Open Syllabus Education
At the college level, a relatively new, in name not in theory, concept called open syllabus education has slowly been finding place in a variety of college classrooms. With this method of teaching college classes, professors not only practice transparency, but also incorporate elements of democratic education into their courses.
In March, I attended a presentation at the Ethnography in Education Research Forum which discussed using an “open syllabus” in undergraduate and graduate classes. An open syllabus was described by one of the presenters as an “attempt at democratic education” and involved allowing students in a course to design their own syllabus, including choosing which topics to study, what assignments to complete, and how grading would be decided. This was contrasted with the traditional “closed syllabus” in which all decisions about a class are made by the professor prior to the class beginning (Matusov 2014). The "menu" of presentation topic to the side reflects how an open syllabus course might be approached with students by listing a variety of topics that can be altered or addressed in any order.
This presentation was given by panel of professors and graduate students who discussed their experiences teaching and taking classes that used an open syllabus. According to Eugene Matusov, one of the professors leading the research on open syllabus education, there are seven key components to utilizing an open syllabus and facilitating a class that uses an open syllabus (Matusov 2014):
1. Pedagogical regime
2. Open dialogic instruction
3. Open curriculum
4. Learning commitments
5. Class policies
6. Summative assessment
7. Class decision making
In March, I attended a presentation at the Ethnography in Education Research Forum which discussed using an “open syllabus” in undergraduate and graduate classes. An open syllabus was described by one of the presenters as an “attempt at democratic education” and involved allowing students in a course to design their own syllabus, including choosing which topics to study, what assignments to complete, and how grading would be decided. This was contrasted with the traditional “closed syllabus” in which all decisions about a class are made by the professor prior to the class beginning (Matusov 2014). The "menu" of presentation topic to the side reflects how an open syllabus course might be approached with students by listing a variety of topics that can be altered or addressed in any order.
This presentation was given by panel of professors and graduate students who discussed their experiences teaching and taking classes that used an open syllabus. According to Eugene Matusov, one of the professors leading the research on open syllabus education, there are seven key components to utilizing an open syllabus and facilitating a class that uses an open syllabus (Matusov 2014):
1. Pedagogical regime
2. Open dialogic instruction
3. Open curriculum
4. Learning commitments
5. Class policies
6. Summative assessment
7. Class decision making
The pedagogical regime refers to how the class will run over the course of the semester. Students can decide whether or not they want to take full ownership of class decisions and procedures, if they want the professor to take on a more traditional role and make decisions for the class, or if they want to facilitate the class together, drawing input from both classmates and the professor. Within in this pedagogical regime, students can decide the extent to which they would like to use open dialogic instruction and an open curriculum, both of which allow for students to take individualized paths within the scope of the course that will enable them to arrive at the same instructional and learning end goals (Matusov 2014). Many of the professors at the presentation talked about providing students with a curriculum map with many different topics they could study and allowed the students to collaboratively decide what was most important to them, and also how they wanted their learning to be assessed.
The last four components of open syllabus education address elements of the class that will allow students to achieve their ultimate learning goals. Students can make decisions on the class policies for attendance, grading, discussion, projects, and reading. They can also work together to decide on a final assessment, what format it will be in and how it will be graded. The picture at the right shows an introduction to an open syllabus course led by Professor Scott Richardson which describes the rationale behind open syllabus courses and
what role students are expected to play in the formation of the class syllabus.
Though the concept and theory behind open syllabus education sounded promising, and the panelists spoke about the positive and negative aspects of using it in their classes, the setting in which an open syllabus is typically used was very different from the one in which I was currently teaching. Much of the panelists’ research and experiences were in undergraduate and graduate level courses, with smaller groups of students, who are more likely to be intrinsically motivated and driven to design and facilitate a class themselves.
The last four components of open syllabus education address elements of the class that will allow students to achieve their ultimate learning goals. Students can make decisions on the class policies for attendance, grading, discussion, projects, and reading. They can also work together to decide on a final assessment, what format it will be in and how it will be graded. The picture at the right shows an introduction to an open syllabus course led by Professor Scott Richardson which describes the rationale behind open syllabus courses and
what role students are expected to play in the formation of the class syllabus.
Though the concept and theory behind open syllabus education sounded promising, and the panelists spoke about the positive and negative aspects of using it in their classes, the setting in which an open syllabus is typically used was very different from the one in which I was currently teaching. Much of the panelists’ research and experiences were in undergraduate and graduate level courses, with smaller groups of students, who are more likely to be intrinsically motivated and driven to design and facilitate a class themselves.
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