Running the Learning Contract in Week One
Don’t hand this out with the syllabus. It will be read as one more policy document and filed accordingly. Give it its own twenty minutes in the first or second class meeting.
The blanks (16 through 19) are the point. A student who signs fifteen of someone else’s requirements has filled in a form; a student who adds four of their own has made a commitment. Consider putting student in pairs for 10 minutes to draft items 16–19, then ask three or four pairs to read one aloud. You will learn more about your class in those 10 minutes than in the first two weeks of assignments.
Expect items 11 through 13 to generate most of the discussion. Let that happen. This is the cheapest opportunity you’ll have for “The AI Conversation” in your course as a shared negotiation rather than as you laying down the law.
The point isn’t to have student sign them and never look back…around week five or six, when the best intentions typically collapse, return the contracts and give students five minutes to assess themselves against their own items, not yours. Do this again before finals. A contract signed once and never revisited teaches students that commitments are ceremonial.