WOW! What else can we say? We oohed and ahhed all afternoon looking at your submissions. Thanks for giving us a peek into your classrooms; you have inspired us! Here are six sweet syllabi to envy (we definitely do!).
and the winner is…
KAYLA SOLTIS!!
We love the cheerful graphics and colors on Kayla’s infographic syllabus! The wording is positive and it appeals to young adult learners. The school’s seal is a nice touch too.
Kayla Soltis, VA
(Piktochart)
We thought Inga’s layout was streamlined with great graphic visuals that had a purpose. I bet it copies well in black and white too. We love the grade line-graph visual with a simple explanation. This is the best German syllabus we’ve seen (and the first!).
Inga Templeton, CA
Jeff’s syllabus mixes digital scrapbooking and realia that would look amazing on a website or Edmodo. We love how he strategically used the target language in a comprehensible way with images and arrows (see green bubble on 2nd page). I can tell this took time (and lots of passion)!
Jeff Haubenreich, MN
(MS Publisher, MS Paint)
J. Haubenreich
Kelly’s made it very clear what was expected and how to organize it with the large boxes. Everything is positioned so well, and the arrows draw your attention to information they may need quickly.
This one could be a great bulletin board or even printed as a business card. We love the simplicity. No nonsense! It shows you don’t need paragraphs to explain everything. Amy said she did grayscale so it copies well.
We were pleased to see Tiffani use an image that was not so stereotypical. It represents the culture (and our mission) in a positive. I’ve used chili peppers and sombreros for many years, but imagine if an English teacher put a hamburger and blue jeans on theirs? <awkward>
Tiffani Baldwin, SC
So now I need to get to work on my syllabus. I hope this has inspired you too!
What great, inspirational examples of ways to get students exited about learning languages! Thanks to all the contributors!
Thank you for the great ideas! I am inspired! You’ve changed the way I view Syllabi and their function. It’s changed from boring task to exciting challenge. Gracias a todos!
Great examples! I feel so motivated to update mine now too!
Wow! So many great thoughts and examples here! Thanks for collecting and sharing!
Wow! Stunning! Yet as just a novice, where can I find the resources to make mine look more fabulous too!
Looks like Piktochart.com, Microsoft Publisher, Pages/Word and PowerPoint are the preferred programs. Anyone else have a favorite?
Thanks so much for the guidance! Just looking at these syllabi I want to take the classes!
Mine was a Pages Newsletter template. I definitely messed around with it a lot, but it’s nice not to start with a completely blank slate. 🙂
Kelly- I really like the layout of your syllabus! Also – Would you explain your grading scale in greater detail? You have E and ME in more than one place, which makes the letter grade equivalents difficult for me to interpret.
Kelly—which pages template app do you have?
Awesome examples! I’m inspired to get mine started!!!
Wow, so glad I stumbled across this. Excellent motivation to put some time into a redesign of my parent handouts. These all look like high school examples. Any submissions that were geared toward elementary grades?
Mostly high school. Anyone else have some elementary examples?
There was a middle school one by Sra. Barrios where she folded it like a brochure. I liked that idea.
Just curious, how did you stumble onto the blog?
I honestly don’t know how I got to yours, sorry. I’ve been clicking around on twitter for the past hour and have a ton of tabs open while exploring. 🙂 I am taking an EdTech class this summer and had to start a blog and twitter account as an assignment. So I’m trying to find others to follow. I was dreading it, but I am actually really enjoying it. Unbelievable PD opportunity! Do you have any great recs for language teachers?
On twitter, Thursday nights, there is #langchat which is fabulous to participate or at least read afterwards.
For sites, scroll down on the right on Sara-Elizabeth’s Blogroll to see some top sites:
http://musicuentos.com/blog/
Thanks so much for the info!
These are ah-mazing!!!!! Thanks for sharing!
I love Kayla’s course outcomes. They are so clear and meaningful, great job to group them under the appropriate action verbs. However, my other favorite was Tiffani’s for the simple, clear design and table of contents.
These are so excellent. Thank you for the inspiration. I totally revamped my syllabus because of your site. I would love to see how some of these people created them. I just bought pages and that helped a ton.
I LOVEEE Pages!
Love these! I’m going to try and re-create mine using some of these ideas. Thanks!
These all look so beatiful but I haven’t the foggiest idea of how to create them. I went to Word, under Newsletters but that is as far as I’ve gotten…
Do you have Publisher? You’ll have more luck with that program, which is also from Microsoft.
Thank you! Absolutely inspiring!!
Wow, those are amazing! I love knowing how many great teachers are out there doing great things! Thanks as always Kara.
I agree, amazing work! It reminds me that we need to give students a chance to shine too. Give them an audience and purpose for creating/writing/presenting something. hmmm
These look unbelievable – actually, you would WANT to read them!!! I’m also curious which programs were used for the various layouts (especially Kayla’s and Inga’s).
I know that Kayla used Piktochart.com. They have a few free themes to choose from. My guess is that Inga’s is Publisher.
Hi Kara! I saw this post weeks ago and have been thinking about how I am going to redo mine since then. I’ve been working on Piktochart and have begun to develop some good things. The only problem I’m having is with printing them out. How did Kayla give them to the kids? It seems to me that the infograph is narrower than standard paper. Any ideas?! Thanks!!
I suggest posting on a website. Other ideas??
All the presentations are awesome. Congratulations!
Which are the free programs + user friendly that can be used to make a syllabus similar to the ones posted? I know that Piktochart has some free ones but I found them hard to understand.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for mentioning my syllabus! What a great post! I’m excited to use some of these ideas to make my syllabus even better!
Your blog name is fabulous! It should be on a t-shirt.
Here’s another site: http://www.easel.ly
Thanks Noah Geisel for sharing!!
I really, really like Kelly’s and Amy’s, and may borrow pieces when I re-draft mine this year! (Tomorrow, actually!)
Thank you so much for sharing these!
Thank you for inspiring me to change my syllabus. I guess after 11 years, it was time to change it up!
Impressive! I would have never though of updating my syllabus into a newsletter-style. This is amazing and I’m sure the students appreciate it and are invested in the course more. Gotta go backmtomthe drawing board now.
LOVE these ideas! I’ve often thought about setting up a syllabus with a “shoots and ladders” gameboard theme. The ladders could be the positive learning habits and the slides could be things like online translators, etc. I don’t know if my students played that game when they were young though!
The first one is from my Alma mater. Granted 20 years later but still my old high school!
Love it.
This totally upped my game! I’m working on a brand new design for next year’s syllabus now. Love the ideas!
After seeing these, I was inspired to create my own. I think it turned out pretty well! Thanks for the ideas! https://magic.piktochart.com/output/2326078-spanish-4ap
Looks good!
I follow your website pretty regularly, and now that it’s updated things are not appearing correctly (or at all). I anyone else having this problem? I’d really love to be able to see these syllabi!
We are aware…so sorry. We need a little time to get everything switched over.
Awesome and very motivational examples! Thank you.
What programs were used to create these syllabi
I think Piktochart.com was the most used. If we know what program, we included that info with the pic.
These syllabus examples are beautifully creative and inspiring! What a great idea to ask for and share them! I can get rid of my ho-hum one and create an attractive do-over! ¡Muchísimas gracias!