It's that time of the year & we're talking syllabi: How to create or tweak, how to co-design with students, whether or not they're a contract, what purposes they serve & whose voices are included and excluded. Here's a THREAD about ANNOTATING your syllabus with your students 1/10
A bit of context: In 2016, I started using @hypothes_is open web annotation in my courses. Students read texts together, sometimes publicly though often privately, and use H for collaborative discussion & to deepen convo around topics & ideas based upon interests & questions 2/10
In addition to collaboratively annotating texts for discussion throughout the semester, my students and I also use @hypothes_is to annotate our syllabus together. And we do so during the very first week of class. This activity serves a number of very important functions. 3/10
First, web annotation is new for many students. They need to create a @hypothes_is account. There are technical skills to learn. There are also social norms to develop. Guiding students to annotate our syllabus is low risk, scaffolds skill building and begins to build norms. 4/10
Second, annotating our syllabus is an opportunity for students to ask questions. Maybe an assignment isn't clear. Is there a mistake with something? Is that a copyediting error? This initial annotation experience raises & addresses many ?s that would pop up later in the term 5/10
And because the annotated syllabus is available to students throughout the semester, this record of Q&A is a persistent resource. This shifts classic "It's in the syllabus, did you read?" to constructive "We discussed this when annotating our syllabus, pls revisit our convo" 6/10
Third, collaboratively annotating our syllabus shows students that I welcome their questions & feedback, that I value curiosity & opinion, that our course is a work in progress. Among strategies I use to co-design courses with students, annotating our syllabus sets the tone. 7/10
Fourth, an annotated syllabus functions as a shadow syllabus. Many of us are required to submit our syllabi for various reasons. Yet many of us also want to include details, ideas or readings not on the record. A private annotation layer creates & shares your shadow syllabus 8/10
OK so you want to annotate your syllabus with your students? If you're using @hypothes_is like me, you could host it as a PDF to a blog. And then access via a post or just with the doc's link. Or use H within the Canvas LMS. Or use docdrop.org. You've got options 9/10
This school year make a commitment to annotated syllabi. Create a Q&A record that will save you and your students time. More importantly, open up your syllabus as a discursive space for students' questions & conversation. An annotated syllabus will make a meaningful impact. 10/10
