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Summer Syllabus Design Workshops

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Welcome to the community page for entering Bryn Mawr and Haverford College faculty exploring syllabus development -- in the BiCo context! 

Here you will find small sampler of readings and syllabi.  You are welcome to address questions and comments to workshop leader Alice Lesnick (alesnick@brynmawr.edu).

The discussion series is in three sessions, with each session including a range of perspectives and practical wisdom from current and former students. Session 1 and 2 will be offered in both an online and in-person format; Session 3 will take place in person new faculty during orientation.

Entry Questions

  • What are the most important purposes/functions of a syllabus?  
  • Are any of these in conflict with one another?  If so, how do or how might you address these conflicts?
  • What/who are the various audiences for your syllabus, and how do you mediate them in the text?
  • Who or what is privileged by your syllabus? Who or what is obscured, eclipsed, excised?
  • How do you imagine students using/interacting with/challenging/informing your syllabus? 

Syllabus Design Workshop 1 & 2 Agenda and Notes 

Syllabus Design Workshop 3, August 2016

 

Related Readings

On The Syllabus (for session 1)

Lang, The Promising Syllabus

Lang, On Course: The Syllabus

TLI, What Students Hope for in a Syllabus

TLI, What Students Hope for in a Syllabus (responses of graduates) 

Volk, The Dual Life of a Syllabus

Assessible Syllabus, http://accessiblesyllabus.tulane.edu/

 

Additional Selected Resources on syllabus and course design

Fink, Guide to Course Design (for more here, see L. Dee Fink's (2013) Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses)

Lang, The 3 Essential Functions of Your Syllabus, Part 1

Universal Design for Learning: http://ada.osu.edu/resources/fastfacts/Universal-Design-FF.pdf

Universal Design for Learning in a Multimedia Environment: http://www.cited.org/index.aspx?page_id=147

Wesley, Did You Assign Enough Reading? Or Too Much? http://chronicle.com/article/Do-You-Assign-Enough-Reading-/237085/?cid=VTKT1

Judith Baker, Trilingualism

 

Bryn Mawr College and Haverford College Honor Codes

Bryn Mawr College Honor Code 

FAQ 

Haverford College Honor Code

 

A Small Sampler of Recent Syllabi from Bryn Mawr and Haverford Faculty

Prof. Alice Lesnick, (BMC/HC Education), Education 200: Critical Issues in Education

Prof. Ken Koltun-Fromm and Laurie Allen, (Magill Library): Religion 128: Reading Sacred Texts

Prof. Ken Koltun-Fromm and Dean Theresa Tensuan (Religion and English, HC) Drawing the Line: Autobiography as Graphic Narrative

Prof. Jenny Spohrer, (History, BMC) History 240: Europe Since 1945

Prof. Anne Dalke (English and Gender Studies, BMC) Balch Seminar: Changing our Story: /oneworld/changing-our-story-2015/sylla-ship-changing-our-story-fall-2015

Prof. Anne Dalke (English and Gender Studies, BMC) Rhetorics of Silence (part of Arts of Resistance 360): /oneworld/arts-resistance/rhetorics-silence-f15-sylla-ship

Prof. David Ross, (Economics, BMC) Econ 242: Economics of Local Environmental Programs

Prof. Amy Myers, (Math, BMC) Math 101: Calculus 1

Prof. Joel Schlosser (BMC, Political Science) On The Human Condition: The Political Thinking of Hannah Arendt

 

Grading and Assessment

"Will This Be on the Test?" An Overemphasis on Grades Might Be Killing the Desire to Learn - Education - GOOD http://t.co/zsVqPRw

Michael Watson, What is Mastery? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Koj2NheuWn4

Peter Elbow's "Ranking, Evaluating, and Liking: Sorting Out Three Forms of Judgment."  (College English, 55) (2), Feb. 1993, 187-206.)  Available at:http://lgdata.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/docs/259/68300/elbow_ranking.pdf.  (This is a classic piece from Literacy Studies, with resonance for others.)

http://www.stolaf.edu/depts/cis/web_portfolios.htm
http://apps.carleton.edu/campus/writingprogram/carletonwritingprogram/

For resources and and documentation of faculty working group on assessment that met for two years, visit its Serendip page.

 

Culturally Relevant/Sustaining Pedagogy

Kennth Jones & Tema Okun, White Supremacy Culture: from Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups -- A list of characteristics of white supremacy culture that show up in our institutions.

Paris, D. (2012). Culturally sustaning pedagogy, A needed change in stance, termology and practice. Educational Researcher, 41,3, 93-97.

Religious Holidays, http://www.bucknell.edu/Documents/Chaplain/ReligiousHolidays.pdf