Visually Mapping Course Design for Students: The Graphic Syllabus*

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Visually Mapping Course Design for Students
The Graphic Syllabus

• Jackie Cason, Ph.D.
• Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence
• New Faculty Orientation
• Fall 2006

• Adapted from a pre-conference workshop by Linda
  B. Nilson,
• Clemson University, Writing Across the Curriculum
  Conference, May 2006, and from the UAF Center for
  Distance Education and Distance Learning Systems
  based on the work of Grant Wiggins Jay McTighe,
  1998, Understanding by Design.

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Reflecting on Current Practice

• What planning process do
• you currently use when
• developing a course and
• preparing your syllabus?
• Take a moment to generate a response.
• You can jot notes, create a diagram or flowchart,
  or write a descriptive paragraph.
• Just capture your current process!

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Identifying Course Goals

• Traditional Process
• Curriculum Content Guides http//www.curric.uaa.al
  aska.edu/curric/courses/
• Previous Syllabi
• Backward Design
• Enduring Understandings
• Essential Questions
• Unit Questions and Activities

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Traditional Process

• Teach, Test, Hope for the Best

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Backward Design

• Stages of the Backward Design Process

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Why Backward?

• The stages are logical but
• they go against habits!
• Were used to jumping to lesson and activity
  ideas first before clarifying our performance
  goals for students.
• By thinking through the assessments upfront, we
  ensure greater alignment of our goals and means,
  and ensure that our teaching is focused on
  desired results.

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Curricular Priorities

• Types of Understanding/Bodies of Knowledge

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Levels of Knowledge

• Its worth being familiar with if it
• ? is really interesting and adds value to
  lifelong learning.
• ? can be a hook to a big idea or theme.
• helps in making links to other ideas or
  disciplines.
• It is important to know and do if it
• ? is key to understanding the subject.
• ? is something one might need to know and do
  throughout life.
• ? links to enduring understandings.
• It is an enduring understanding if it
• ? is at the heart of the discipline.
• ? has value beyond the classroom.
• ? is that aspect of learning that will remain for
  a lifetime

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Uncoverage

• Instead of Covering Material, Uncover It
• Find ways to have students do the material, not
  just learn it.
• Focus on integrated performance, not isolated
  lessons.
• Enduring understandings are subtle and unobvious.
• Uncover what is vital and revealing.
• What is uncovered is a shorthand for results of
  inquiries, problems, and arguments, not
  self-evident fact.
• Breadth
• Unearth, Analyze, Question, Prove, Generalize
• Not the same as coverage
• Depth
• Connect, Picture, Extend

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Some Enduring Understandings

• American History
• Individuals and their varied backgrounds
  contribute to the diversity of American culture
  and society.
• Tensions are inherent in the principles, values,
  and ideals of American society.

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Some Enduring Understandings

• Composition Studies
• Communication is contextual and occurs at the
  intersection of writer, audience, and publication
  forum.
• Genres evolve, and are always evolving, as a
  matter of practice therefore, the rules of
  good writing are descriptive rather than
  prescriptive.
• Citation practices in academic writing are the
  means of joining an ongoing intellectual
  conversation and a way of contributing new
  knowledge to that conversation.
• Writing styles arise out of a communitys
  particular ways of knowing and being.

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ActivityEnduring Understandings

• Use Worksheet 1

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Understanding ? Questions
Understanding Leads to Essential Questions

• From Enduring Understandings
• Physics the nature of gravitational force
• History the subjective aspect of the historical
  record
• Literature the roles of morals, heroes, and
  villains in fiction
• Communication the characteristics of sarcasm,
  irony, and spin
• Create Essential Questions
• What is gravity?
• Is history objective? Is it a history of
  progress?
• Must fiction involve morality?
• Do we always mean what we say and say what we
  mean?
• The Essential Questions Endure
• Recur throughout the course (and beyond)
• Cant be answered simply or sometimes at all

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Essential Questions

• Essential Questions--Organizational Framework for
  Units of Instruction
• Go to the heart of the disciplineaddress the
  philosophical or conceptual foundations of the
  discipline
• Have no obvious right answer
• Recur naturally throughout ones learning and in
  the history of the field/discipline
• Raise other important questions, often across
  disciplinary boundaries
• Lead readily to asking research or inquiry
  questions
• Are framed to provoke and sustain student
  interest

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ActivityEssential Questions

• Use Worksheet 2

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Essential ? Unit Questions
Essential Questions Lead to Unit Questions

• Unit questions inform class activities
• Uncover facets of essential understandings
• Still not self-evidently true uncovered
• Provoke/sustain student interest
• Samples of Unit Questions
• Physics How is gravity related to mass? Explain
  the basic inverse square proportion (Newtons
  Law)
• History How have perceptions of Columbus (and
  our celebration of Columbus Day) changed? Why?
• Literature Who are the moral centers of Huck
  Finn?
• Communication Is the Alanis Morrissette song
  Ironic actually ironic? How does it differ in
  this respect from Mark Antonys Brutus is an
  honorable man?

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First Impressions Course Design and the Graphic
Syllabus

• Now that you have taken the time to design your
  course with enduring understandings, essential
  questions, and authentic activities and
  assessments, how do you communicate that to
  students?

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Traditional Definition of a Syllabus

• The Oxford English Dictionary defines syllabus as
  a statement of the subjects covered by a course
  of instruction or by an examination, in a school,
  college, etc. a programme of study 1889.

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How Some Students See Your Syllabus and Course
Design

• Organization of Course, BLAH 300 Something I
  Gotta Take to Graduate
• Week 1 Overview of Orienteering through
  Obstacles
• Week 2 From Compasses to GPS Technology
• Week 3 Hiking Boots and Knot Tying
• Week 4 ContUntying Knots
• Week 5 Encountering Wildlife I Bears and
  Beavers
• Week 6 Encountering Wildlife II Moose and
  Waterfowl
• Week 7 Fur Rendezvous
• Week 8 How to Cure a Hangover and Prevent
  Pregnancy
• Week 9 Cabin Fever and S.A.D.

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Four Functions of a Syllabus

• A contract
• A communication device
• A plan of action
• A cognitive map

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A Contract

• The syllabus is an important legal document that
  represents an agreement between you and your
  students.
• Consider seriously the policies you want to
  enforce.

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A Communication Device

• The syllabus provides the opportunity to
  anticipate and respond to student questions and
  to establish a tone for the course.

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A Plan of Action

• The syllabus should represent the overall plan
  of action for the semester
• Course mission http//curric.uaa.alaska.edu/curric
  /courses/
• Educational philosophy
• Course strategy
• Course goals

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HandoutSyllabus ChecklistCAS Template Checklist
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A Cognitive Map

• Because students need to engage actively in
  creating their own cognitive maps, you can
  facilitate active learning by modeling the
  mapping process.

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What is a Graphic Syllabus?

• Definition
• A flow chart, diagram, or topical organization of
  the course that complements the printed syllabus.

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Benefits of a Graphic Syllabus

• Appeals to nonverbal learning styles
• Models a learning tool by encouraging students to
  map course concepts
• Reinforces memory
• Offers the big picture without being over-laden
  with language
• Forces us to tighten our own course organization
  and to clarify the enduring understandings and
  essential questions as well as the relationships
  among various units of instruction
• Releases faculty creativity in course design

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Examples

• See handouts with examples of graphic syllabi
• Social Stratification
• Conservation Biology
• Public Science Writing

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Variations in Graphic Syllabi

• Shape, Shading, and Color of key enclosures,
  activities, assignments, etc.
• Shape, Shading, and Color of Connecting lines
• Type size, face, features (bold, italics)
• Graphic metaphors or symbols

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Verbal Visual Variations

• Verbal
• When properly implemented, the case method,
  problem-based learning, (PBL), service-learning
  (SL), and simulations all teach students how to
  apply course material.
• Visual

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Verbal Visual Variations

• Verbal
• When properly implemented, the case method,
  problem-based learning, (PBL), service-learning
  (SL), and simulations all teach students how to
  apply course material.
• Visual

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Verbal Visual Variations

• Verbal
• When properly implemented, the case method,
  problem-based learning, (PBL), service-learning
  (SL), and simulations all teach students how to
  apply course material.
• Visual

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Verbal Visual Variations

• Verbal
• When properly implemented, the case method,
  problem-based learning, (PBL), service-learning
  (SL), and simulations all teach students how to
  apply course material.
• Visual

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Verbal Visual Variations

• Verbal
• When properly implemented, the case method,
  problem-based learning, (PBL), service-learning
  (SL), and simulations all teach students how to
  apply course material.
• Visual

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Verbal Visual Variations

• Verbal
• When properly implemented, the case method,
  problem-based learning, (PBL), service-learning
  (SL), and simulations all teach students how to
  apply course material.
• Visual

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ActivityExercise in Thinking Graphically

• Use Worksheet 3

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ActivityDesigning A Graphic Syllabus for your
Course