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Make your Course Expectations More Engaging and Memorable

Spice it up!  Create a Course Expectation Infographic

Think about most students' first day of school.  They start out in Advisory, reviewing a multitude of compliance documents and completing a form agreeing to all the contents.  Not that exciting.  This year, they'll receive their laptop in Advisory as well - very exciting!  The rest of the day will be spent in each class, getting to know their new teacher (inspiring) and reviewing course expectations (not as exciting).


If you are thinking of spicing up your first day, you may want to consider presenting your Course Expectations using an Infographic!  The example above is based on a course that I will teach in the spring.

Reasons why Infographics work:

Infographics are everywhere on the web - with good reason.  Infographics play to our brain's strengths:

60,000 times faster

Humans process visual information 60,000 times faster than text.
https://images.app.goo.gl/82HPWapeQh5raZeg8 . faculty.mercer.edu

Combining visuals and related text allows us to access information through multiple avenues in the brain.  

Should you put all the information in your Course Expectations on the infographic?  Probably not.  But, you should pick out the items you really want students to leave your classroom understanding.  Or, to use an education term, you should identify the student learning outcomes!  You can always point out essential nuances, and tell students the Course Expectations document contains all the details for your course expectations.

How to Create this Infographic:  

I used a tool called Canva.  You can log in using your Google Account.  Below are simplified steps to creating an infographic in Canva. 

If you aren't comfortable exploring on your own, sign up for the Data Visualization: Create your own Infographic on Tuesday from 11:00-12:00.

  • On your home page, locate the Infographic option and click on it. 
  • Look through the multitude of Infographic templates and pick one.  
  • Replace the text and graphics with your own.
    (My one beef with Canva is they charge for their graphics.  You will need to upload your own graphics into your Infographic.)
  • Download to a.png image when done!  






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