How to Create an Infographic Syllabus With Piktochart (Plus Templates)

When you think of a syllabus, what comes to mind?

Is it a boring, wordy document that outlines the content a teacher will address throughout the semester or school year?

An infographic syllabus can be so much more than that!

Keep reading for infographic syllabus examples, templates, and tips from teachers who have created their own infographic syllabus with Piktochart.

• What is the purpose of an infographic syllabus?
• Do students prefer an infographic syllabus?
• Designing a visual syllabus with teacher Heather Anderson (tips)
• Out with the old, in with the new by teacher Katherine Maloney(tips)
• Andrea Zapor’s 5 tips on making an infographic syllabus
• Visual classroom syllabus examples and templates you can edit and customize

A syllabus serves three purposes:

1. It’s a contract that clarifies rules and sets expectations, lays out the responsibilities for students and teachers, and summarizes the plan for late assignments, attendance, grading, and other class procedures.
   
2. It’s also a permanent record – it describes the course’s name, instructor, number of credits given, the level, and what’s covered during the semester.
   
3. Finally, it’s a tool that informs students of the things they need to know to become more successful learners.

The results of a mixed-methods study on student impressions of infographic syllabus by Angel W. Kaur of the University of North Carolina at Asheville concluded with the following findings:

We’ve had the pleasure of talking with three wonderful teachers – Heather Anderson, Andrea Zapor, and Katherine Maloney. They use  Piktochart for Education to create beautiful infographic syllabuses that impact and engage their students.

Heather Anderson is an 8th grade English teacher from Oklahoma. She uses technology in the classroom on a daily basis – besides creating infographics, she built a fantastic site using Google Sites so her students could reach out to her, find course content, or solve problems.

We were super impressed with her, so we asked her about her top tips for creating an infographic syllabus for her students. Here’s her advice:

In the past, my students have always received my four-page-long Word document syllabus with wide eyes.

Words, words, words, as far as the eye could see. So much information, so little time. What did they end up doing with it? Inevitably, it ended up unread in my trash can.

With Piktochart, you can create a visual representation of classroom information your students will actually want to read.

After you cut some of the excesses, think about what images would help students better understand the key elements of your classroom.

On the first day of school, students are full of questions. Can I chew gum? What do I do if I have to go to the bathroom? Is a pen okay?

Try to anticipate these questions and include the answers in your visual syllabus. Students will be able to revisit your syllabus if they forget a procedure in weeks to come (mine always forget how to turn in late work).

Your wording should be easy to see and visually pleasing. Stick to a few colors that complement each other and use similar shapes throughout your visual syllabus to give it an organized, unified look.

Your visual syllabus should be like your classroom rules & procedures: easy to follow and easy to understand. Try to group similar information into one block. For example, combine information about assessment and grading.

Have more information on your website?

Create a QR code and paste it into your infographic syllabus rather than making it too text-heavy.

I utilize QR codes frequently in my class, so including one in my visual syllabus helps students figure out how to read them independently without having to take up class time.

As teachers, it’s easy to be long-winded about how amazing your class is or to go in-depth about your class procedures.

Try to keep the wording short and to the point. Text-heaviness is only going to lessen the visual appeal of your syllabus.

The ultimate goal of your syllabus is to provide parents and students with a snapshot of how your classroom runs.

Katherine Maloney has been teaching International Baccalaureate English and Theory of Knowledge for the past 15 years.

She describes herself as a ‘mother, international educator, doctoral candidate, thinker, reader, blogger, art lover, traveler’ – and she blogs at Katscan, her personal blog on teaching, classroom tactics, and using technology to enhance learning.

At Piktochart, we’re always interested in enhancing learning through technology, so we asked her why she chose to use an infographic syllabus.

Katherine said there was no doubt about it:

Inspired – and not to be outdone – I quickly decided that I would try to make one, too. I created a free Piktochart account for myself and began to take a look around. I knew I wanted a syllabus that would:

• Help generate excitement about the course
• Inform students of what they could expect, both visually and verbally
• Be easy to modify and update
• Not take me a lot of time and effort to create

Although Piktochart also allows users to make their own unique creations, I felt that using one of their templates was probably a wiser choice given that this was my first foray into the world of infographics.

I ended up going with the “2015 Resolution” template because it fit perfectly with the number of units that we had planned, and also because the imagery of the window and the flowers seemed apropos to the learning journey we had in mind for our Grade 9 English students this year.

Using the design template, I was able to quickly and easily plug in:

• The title of the course
• A brief course description
• The titles of our various units with images to match
• Our intended learning outcomes
• The activities we had planned for the year
• Our expectations of learners, and
• Teacher contact details

All within the span of about 20 minutes. The experience was quick and painless, and the final product not too shabby, even if I do say so myself.

Now that I know how it all works, I can’t wait to start exploring Piktochart’s more advanced features, and especially to begin using it with my students.

After making her first French 1 infographic using someone else’s as a guide, Andrea Zapor (an English and French teacher “with a love for technology and learning”) decided she had to design an infographic of her own.

Piktochart has so many different options for templates, illustrations shapes, banners, and so on that, it’s a good idea to browse the options to get an idea of what suits you and your tastes!

Piktochart separates a template into several boxes. Decide whether you want a theme or background for each box or if you want a common theme/background to run for the entire visual syllabus.

I chose to do a different theme/background for each box as I enjoy mixing it up a little.

I’m pretty sure Picasso didn’t paint the Mona Lisa in an hour, so don’t expect to have a perfect visual syllabus in an hour, either.

You can make a super simple syllabus with some graphics in about an hour using Piktochart, but if you want to add links, graphics, fonts, and other cool stuff, you should set aside at least 2 hours to actually build your visual syllabus.

Think about this question: who are you truly trying to reach with your infographic?

Personally, I am doing this for my students. With this in mind, I designed my visual infographic to be mostly student-friendly. Instead of just making text boxes and charts with pretty backdrops, I included clipart and shorter chunks of text.

I also made sure to put the terminology in student-friendly terms. Of course, there are still parts that are directed towards parents, but for the most part, I designed my syllabus for my students. I wanted them to remember my syllabus for once!

The best advice I can give is to look over your old syllabus and pick the top 5 most important sections.

The top 5 sections I chose were: necessary materials, grading, policies (late work, absences, redos, class money system), my contact details, and an overview of the course.

From those categories, I picked 3–4 key points and made sure to include them.

Ask yourself: what do I want the parents and students to get out of my syllabus? What do I want them to remember?

If you need to go further into detail on something, talk about it with the students in class, and if you must, create a brief handout to elaborate.

Take the time to pull apart your old syllabus! You won’t regret it!

Overall, I think that my final product is pretty spectacular, and I love it!

I’m looking forward to using Piktochart throughout the year and seeing what else I can use it for. My hope is that this will stick with students and parents and that I will have to explain my procedures a little less this year. Fingers crossed!

If you want to turn your syllabus into an infographic, there’s no need for you to make one from scratch with the following creative and editable visual syllabus templates.

If you’re new to infographic syllabus creation, watch the short video tutorial below to help you get started.

If you are a teacher who has created an infographic syllabus for your class, please share it with us on Twitter. We’d love to feature them in this guide too!

• How to Use Infographics in the Classroom (Plus Templates)
• 12 Great Infographics for Education Plus Templates
• 75 Unique School Presentation Ideas and Topics Plus Templates
• 12 Visual Communication Ideas That Teachers Can Use In The Classroom
• A Student’s Guide to Getting Started With Piktochart

Editor’s note: This blog post was originally published on August 27, 2015 and updated on July 6, 2022 for relevance, new templates, and comprehensiveness.