Socializing Students through the Syllabus

“It’s not what you know, but who you know” is one of the most common colloquialisms when it comes to career trajectory. In addition, a big part of attending higher education is to help propel students' careers. While we may want to prepare students by just giving them the necessary knowledge for their future endeavors, we should also strive to take this time to help establish connections and reasonable paths forward for them as well.
 

Student engagement is defined by how actively and enthusiastically students are involved in the learning process during class. Meanwhile, participation refers to the actual involvement of the students. So, it is possible for:

• a student to participate without being engaged, or
• a student to be engaged but not participate.

This is important to consider when defining your pedagogical approach to classroom engagement and participation, and how you define it within your class. If you plan to award student participation, or your class heavily relies on discussion and active student engagement, you may even want to provide these definitions in the syllabus.

However, you may not directly explain these ideas and instead focus on whether to ask these questions of your syllabus:

• Does your teaching style facilitate your views of participation/engagement?
• Is your syllabus communicating whether you want students to participate?
• Is the syllabus itself engaging for students?
• Do your assessments reflect your goals for participation/engagement?
• In what ways is your syllabus contributing to student participation and engagement?
   

Students working together is crucial for learning and development. It helps students build necessary social skills and establish relationships between current/future colleagues. It also increases active participation and engagement, and often increases student self-efficacy toward the course topic.

Therefore, it is encouraged that you construct course materials that facilitate peer-to-peer interactions and foster some sense of community within your classroom. As far as what to include in the syllabus, you should specify what types of activities you will hold that require peer-to-peer interactions, and what expectations you have of students during these interactions.

For example, the syllabus may contain:

• A list of classroom rules that you or your class develops:
  • Developing them yourself lets you be in control of exactly what values you want accentuated in your class.
  • Developing them as a class can communicate that students have autonomy over their learning and increase classroom engagement.
     
• Examples of peer-discussion techniques you use:
  • Whole Group Discussions:
    • Ask your class to consider a question/topic and facilitate a group discussion on the topic, allowing students to speak freely and challenge one another.
  • Think-Pair-Share:
    • Ask students to individually consider a question/topic, discuss it with a partner, then share their insights with the whole class.
  • Mingle-Pair-Share:
    • Similar to think-pair-share, except students can move freely about the class and have discussions with multiple students.
  • Discussion Groups:
    • Breaking students into smaller groups to hold discussions on a question/topic, which can then be brought into larger group discussions.
  • Jigsaw:
    • Break down a larger topic into smaller pieces and allow each group to focus on an individual piece to share out in a whole-class discussion.
  • Collaborative Assignments:
    • Students work together in small groups to develop material specified by a rubric or find solutions to laid-out problems.
  • Socratic Seminar:
    • This is an open discussion based on an assigned set of readings. Instead of generating a question or specific topic you want students to consider, just allow them to openly discuss the material and explore at their own pace.     

There are numerous other ways you may facilitate peer-to-peer relationships and communication; regardless of how you choose to do so, it is helpful to communicate that to students upfront and through the syllabus.
 

Fair or not, how students reflect on course material, or a specific subject, largely depends on their (impression of)/ (relationship with) their teacher. For this reason, it’s important to have a positive relationship between an instructor and their student. The syllabus, again, especially as a first impression, can help facilitate this relationship and help an instructor feel more approachable. For this reason, it’s important that your syllabus:

• Sets a welcoming/positive tone:
  • Clearly communicate your enthusiasm for the course and the students participating.
  • Set expectations but don’t dictate them.
  • Include words with positive connotations
    • As an example, instead of describing student work as “acceptable,” consider saying it is “valid” or “commendable.”
  • Avoid negatives (such as “do not” or “unable to” as much as possible)
     
• Encourages engagement:
  • You’ve explained what types of engagement you’re looking for, but now it is important to encourage that from students. To do so:
    • Give examples of your interactive content.
    • Engage in storytelling by sharing personal details you feel comfortable sharing.
    • Ask for and encourage student feedback.
    • Be authentic.
       
• Promotes your availability:
  • One of the leading reasons students don’t attend office hours is that they feel they are “awkward.” To break through this barrier, you might:
    • Explain the value office hours provide students:
      • Promote the benefits, such as improved understanding and better test scores.
      • Highlight success stories
    • Offer flexible scheduling for office hours.
    • Consider location/modality:
      • Are you available via video or only in-person?
      • If in-person, where are you available to meet, and how accessible is that to the students?
    • Set one-on-one meetings during the semester.
      • These can be informal and short to get students familiar with the process, or perhaps there is a specific purpose tied to the meeting.

Students who feel more comfortable with their instructor tend to perform significantly better in a course and have a stronger sense of confidence in their own ability. Fostering this relationship is one of the most crucial things for the educator to create a positive classroom environment.
 

With the goal in mind that students attend college to increase career success, it is important to use our abilities and connections to help them achieve it. This will appear vastly different depending on the field of study and possible career paths, but here are some forms this may take:

• Connect students with other faculty: Perhaps another member of the department or institution you know has better connections that align with a student’s career aims, or areas of interest.
• Have guest speakers: You can’t know everything, and having a guest speaker can help students gain exposure to the community around the topic they’re studying and form meaningful connections with them.
• Utilize connections in the field: You more than likely studied this material at your own university/had a job in the field. Consider connecting students to relevant contacts or having them be a guest speaker.
• Ask alumni: If you’ve had students who have gone into the field, especially if you’ve stayed in contact with them, consider having them be a guest speaker or asking them to explain how your class helped prepare them for industry. What types of things could you change in your class to help make this transition more effective?