Education by Design
Education by Design is hosted by Instructional Designer, Betsy Allen. We talk about all things education with an emphasis on higher ed and instructional design. Our episodes are recorded at the Woodland Community College eLearning Studio.
Education by Design
Crafting Inclusive Syllabi: A Guide to Equitable Education with Brent Clark
Unlock the secrets to student success through syllabus design with instructor and sociologist, Brent Clark. By focusing on culturally responsive pedagogy, we uncover how to engage students at every level and transform the learning experience into one that resonates with a diverse classroom. Our discussion tackles the complexities educators face in self-evaluating the efficacy of their course syllabus and provides a treasure trove of strategies to consider when crafting a syllabus that supports the success of each student.
This is part 1 of a 2-part interview.
So welcome to Education by Design. I'm your host, Betsy Allen, Instructional Design Resource Faculty at Woodland Community College. This is a podcast where we talk about all things education, with an emphasis on higher ed. We're coming to you today from the WCC eLearning Studio in Woodland, California. For this episode. My guest is Brent Clark. He's a PhD candidate in sociology at UC Irvine and an instructor in sociology and the Student Success Center faculty liaison. In writing at Woodland Community College. You wear many hats. Thank you for joining us today, Brent.
Brent Clark:Oh, I'm glad to be here. Thank you for having me.
Betsy Allen:Yeah, so today you're joining us so we can talk about creating an equitable syllabus, and I thought it'd be interesting to know how you got into this work to begin with.
Brent Clark:Yeah, I guess really most of this work as far as I'm concerned is informed a lot by my time as a student employee at Sac State. For four years at Sac State I worked as a peer tutor, a peer mentor and worked with some different organizations on campus, mainly providing academic support to other students, and one of my main mentors on campus was Dr Tina Jordan, who did her doctoral work in culturally responsive pedagogy.
Brent Clark:So I received a lot of training during my time at Sac State and kind of the fundamentals of cultural responsiveness, culturally responsive pedagogy, so that's really what put principles like equity and cultural responsiveness kind of at the forefront for me as I kind of begin my career as an educator.
Betsy Allen:Oh great. Well, so you know I was going to ask you before we get started. Here is to kind of define for us what an equitable syllabus is. But do you have a like a preferred term instead of equitable syllabus? I know it's just the buzzword that we're using in the California Community College system, but do you, do you have a preference?
Brent Clark:Not really. I think that equitable syllabus is fine. I am a sociology professor, so we do have a lot of conversations regarding, like this, principle of equity, the difference between equality and equity. You know those kinds of conversations. So I'm pretty comfortable with the idea of an equitable syllabus and I think the main thing is just having a wider understanding of amongst as many people as possible. So there are people, more and more people, who are starting to understand what an equitable syllabus is. Now I'm more than happy to kind of talk about these things within that context.
Betsy Allen:Okay, so what does one look like? Do you think Like if you were to kind of walk through, you know, what does an equitable syllabus look like?
Brent Clark:Yeah, I'm super interested in general in processes because I think that the more we understand processes, the more we can understand outcomes. So I think the key here is really thinking about who and what is being centered when we're developing a syllabus Like why do we even have syllabus syllabi? We know that legally we have to have a syllabi. We know that it's somewhat of a contract between instructor and student, right? And I think that a lot of times, that reality then informs most of the syllabus development process where it's about.
Brent Clark:I know I need to have these learning objectives because it's the law and I know I need to provide contact information because it's required. And I know I need to have my syllabus done by this date because this is what my department needs it. And while all of that is important, I think what can get lost is like who's the audience here? Right? The main people who need to be able to read the syllabus, understand the syllabus and benefit from it are students students. So I think the first step for really developing an equitable syllabus is trying to put yourself in the student perspective when it's time to actually populate, right, okay, trying to weigh that.
Betsy Allen:I think that's a great recommendation. And so let's say we do this work, we put ourselves in the student perspective. What? How does that help students Like you know? What do they get out of a syllabus that has you know where they've been thought about or put in the center of its development? What's different about that experience, do you think?
Brent Clark:I think the first thing is that the more equitable your syllabus is, the more questions you'll likely fill at the beginning of a course.
Brent Clark:And the reason I say this is because a lot of times students don't know what they don't know. So we're handing out our syllabus, we're conducting the first few class sessions and we're not getting a lot of questions and we're thinking oh, that must mean that everything's going smoothly, and sometimes that is true. But other times it's that students are so still trying to get oriented and trying to understand even what this course is or what college is that they can't even formulate a question yet. So I think that an equitable syllabus helps students start to understand what aspects of the course. They can kind of put their brain around already and really understand okay, that's how these assignments work and this is how important they are and what aspects of the course where they still do have questions, where they need to just send a message or stop by an office hour to get things clarified. I think the first sign of an equitable field is when you're starting to get a variety of questions like that.
Betsy Allen:Okay, All right. Yeah, you know, I would think that this would be some kind of a continue. You had mentioned. This is you're more interested in process and this seems like continual work or iterative work, because I would imagine the first time we attempt to take on a student perspective, we're going to miss things. So I'm wondering how do you recommend faculty who maybe already have a syllabus? How do they look at that and begin this work? Like you know, how do I evaluate the syllabus I have in front of me, that it's at all inclusive or thinking about the student perspective?
Brent Clark:Yeah, and I honestly think this is one of the hardest like skills in life period right.
Brent Clark:Looking at things that we're involved in, things that are ours, and evaluating what we could do better ourselves. And the reason I say that is because, like when I say the student experience, I don't want to make it seem like there's a singular student experience. We know that there are a variety of student experiences, right, we have students coming to us from a variety of backgrounds with a variety of comfort levels and a variety of skill levels. So really, you're right about this being a continual process. I try to revise my syllabi before every semester and the things that I'm changing vary, but it's always, hopefully, informed by where did I see recurring problems last semester? Okay, what were the assignments where students didn't quite pick up on what they were supposed to do?
Brent Clark:And obviously it's not going to be all students, right, you're always going to have some students that are going to find a way to be successful. But I think where the temptation is is to say, well, if this percentage of students are able to figure it out, the fact that this smaller percentage of students won't, well, that's probably a dumb issue, okay, and I think the first step to really kind of improve our syllabi is re-contextualizing those questions and figuring out okay, maybe it's not that the way I have this in the syllabus is bad, but maybe there's a better way I can break this information down or convey this information or rearrange this information and I think that once we start to look at it from that perspective, taking into account past results, that's when we can start to make positive changes that maybe don't take, you know, too too long or take too much effort, but we can actually help 5% of our students next semester do better just by tweaking something.
Betsy Allen:I think that's a great, great recommendations to look at. You know, really, some of it's looking at the data in your course, like you're saying like where, where are people getting hung up, where could I be intervening? And some of that could be like you look at the analytics of your course or maybe you're doing surveys during the course of what's working for you, what's not. You might be looking at outcomes on assessments. There's a, there's actually a technique in instructional design where you create, before you design a course, you create what are called learner archetypes or learner profiles, and so you're thinking about, if you've been teaching a course for a while, you might know the different backgrounds, demographics, sort of flavor, of students that are coming in, so it could be readiness for the course or the content and all these things.
Betsy Allen:You're thinking about all these different levels and you create a few profiles and you sort of test the course right for these different folks. Could this person navigate? What do I have to build for this person to succeed? You know that kind of thing and I'm almost thinking that you know, especially after you've been teaching a course for a while, you have some sense of that which we always have to question what are my archetypes and my profiles? How accurate are they? But there's a little bit of that work you could do, I think, with a syllabus that would help with. Very like you're saying, it's not just one student perspective Right, it's, it's multiple.
Brent Clark:Yes, and I think that keeping that in our minds is really difficult. And I think that keeping that in our minds is really difficult. I don't feel like you know, like I don't want to undersell, you know, but this is hard work. I never think that when I'm changing something in terms of my syllabus or in terms of how my course is designed more widely, that this is necessarily going to help everyone, because there are already students that are fine and then there are students that are going to struggle, but it's not necessarily because of how this instruction paragraph is worded, right, right. So I think that we have to be willing to do work that might only have a certain net impact and understand that continually doing those things over the course of time is what can help kind of transform our courses in the long run.
Betsy Allen:It doesn't necessarily have to be an overnight thing right, right, I um, you know, I think that's, there's an old way, and maybe I shouldn't say the word old, but there's a there's a traditional way of looking at the syllabus. That's, I imagine it like you know, when you get a new board game and you get that instruction manual and you just want to dive into the board game, but boy, you got to read that instruction manual. If you want to, you know, learn how to win if somebody's going to hold you to the rules, right, and it seems to me that's like a traditional way of looking at that syllabus.
Betsy Allen:It's like, okay, it's the instructions, but how many people are just kind of tossing them aside and just diving in? How do? It sounds to me that this work is saying no, no, no, don't throw away. That's actually very important, bring it back here. But it's not just an instruction manual, right, bring it back here. But it's not just an instruction manual, right. It's also like it sets a tone for the course as well. Right that the instructor is even putting this kind of work in ahead of time. Do you have you in your work, you know, because I know you've done a lot of workshops for us here at the college and this is an area of research for you. How do you, how do you help all of us faculty kind of re like what is the syllabus like, what's the purpose of it?
Brent Clark:I really love your board game analogy, and the reason I love it is because I think it's fitting in that the first thing we have to really ask ourselves is who can be successful on our course? Because, like, if you take the board game analogy right, there are people that aren't going to even open some of the packaging until they've read the real book front to back, right. And then there are other people who are going to search on YouTube of videos of people playing the game and they're going to watch those for a while and then they're going to start playing, right, right and then. But there are also people who will never play a board game because that whole idea of needing to do one of those steps before you play doesn't sound appealing to them, right, right, and the difference here is that we're not talking about board games, we're talking about higher ed, right? So we.
Brent Clark:So we have to ask ourselves should our courses still be accessible to that last archetype of person? Do we have a course where a person who, if they're willing to work hard and they're willing to come in with an open mind, they can be successful, even if they themselves don't consider themselves a person who can sit down, read the directions and then just do something, right, right. And again, I think it's easy to say, well, if you don't want to read the directions, don't play the game. But I think it's harder to ask ourselves well, does our course have to be designed in a way that reading and comprehending a 30-page rule book has to be necessary, right, Right.
Betsy Allen:And what about the rules that are in the rule book? Can they be rewritten, right, I mean? Is that fair to say too. Is that part of this process, or maybe?
Brent Clark:maybe not even rewriting them, but just, are there other ways that we can convey them, right? Um, when we watch sports on tv, the referee tells us what the violation was, but the commentators explain it further, right, right. Because if you're a huge, then you already knew when the whistle blew oh, that's a penalty, right. Oh, that's a foul, oh, the ball's going to the other team. But the commentator isn't explaining it further for you. They're explaining it further for your aunt, who's also watching the game with you and they haven't watched sports in five years, right, right. Or they're explaining it for your child, who's four, and they're just not even starting to pay attention and understand, right?
Brent Clark:I think we have to kind of look at our courses the same way, like, the more we potential, like methods of success that we can build into our course for different types of students, the actual, easier it's going to be to evaluate.
Brent Clark:Because, like the dirty little secret secret of higher ed is that no professor actually likes to sell students, right.
Brent Clark:Like no professor likes to not take late work or likes to you, you know, tell students that, no, there's no extra credit. But these are just things we have to do to keep the course fair and keep everything rolling. But the more that we can keep students from getting into those tough spots through revising our syllabi, through considering how our courses are designed, the less we actually will have to do those icky parts of higher ed when it's time, you know, to actually put a letter grade down and maybe the student didn't do as well as anyone would have liked. The more that we can kind of help these students earlier, because we made it clear that they don't have to have read this for the first time and completely understood it to be successful. Well, that's a way to actually make, you know, being a professor in these courses more enjoyable for us as professors too. Because again, that's the part I think that most of us sign up for is the learning part and not necessarily the paperwork and putting in grades at the end of the semester of the semester.
Betsy Allen:Yeah, and you know what you're saying also suggests that you know there's there's a shift in thinking about that syllabus as just the rule book for determining who fails, because I think that is an assumption that has traditionally been in the syllabus to these are.
Brent Clark:This is the path to succeeding. Is that a fair way to reframe that Exactly? And I think? I think that's excellent the way you put that right. So is your syllabus there to cover you for if a student doesn't do well and now there's an issue, or is your student there to help create the conditions for empowerment for your students? Right, right, um, is your syllabus the first step towards creating a classroom, even if it's online, a classroom environment where the vast majority of your students feel like they can be successful, at least in this class? Even if they don't feel like that all the time, they feel like well, at least when it's time to do work for this class. I know what the professor wants from me. If I run into any questions, they're happy to answer these questions, and the course is set up in a way where it's about learning and it's not so much about points.
Betsy Allen:Right Is there? Because you know, in doing this work and coaching others, have you, do you have like a little list in your mind where you're like you know these are some common assumptions I see that are happening in a syllabus. That where I think a little intervention should happen. Or we should be thinking about what we're assuming about students, like what would be like the hot spots in a syllabus that we should be taking a look at.
Brent Clark:What would be the hot spots in a syllabus that we should be taking a look at? Yeah, I would start probably with just communication policies, and this is something that I didn't think about much when I was a student, because I was the type of student who was going to just pop up at office hours or raise my hand to get my questions answered. So I never stopped to think, does my professor invite these questions? Because I'm like no, I'm going to get my questions answered, right, but there are a lot of students who have trepidation about inconveniencing their professors. In their minds they should already know this, so having to ask about this is embarrassing. So the more that our communication policy and our syllabus goes beyond just providing an email address and office hours and tries to outline that you're hopeful that students will use office hours I think that's a great place to start the more that you explain to students like message me and I'll be happy to message you back and ask your questions I think that's a really good place to start because, again, I'm a sociologist so I'm really interested in like power dynamics and we have to be willing as professors to acknowledge that there is like a hierarchy here where we are in a position of authority and the students are kind of trying to do what we expect of them.
Brent Clark:And the students are kind of trying to do what we expect of them.
Brent Clark:And where that can be difficult is I think we can all think back to different times in our lives when we've been intimidated by someone who has more authority than us and maybe they're the nicest person ever, but it's just the context of hierarchy, right. So I think the syllabus and that communication policy can be the first step to helping students think of it like okay, this professor is actually here to help me be successful. They're not necessarily here to take away points or to fail me, because we have to acknowledge that our students are taking these courses in a wider context of society and for a lot of our students, depending on the identities that they bring into our courses, they're already preconceived to not have a positive outlook, especially for certain subjects. So the more that our syllabus can start to help students feel like, oh, I can actually do really well in this course, I think that is the place to try to start with changing our syllabus. Okay, in this course, I think that is the place to try to start with changing our syllabi.
Betsy Allen:Okay, so communication policy that invites students to actually contact right, and I'm here for you. What about what's your stance on late work? And it's kind of controversial, oh right, let's open Pandora's box. No.
Brent Clark:I think that every professor has to kind of evaluate for themselves, like where the line is. I think for some courses, beyond a certain amount of late work, it just becomes unmanageable for the professor and I think we also have to always keep that in mind. And I also think we need to be fair to other students. So if something is due on a certain date and other people work really hard to get it done that date, we have to always kind of hold that as important right. But beyond those two principles, I really think it's important to ask ourselves what would not taking this work benefit? All right.
Brent Clark:So my general stance is as long as it's not habitual, as long as a student communicates with me, I will grade it if they want to do it. And especially in a subject like sociology, where I try to make my courses build on each other, where one module builds into the next and one unit builds into the next to the next and one unit builds into the next, I don't want students to have knowledge gaps just because something happened in their lives and it's like okay, well, week eight, I'm just going to punt on week eight and I'll get back into it week nine, and rather they just take a few extra days and go back and get all the week eight work done, especially if I can see for the first seven weeks they were on top of things right.
Brent Clark:I think what that does is it kind of reaffirms for students like, oh okay, this professor does want me to be successful, and I'm going to get caught up and when I run into any questions I'm going to ask because I've been working this hard for this long already, right, Right. I think where late work policies can start to be detrimental to student success is when they contribute to kind of a punitive, you know, classroom environment where the focus is what you didn't do and what you don't understand and how many points you've lost versus what you have done, what you do understand better and how many points are left that you can still earn.
Betsy Allen:Yeah, I like that. You know, I recently saw in a syllabus what you're saying is this seems like in line with what you're what you're talking about right now. So the lay policy was I don't accept late work. However, life gets in the way, right, and here's how you can advocate for yourself. And you know, these are the, these are the kinds of questions I'm going to ask you and and sort of like walking them through, much of the kind of criteria you're offering right here and I I just really like that Like, however you like you can advocate for yourself and we're going to have a discussion, and I just really like that Like however you like you can advocate for yourself and we're going to have a discussion. And I just thought that was really great. It wasn't. You know, you have three days and you know, after 72 hours, it was very I just treating this, the student, as an adult, right, like, let's talk about this. Here's the criteria, you know, criteria I'm going to look at. Here's what you could convince me in this case, right?
Brent Clark:Yeah, absolutely. And again, I think you said a key phrase right Treating our students like adults. And I think sometimes there is a disconnect in higher ed in that these conditions aren't always like the quote unquote real world. Because because, like, if you have jobs, sometimes there is flexibility, sometimes people do get sick, sometimes you know life happens and we can push this back, and then other times we can't. Right, because there's an outside vendor that we have to consider or there's a hard deadline set by the state or the federal government or whatever. It may be Right, but I think the more that we can just be honest with students about that stuff, the more that they will respect our decision. When it's all like this magical stuff that happens behind the veil, I think that's when students really start to get frustrated. Yeah Right, yeah, um. So in terms of late work, I've had students email me and say, hey, the last month this is what's happened.
Brent Clark:And I know I've missed all these assignments. Can I please catch up? And I will go into Canvas and look at their grade and I'll respond. Hey, thank you for reaching out. You know I'm happy to help you get caught up, based on where your grade is at. I would definitely just prioritize these three things, because the rest of those assignments your grade will probably be okay because you've been doing them right. And then now you have this five percent.
Brent Clark:You know we have 16 discussion boards in this class. You missed three of them. Your grade will probably be okay, but there's only three writing assignments and you missed one. So get that writing assignment to me as soon as you possibly can and then we can go from there. And nine times out of 10 students will go.
Brent Clark:Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you, I will reach out if I have any questions and to me that's just a lot easier than just blanket saying well, I don't accept late work, or even blanket saying yes, turn in everything, because there is a point of diminishing returns. Right, like I'm not going to let a student take the whole course in a week, like that's just. You know that doesn't benefit anyone. But I again, I understand that everyone has role, strengths. Everyone has responsibilities. So many of our students work. So many of our students have family responsibilities, have community responsibilities and in order to really treat, I should take this late work. They still have to do the work and, at the end of the day, if what I want is for them to do the work, then I'm not going to actually go on Google and try to confirm that this actually happened. I'm just going to take their word for it and hope that they get the work done in the past.
Betsy Allen:Thank you to Brent Clark for joining us today and sharing his knowledge about how to create that fabulous syllabus from a student equity standpoint and a sociological perspective. This discussion was so great. We continue it on to next week, so join us again and we'll pick up where we left off. Thank you for listening to. Education by Design.