{"id":40,"date":"2014-03-07T23:23:45","date_gmt":"2014-03-07T23:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/diaped.soe.udel.edu\/OSER\/?page_id=40"},"modified":"2014-03-14T21:49:27","modified_gmt":"2014-03-14T21:49:27","slug":"what-is-opening-syllabus","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/diaped.soe.udel.edu\/OSER\/?page_id=40","title":{"rendered":"What is Opening Syllabus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOpening<\/span> <\/em>Syllabus involves progression from somewhat Closed Syllabus to increasing Open Syllabus where<\/span> some initially unilateral decisions by the teachers become increasingly shifted to students’ agency. <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tI have recently realized that all of my past classes before I "discovered" Open Syllabus were to some degree run by Opening Syllabus pedagogical regimes. For long time my teaching was limited to Open Dialogic Instruction, which in itself provided impetus of students' agency and activism. However, when I added another component — Open Curriculum, — students' activism for their own education progressed much more rapidly as it provided the students with a public forum for introduction of their initiatives and collective decision making.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMy colleague Kathy von Duyke calls Opening Syllabus "Trojan horse<\/a>" because it helps the students experience and explore the ready-made pedagogical regime imposed on them by the teacher and move to democracy of the Open Syllabus. It has this move from Culture to Democracy, while in Open Syllabus the direction is reverse: from Democracy to Culture. Opening Syllabus promotes more ontological decision making for the students, since they experience situation (and its problems) first and then make a decision. Meanwhile in Open Syllabus, at least at the beginning decision making seems to be more intellectual in the nature rather than ontological, involving mostly considering hypothetical scenarios. In my observations, Opening Syllabus seems to provide less anxiety among students and they do not feel overwhelmed with the totality of organizational decision making that students in the Open Syllabus regime usually faced (especially when they new to the OSE). <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the other hand, a semester is often not enough for the Opening Syllabus students to shake off all imposed aspects of the class and enjoy full freedom of Open Syllabus.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tCurrently I teacher an undergraduate class on Cultural Diversity in Education run by Opening Syllabus involving Open Dialogic Instruction, Open Curriculum, and Flipped Classroom<\/a>. Initially, I planned to run it as Open Syllabus in this class but I was away for a week at the beginning of semester and my co-instructor did not feel comfortable to start class as Open Syllabus so my plan was to renegotiate it with my students. However, so far my students refuse to discuss class, despite my explanation and encouragement, because they so eager to study other topics and I must follow their desires informed by my concerns, according to Open Curriculum pedagogical regime. Here is my Open Curriculum Syllabus for EDUC 258-14S-80<\/a>, current Curricular Map, EDUC258-14S-80<\/a>, and an example of assignment promoting flipped teaching: MP for topic 13, Sensitive guidance for boys, 2014-03-08<\/a>. After teaching the class for 4 weeks, here is a list of emerging decisions that the students make outside of Open Curriculum and Instruction:\n<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n\t\tHow should the class instructors approach a problem that some students do not volunteer talking on a systematic basis? This issue was introduced by one of the class instructor. After intense discussion for 2 weeks and development of a list of 6 alternative solutions, the students voted on a combination proposed by 2 students: a) the instructors should ask students who are not volunteering but they should have the right "to take the 5th amendment" by saying "pass", no questions can be asked for justification (cf. Ira Shor's book<\/a>), and b) the instructors first should ask a few people who volunteer before calling on on those who do not volunteer so the former can model the latter.\n\t<\/li>\n
  2. \n\t\tA few students suggested to have "Sharing Time" at the beginning of class for 5 min in small groups to socialize and build a community. Some students disagree with this idea so we place it on probation by trying it and return later.\n\t<\/li>\n
  3. \n\t\tTwo students demand the students' right to interrupt the class to check with the class if it is time to change the topic. The class adopted this idea.\n\t<\/li>\n
  4. \n\t\tA few students proposed to share responsibility for tracking class time together with the instructors.The class adopted this idea.\n\t<\/li>\n
  5. \n\t\tSome students wanted to cut the time on discussion of the next topic at the end of each class by discussing it in small groups rather than in whole class and then voting — the class adopted the idea.\n\t<\/li>\n
  6. \n\t\tI hope I did not miss anything….\n\t<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \n\tAs you see, the students are more and more engaging in decision making about the class and thus opening more spheres for their democratic decision making. At the same time, so far they clearly want to prioritize study of curriculum of their desire over organizational decision, which makes sense to me. As Oscar Wilde on said about socialism, "The trouble with Socialism is that it takes too many evenings." They constantly worry, as they expressed it openly, that they do not have enough time in semester to study all topics that they want to study (wow, what a learning activism!). Also, they clearly try to deconstruct the experienced class culture to make it better rather than to build it from scratch as it is done in the Open Syllabus pedagogical regime.\n<\/p>\n

    \n\tWhat do you think?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Opening Syllabus involves progression from somewhat Closed Syllabus to increasing Open Syllabus where some initially unilateral decisions by the teachers become increasingly shifted to students’ agency.  I have recently realized that all of my past classes before I "discovered" Open Syllabus were to some degree run by Opening Syllabus pedagogical regimes. For long time my teaching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":27,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-40","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaped.soe.udel.edu\/OSER\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaped.soe.udel.edu\/OSER\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaped.soe.udel.edu\/OSER\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaped.soe.udel.edu\/OSER\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaped.soe.udel.edu\/OSER\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/diaped.soe.udel.edu\/OSER\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59,"href":"https:\/\/diaped.soe.udel.edu\/OSER\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/40\/revisions\/59"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaped.soe.udel.edu\/OSER\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaped.soe.udel.edu\/OSER\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}