these tools leads you to refine the language on your syllabi or try something new, I’d love to hear about it: beckie.supiano@chronicle.com
Hearing from Richmann and Thomas was also a good reminder of the research-backed, home-grown tools some faculty developers have come up with and found ways to share openly. Do you know of another good tool, created by you or someone else? Tell me about the tool and, if applicable, how it’s helped you at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com. If enough good examples come in, I will share them in a future issue.
Seeking student stories
Regular readers know that Beth has been exploring how AI is reshaping teaching. She has written about whether everyone needs AI literacy, how some writing instructors are trying to encourage students to write without AI, and why others are leaning in.
But what do students think of AI? What tools and apps are they using on their own time? And how do they see AI shaping teaching and learning?
We would love to hear from students. If you’re interested in finding out the answers to those questions, too, and are willing to share this Google form with your students, please do. Beth will be using those responses to shape her reporting. Students can also write directly to her at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com.
Thanks for reading Teaching. If you have suggestions or ideas, please feel free to email us at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com or beckie.supiano@chronicle.com.
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