Peer Review

Faculty Focus Live Podcast

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Reviewed:: Apr 24, 2025 by Faculty Development

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

This Faculty Focus podcast discusses the advantages of the Liquid Syllabus which is established on an accessible public access website prior to the beginning of the Academic Semester. It's written in a friendly student-centered way to invite students to get to know instructors and more relaxed about the learning experience. In essence, it's an icebreaker option as the podcast showed most students don't engage an online course until after the course has begun.

Type of Material:

This is a podcast on the Faculty Focus website focused on supporting educators as they improve their teaching practices

Recommended Uses:

This resource is recommended for individual educators to assist with class preparation and student relationship-building.

The liquid syllabus is an attempt to soften the entry into the college or course experience by outreach a week or so prior to the beginning of the course. The authors recommend showcasing their personal bios--for example, one discussed how she dressed in a Philadelphia Eagles costume along with her dog. This lessens anxiety and makes students see the humanity of the instructor. Peirce College is set up for adult learners who have been in the profession and now returning for degrees.

Technical Requirements:

No, it's easily available online with a web compatibel device. The Chrome browser was used for access.

Identify Major Learning Goals:

Users of the website will gain the following insights:

Learn how two educators created a liquid syllabus for their courses.
Review the potential improvements to the student learning experience when a liquid syllabus is implemented.
Access resources to get started with integrating this activity in their classrooms.

Target Student Population:

University general studies, lower division and community colleges would find this program useful.

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

No additional subjects are needed

Content Quality

Rating:

Strengths:

The participants seemed highly motivated to help students entry into the course processes prior to the course beginning. There is some scholarship on the subject as per the links the authors provided.

It was great that there was an accurate transcript and links to resources mentioned during the podcast. This enables users to immediately begin interacting with them or utilize them to support student learning.

Concerns:

An operational description for liquid syllabus would have helped to set user expectations

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:

Strengths:

This notion of liquid syllabus prior to the opening of a semester would work well with Adult learners coming back to college or just entering college while still working. The objective is to support learner engagement which makes the resource useful across disciplines and educational levels.

Concerns:

The resource does not include learning objectives, and the purpose of the website serves as the only learning outcome observed.

It might be advantageous to add at least what the user will learn during the podcast or an overall learning outcome when they engage with the resource.

It may be difficult to add the liquid syllibi idea in semester-long courses ahead of formal teaching time.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: This podcast section found on the Faculty Focus Live website is very easy to use and organized well, keeping each of the podcast’s pieces together. Accessibility was considered as there was an audio component of the podcast (auditory learning), a transcript of the audio file (visual learning), and the resources discussed during the podcast (kinesthetic/tactile learning).
Concerns:: The episode was long and considerations could have been given to early engagement with the presenters to create a more focused output.

Other Issues and Comments:: None
Creative Commons: