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I think it might feel a little bit hard, but also exciting. I could imagine wanting to include more of what I think could be important, but I think I would learn a lot about students and their interests. I hope students would feel empowered.

One challenge I anticipate is time. I would want this to get the time it deserves, so I would have to figure out where I can adjust later.

I could imagine having students craft at least one of their own course objectives, maybe they would be the same for everyone or maybe each would be different. Maybe they could also outline a way that we (the student and I) would know they were successful, so this would extend to assessment.

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I teach a lot of design studios, which are very self-directed by students. I give the students full authorship of their projects. I have actually gotten the feedback that I need to be clearer about setting expectations so that they can be more creative within defined parameters. Some students are ok with flexibility, but many value clear guidelines.

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I've done this a few times and recognize that synthesizing student insights and collectively choosing the path forward (re: assignments, grading distribution, expectations etc) takes significantly more time than I budget. Like... double your estimate.  That being said, I highly recommend it! The engagement builds community and students bring brilliant ideas that shape our course in very productive ways.

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In Grad seminars, I have lots of options for topics or case studies. I list some I think we all need at the beginning, but there are also always "Wildcards" for later class presentations by students. I show a rough list of a few and indicate when we will make the choice. (It also helps to remind them the choice will happen in the next class.)

Case studies I suggest are just that. The students can pick others, but should know what goals I was trying ti highlight with a case study.

Students often tap into their own network (and build stronger ones) when they have this agency. I learn a lot. Plus of course, they are excited to be in leadership.

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I'd be comfortable co-constructing syllabi for some courses, but not others. Courses on topics about which students typically have very little experience (silent film, for instance) would be hard to co-construct. BUT I will be co-constructing the final unit of my Spring 2021 romantic comedy film course with students precisely because there is so little (good) scholarship on romantic comedy of the past 20 years -- especially about queer romantic comedy and romantic comedy that centers the romantic experiences of people of color. I think that this is essential to creating a space in which students can share and theorize in a personally and collectively significant way about how contemporary cinema dramatizes their experiences of romantic and sexual intimacy... and a-romantic or a-sexual intimacy! :)

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I have co-constructed assignments a lot -- what topics, articles to present, etc.  But I have not thought about it in relation to the syllabus itself.  This is a cool idea and will, on some level, really mess with the expectations students have of what a syllabus is and does.  Students may feel that the course is to touchy-feely/easy-A, but over time, I think they will embrace this change as it can be empowering and create a much-less stressful environment in the class.  would work hand-in-hand with project-based classes and assessments (which also mess with students' expectations of power dynamics, etc)

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they might also feel unsure,
and some will feel that it's the professor's job to teach them.

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I would be super excited to make co-construction happen.

I would be concerned that students would hesitate to participate, and/or that quiet students or students who might feel especially vulnerable might not speak up.

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Some students are resistant to new formats. Co-construction of a syllabus can make some students feel as if the professor "isn't doing the work" to organize the course. This requires some trust building I think.

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Students may want the instructor to demonstrate their own expertise in deciding what is important for the class to learn about, rather than leaning on students to construct the course. I think there would have to be a balance of instructor-generated content and co-creation with students

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It feels like it could be exciting, but also in teaching my class, many of the students don't know the material yet, so I'm curious as to how I can invite them in to give suggestions on what they'd like to study/work on, without that knowledge...Maybe throwing a dart in the air at something could be valuable also, but feels a little too messy! But then again, I do invite my student's to 'make a mess', and not try to be perfect in the work...

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I  haven't done it before, but would like to. I think my hesitation has been in: 1 feeling like class time is too limited and precious to spend time on it, I just want to get the info to the students and get started; 2 anxiety about loosening my own control over the class; 3 uncertainty about how to do it.
Thinking about it now and hearing peoples' ideas and examples, I'm inspired to try it. I know that loosening up a bit and spending time with students on this would have really benficial effects - especially in centering student experiences and helping make the class truly their class-- thanks for these good ideas!

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Once students have a feel for the materials...

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Once students have a feel for the materials...

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I like to give them the opportunity to browse a range of course materials and select something of interest. They can then present this piece for the rest of the class.

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I'm intrigued by the co-creation idea and am wondering how to implement it in an asynchronous course in today's remote environment. (I don't want to wait a moment longer to try this!)
I'm also curious about structural items, like how it works with COCI approval in the case of designing new courses.

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1. I like this idea a lot and can see that it could enable students to feel the relevance of the class more deeply
2. I have a couple of concerns mostly with regard to class size. In large classes, would this turn into a majority rule exercise, further amplifying the voices of the majority of students?
3. Re: other parts of syllabus that could be co-constructed: I think questions for discussion forums would work well

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Add pictures for each week! Great way to mark down the course ahead in a memorable way, in my experience.

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- Less control over course content and objectives
- students raising issues you are not prepared to discuss

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I let students know that initial syllabus --that is readings, aren't set in stone, and I let them know when I've added or change readings in response to their expressions of interest. But I think now I could set this out more explicitly.

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I let students know that initial syllabus --that is readings, aren't set in stone, and I let them know when I've added or change readings in response to their expressions of interest. But I think now I could set this out more explicitly.

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I think it might be challenging for them and the instructor. One thing that students sometimes have trouble with is deciding on their own projects and interest, specially early on their careers, so this might be a good training for that.
It might be difficult to incorporate all of the interests and have students with different interest to be equally engaged, they might also feel a lack of structure. Maybe a mixed approach (i.e. discussion sessions will be based on student interest) would work well.

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- Collaborative setting of group and course expectations and guidelines.
- Challenge: For a new course, it can take a LONG time to find the right mix of readings and to construct compelling lectures/discussions. Waiting until week 2 or 3 of a semester to dig into this process seems hard.
- I have generally had good luck with having students choose topics that they want to lead discussion on... I offer some seed readings, ask them to add more and to bring in examples from their own experience / knowledge to drive discussion.

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I have tried something like this before in the past and it was a disaster because valuable class time turned into disagreement and argument. These initial impressions followed for the rest of the class. Perhaps establish the rubric for assignments and let students decide about the content that works best for their group/individual projects?

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I did co-construct the last few weeks of the very first class I ever taught! Students really enjoyed it (based on their feedback). One challenge was how to ensure the themes chosen were of interest to a wide enough swathe of the class. I also took the lead in finding relevant readings--now I could envision making this a collaborative process.

Advice: provide a bank of possible ideas (we all have themes/topics we want to include but didn't have space/time for!), maybe suggest an anchor reading and students have to find a text to accompany it. Have students vote on their favorite ideas.

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As a student, I think this would be empowering and exciting! It would also require increased engagement. . I think some push back could come from "traditional" students - I am paying for the professor to teach, not other students to teach. I want to hear from the expert, not other students... so creating a community and clearly stating the WHY is essential for the instructor!

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I think this would be great to do on the discussion section-level for classroom norms/participation. But much more difficult to facilitate a discussion about this in a 400+ person lecture.

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I am excited to ask for input for the outcomes, as that would give the students a sense of empowerment regarding what they investing in throughout the semester!

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Students not having enough experience or familiarity with the material to feel comfortable or make useful suggestions about content.

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For my undergraduate course, students have choice within a structure - what documentary to analyze, what kind of final assignment to complete, etc., but I hadn't really thought through variations in course readings as co-constructed.

For graduate course, there is more flexibility, having them choose readings that advance their lines of inquiry while keeping a baseline of common texts to develop a common language.

In my experience, students sometimes love this and sometimes think we're abdicating responsibility to teach. Lol. It is harder on the instructor in that your fluency with the material must expand in relation to their input - I'm not trying to be "expert" on things they choose but I have to be familiar enough to engage it so suddenly I'm doing a ton of new readings!

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I imagine it might feel super fun and exciting to collaborate with students. The students would feel greatly empowered.
A challenge would be that in my school, we have to be aligned in our curriculum so although I could open this up for co-collaboration, the only assignment we could do would be a minor assignment because there has to be agreement for us to have a major assignment count with our team. So the limitations on this assignment would feel too confining. It would be interesting to have a discussion about this with students.

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I think it's a good idea, but I worry about losing control as an instructor and having to adapt to new demands and expectations when already swamped with non-teaching work (research, service)

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co-construction is very important but i would be concerned that this may perpetuate hierarchical status issues with my students. For example, whose ideas are being put down on the syllabus? For example, white students tend to be more vocal and thus one needs to be critical of how the co-construction is happening and how can we leverage the most marginalized voices in the classroom.

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I like this idea. I've spent a fair amount of time teaching first year/intro seminars, and actually think that students doing the work of seeking out readings and thinking through the experience of collectively reading them would be a huge learning opportunity. It would also be a challenge...

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Some worry that students expect syllabus to be given to them, and will see it as sign of lack of preparedness, not wanting their partnership to create.

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Some worry that students expect syllabus to be given to them, and will see it as sign of lack of preparedness, not wanting their partnership to create.

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This has worked well for me in the past if the time and scope of the co-construction is defined, and sequenced after we have established a shared foundation. For example, reserving the last 3 weeks of the course to study 3 timely environmental problems selected by the students after 10 weeks of intro to env soc.

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Student presentations vs. student-led classes

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Student presentations vs. student-led classes

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For context, I teach an applied, project-based course. We always have student presentations scheduled in our seminar, but recently I've been trying to encourage students to think of them as "student-led classes" and to consider doing something different than a straight-up presentation, e.g. a skillshare, discussion, or case-rounds (presenting a challenge in their work and asking their peers for advice in problem-solving), or prototyping ( bringing a new idea or tool to the group).

I've found that students tend to end up doing the default, traditional presentation. I didn't necessarily consider how much extra work it might be for them to plan a whole interactive class.

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IF a lot of materials can be made available to students, they can zero in on items of specific personal interest. This can heklp them feel ownership of their own learning and process. This involves a lot of advance work on the part of the teacher. They can also seek out materials from other csources, that meet certain riubrlcs established by the teacher.

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I could imagine that students have greater engagement with the syllabus and other material that they feel authorship over. They are much more likely to actually read a syllabus that they are asked to co-create!

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I could imagine that if students were presenting to the class, there could be a co-construction of how that assignment should be assessed. Like, "What do you think are the characteristics of a successful presentation?"

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inviting input from the beginning and throughout the semester keeps the students engaged in ensuring their own success

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Consistent with my practice, energizing and inspiring for me. Empowering, validating and engaging for students.

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Consistent with my practice, energizing and inspiring for me. Empowering, validating and engaging for students.

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Challenges arise when there are tensions between what students are interested and invested in, and what a department is expecting of the course. I invite colleagues to trust that this tension, and any other tensions that arise are generative.

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Much of this depends on the degree to which students may be familiar with the scope of the class, or not.

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Maybe one way to deal with the limits of a time-crunch and messiness is asking for feedback on the syllabus. Start with something clear but eagerly incorporate feedback.

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Please take a few minutes to respond to one or more of the following questions:

How do you imagine it might feel to co-construct one of the syllabus segments from the scenarios with students? How might the process feel to students?

What challenges do you anticipate?

If you have co-constructed or designed syllabus segments before, please feel welcome to reflect on your experience. What advice would you have for colleagues who are interested in trying this?

What other elements of your syllabus might you co-construct with students?