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Syllabi

Building Virtue into a Syllabus

In this short webinar, Senior Research Associate Sam Deane walks through the steps of building virtues into your syllabi, and how to use this site as a resource in your work (4 minutes).

webinar

How to Build Virtue into Your Syllabus

“The syllabus is the beginning of a story but also a leap of faith. You hand it out, it’s no longer yours, and you trust that students will know what to do with it.” Hua Hsu, “A Celebration of the Syllabus,” New Yorker (2020)

Idiosyncratic, rooted in fields of study, professions, schools, and universities, syllabi serve a myriad of purposes. They are both aspirational and necessity: commuting purposes and aims along side times and dates. As you construct or reconstruct your syllabus, it may be beneficial to pause and consider what it is you want your syllabus to do.

• Is your syllabus an expression of the curriculum, an essay, a statement of vocation, a curated primer? (These are aspirational aims)

• Does your syllabus provide a clear roadmap for the term, make connections to necessary offices across campus, and explain how to proceed through the course? (These are the necessities)

Syllabus Components

Course and Instructor Descriptions

OVERVIEW
Motivate virtue and character in your syllabus through narrative about yourself and the course.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

  • Why is (virtue __) important for this specific course?
  • What about your course or discipline invites considerations of excellent character?
  • Why are you teaching this course in this way?
  • What is your origin story?

Instructor Origin Stories

CIVC 200: Introduction to Community Engagement | University of the South

My name is [ ]; many students call me [ ]. I look forward to getting to know you and to working together as we question how to live and work in communities to address the complex issues of our time, including poverty, inequality, and citizenship. Part of my story is working and learning among people in various African communities, who challenged me to think about what it means to live a good life, a life of character that values all people. I invite you to engage with me on not just the topics of the course— poverty, social policy, leadership, community-engagement methods— but on a life-long trek to learn how we all can be better human beings through practice, reflection, and learning in community. Thanks for embarking on the journey with me.

Although we will use several philosophical approaches in connection with developing and applying ethical judgment, this semester I would like to emphasize virtue ethics in particular. Why? I have found that the answers to so many of the ethical dilemmas we will address in this course, and you will encounter in your personal and professional lives, flow from the statement “because I want to lead a virtuous life.” And so the goal of this course is not merely to master various ethical paradigms like any other academic topic, but rather to contribute to your ongoing ethical formation, consistent with this quote from Aristotle:

“We are conducting an examination not so that we might know what virtue is, but so that we may become good, since otherwise there would be no benefit from it”.

As Aristotle might also say, we are the sum of our choices — our actions and inactions. We are what we repeatedly do. I should note that I offer all of this humbly, as my own ethical formation is still very much a work in progress. But like you, I hope, I aspire to be a better person.

Learning Outcomes & Learning Goals

OVERVIEW
A goal is aspirational for the Instructor. An outcome is an expectation about what a student will be able to do. One way of thinking about a learning goal is to imagine what you hope students will take with them as a result of your class. An outcome is typically more concrete, answering the question: what will a student be able to do?

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

  • Are the specific character excellences, virtues, clearly explicated in your goals and/or objectives?
  • What specific expectations do you have for students in your class? Where do you describe these for students?
  • How might you draw inspiration from the mission and goals of your institution?
  • What are the aspirations for professionals in your field? What kind of people does your field need?

Sample Descriptions

Sample 1

My name is [ ]; many students call me [ ]. I look forward to getting to know you and to working together as we question how to live and work in communities to address the complex issues of our time, including poverty, inequality, and citizenship. Part of my story is working and learning among people in various African communities, who challenged me to think about what it means to live a good life, a life of character that values all people. I invite you to engage with me on not just the topics of the course— poverty, social policy, leadership, community-engagement methods— but on a life-long trek to learn how we all can be better human beings through practice, reflection, and learning in community. Thanks for embarking on the journey with me.

Although we will use several philosophical approaches in connection with developing and applying ethical judgment, this semester I would like to emphasize virtue ethics in particular. Why? I have found that the answers to so many of the ethical dilemmas we will address in this course, and you will encounter in your personal and professional lives, flow from the statement “because I want to lead a virtuous life.” And so the goal of this course is not merely to master various ethical paradigms like any other academic topic, but rather to contribute to your ongoing ethical formation, consistent with this quote from Aristotle:

“We are conducting an examination not so that we might know what virtue is, but so that we may become good, since otherwise there would be no benefit from it”.

As Aristotle might also say, we are the sum of our choices — our actions and inactions. We are what we repeatedly do. I should note that I offer all of this humbly, as my own ethical formation is still very much a work in progress. But like you, I hope, I aspire to be a better person.

Assessment and Grading

OVERVIEW
Though they are related, there is a difference between assessing the impact of your class on the formation of character in students and grading student assignments.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

  • When building an assessment, ask yourself: what will reasonably change as a result of this course? Consider the length of the course, the amount of time you dedicate to cultivating new habits, and the other factors the will influence students over the course of the same period.

  • Concerning grading, have you explained learning objectives in terms of virtues or character strengths that are essential and in development? Have you written the virtues into your rubrics or grading logics?

  • For example, if curiosity is a virtue that you are hoping to cultivate, have you helped students understand when their thinking appears to be closed/rigid (lacking curiosity) and too open and unfocused (too much curiosity)?

  • How might you incentivize and encourage students to demonstrate both their understanding and their motivations?

Sample Descriptions

Sample 1

My name is [ ]; many students call me [ ]. I look forward to getting to know you and to working together as we question how to live and work in communities to address the complex issues of our time, including poverty, inequality, and citizenship. Part of my story is working and learning among people in various African communities, who challenged me to think about what it means to live a good life, a life of character that values all people. I invite you to engage with me on not just the topics of the course— poverty, social policy, leadership, community-engagement methods— but on a life-long trek to learn how we all can be better human beings through practice, reflection, and learning in community. Thanks for embarking on the journey with me.

Although we will use several philosophical approaches in connection with developing and applying ethical judgment, this semester I would like to emphasize virtue ethics in particular. Why? I have found that the answers to so many of the ethical dilemmas we will address in this course, and you will encounter in your personal and professional lives, flow from the statement “because I want to lead a virtuous life.” And so the goal of this course is not merely to master various ethical paradigms like any other academic topic, but rather to contribute to your ongoing ethical formation, consistent with this quote from Aristotle:

“We are conducting an examination not so that we might know what virtue is, but so that we may become good, since otherwise there would be no benefit from it”.

As Aristotle might also say, we are the sum of our choices — our actions and inactions. We are what we repeatedly do. I should note that I offer all of this humbly, as my own ethical formation is still very much a work in progress. But like you, I hope, I aspire to be a better person.

Activities and Assignments

OVERVIEW Assignments and activities can be conducted in class or organized as homework. Some sound strategies on which you might muse include: virtue literacy, situational awareness, habit cultivation, sustained reflection, and communal integration.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

  • How can you weave conversations of character excellence into the existing course content with a tweak to your framing?
  • What curricular opportunities are already present in your class?
  • Are there cocurricular possibilities on which you can build?
  • How will you move students from literacy to understanding and embodiment?

Sample Descriptions

Sample 1

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