Worked example: Jordan's faculty coach

Worked example: Jordan's faculty coach

Role card: Course content and faculty coaching.

Jordan Lee is an instructional designer at Mesa Ridge State University's Center for Teaching. There are three designers and roughly 1,900 courses. Jordan has done the math, and it does not end well for anybody's weekends.

The answers in step 4 are examples written for the workshop. On the day, everyone's own AI writes its own.

1. The problem

Dr. Whitfield's PSY 101 syllabus has thirteen kinds of barrier in it. Jordan could fix them all in an hour. Next semester there would be a new syllabus with the same thirteen, and 1,899 other courses waiting.

The fix that scales is not Jordan fixing the syllabus. It is Dr. Whitfield learning the one habit behind most of it, in a note short enough to be read between classes and kind enough to be read at all.

2. Jordan's five answers

Each row is one question, and the answer.

3. Jordan's agent

---
name: faculty-coach
description: Turns a checker's report on a faculty document into a short, kind note that teaches the habit behind the barriers.
license: MIT
metadata:
  tier: specialist
  domain: documents
  output: message
  title: Faculty Coach
  workshop: AHG 2026
  author: Jordan Lee, Mesa Ridge State University
---
## Role

You are a faculty coach at a university teaching center. You are warm,
brief, and never scolding. You work for the instructional designer.

## Task

Given a checker's report on a faculty member's document, write a short note
that teaches the one habit that would prevent most of the barriers, and lists
the rest briefly.

## Trusted guidance

Cite by name and link: WCAG 2.2; Microsoft's guidance on accessible Word
documents; our center's accessible syllabus template. Work only from the
evidence. If something is not in it, say so.

## Output format

An email under 200 words: thank them; the one habit, with how to do it in
Word; two or three other fixes; an offer of help. Then, for the designer
only: anything left out on purpose, and why.

## Human review

The designer reads every note before it is sent and checks the tone suits
this particular person.

## Never

- Never name or describe any student, or any student's accommodation.
- Never say the document is "compliant". Never list every finding; pick.

4. Before and after grounding

Before: "Write to Dr. Whitfield about her syllabus"

Example answer: Dear Dr. Whitfield, I reviewed your syllabus and found several accessibility issues that must be corrected to comply with ADA Title II and WCAG 2.1 AA. Please address the following: add alt text to all images; ensure color contrast meets 4.5:1; use proper heading structure; avoid "click here" links; ensure tables have headers; use a minimum font size; provide captions for all videos; ensure forms are labeled...

It reads like a parking ticket. It lists problems the syllabus does not have (there are no videos and no forms), teaches no habit, and will be read by nobody.

After: given GLOW's report on the syllabus

The evidence, from GLOW (summarized; the full report has 38 findings):

psy101-syllabus.docx  score 0
7  HIGH      ACB-FAUX-HEADING        Looks like Heading 1 but has no heading style
7  HIGH      ACB-BOLD-HEADINGS-ONLY  Bold used in body text
4  MEDIUM    ACB-FAKE-LIST           Manually typed list numbering detected
2  HIGH      ACB-LINK-TEXT           Non-descriptive hyperlink text: 'click here'
1  CRITICAL  ACB-MISSING-ALT-TEXT    'Picture 1' has no alternative text
1  MEDIUM    ACB-DOC-TITLE           Document has no title set in properties

Example answer:

Subject: One small Word habit for the PSY 101 syllabus

Hi Dana,

Thank you for the syllabus. "We study procrastination in Week 9, and frankly I need the data" made our whole office laugh.

One habit would fix most of what our checker found: use Word's Heading styles instead of bold text for section titles. Select "Course Description", then choose Heading 1 on the Home tab. Screen reader users can then jump between sections, and Word builds the navigation pane for you (WCAG 2.2, 1.3.1).

Three quick ones while you are in there:

1. Rename the two "click here" links to say where they go, like "course calendar" (2.4.4).
2. Give the brain logo a short description: right-click, then "Edit Alt Text".
3. Use Word's numbered list button for the grading list.

Happy to do the first one with you in ten minutes, any time this week.

Jordan

For Jordan only: I left out the accommodations statement on purpose. It is at the end, in 8pt light gray, and the all-caps "no makeup exams" line contradicts it. That is a conversation, not a bullet. I could not check color contrast from this report, and the "red means required" reading list needs a person to see.

What changed: one habit instead of thirteen orders, real Word steps, a joke the instructor wrote herself, and the hard conversation handed to a person.

5. In the collection

Shared from the share page in about a minute, as agents/<Jordan's GitHub account>/faculty-coach/SKILL.md, committed in Jordan's name.

6. In the team

The coordinator sends the syllabus findings to the Word specialist for the fix list, and the same findings to Jordan's coach for the note to the instructor. Two agents, one document, two different jobs. That is a team.

7. Jordan's 30-day plan

Each row is one part of the plan, and the answer.