Check out the practical strategies for creating an engaging and student-friendly syllabus shared by Eve Magoulas, Assistant Professor from the School of Health Careers, in the recent faculty workshop about Simple Syllabus. While the sections in a syllabus provide a strong foundation, Eve encouraged faculty to personalize their approach to better support students.
🧠The Best Welcome
- Include a photo and a welcome message so students know who is leading the course.
- Add a welcome video and an orientation video to guide students through course navigation.
- Break longer videos into smaller segments for easier viewing.
🧠The Best Learning Outcomes
- Be clear and concise.
- Beyond listing Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs), include a plain-language section that explains what these outcomes mean in practice. This helps students connect academic goals to real-world skills.
Integrate effective management principles for leading and managing resources in the three RCM processes.
In other words:
You will be able to combine management practices across the three parts of the revenue cycle: front-end, middle-end, and back-end processes.
🧠The Best Design
- Display a cover image of the textbook or course materials.
- Consistently use icons to bring attention to key points.
- Specify acceptable formats (hard copy or e-book) to ensure consistency.
- Highlight Falcon First Day textbook options when relevant.
🧠Setting the Best Expectations
- Clearly outline student responsibilities and faculty commitments.
- Encourage students to:
- Read feedback carefully.
- Use discussion forums for questions.
- Schedule meetings via the booking page.
- Provide contact details with boundaries (e.g., response times, emergency exceptions).
- Develop your regular and substantive interaction (RSI) statement.
🧠The Best Engagement Activities
- Syllabus Quizzes
- Quizzes work well for asynchronous online courses.
- Scavenger Hunts
- Scavenger hunts may be better suited for in-person group activities.
These are tips and tricks to help students navigate the syllabus and reduce the amount of questions. Using this guide, you can create a standout syllabus by incorporating visuals and videos, simplifying academic language, providing clear tech guidance, and including interactive activities to reinforce expectations.
🧠Resources to Support Online Learners
- Share links to resources:
- Create a course video on what to expect in online courses.
- Pulse app for mobile access.
- Help desk and Office 365 tools
- Address common tech issues by specifying file formats (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) to avoid upload problems.
Eve Magoulas, PhD
Assistant Professor
Eve.Magoulas@daytonastate.edu
School of Health Careers