Crafting an Effective Syllabus. Before a new term begins, you likely spend a good deal of time focusing on the course syllabus. Whether you’re reviewing and revising an existing syllabus or crafting a brand-new one, the time and attention you pay to this important document can help ensure that it adequately reflects the goals and expectations you’ve designed for the class. In her presentation “Creating a Powerful Syllabus: Doing What Works! ,” Dr. Christine Harrington, author of Student Success in College: Doing What Works! View the recording here. How do you use your syllabus as a teaching tool? Want additional tips? Syllabus: extreme makeover. Cc licensed / flickr user eye of einstein If you are creating your very first syllabus, there are a number of online resources and tutorials that will guide you through the process, whether it’s creating the actual syllabus document or designing a course from scratch.
But if you’ve been teaching for a while, it’s more likely that rather than start from scratch, you’ll be pulling out an old syllabus and revising it. Whether you’re teaching the same course or not, most syllabi include some consistent information: how to contact you, your course policies, and so forth. When you’re busy (and who isn’t), it’s time effective to just reuse chunks of policy text from last time. I’ll confess to having used the same basic syllabus design for over a decade, before I finally changed things up last year. I’d been laboring under the fairly commonplace directive to “put everything important about the course into the syllabus.” So, here’s how I approached an extreme makeover of my syllabus. Return to Top. USC Institutional Assessment and Compliance. Syllabus Tutorial. The syllabus is a small place to start bringing students and faculty members back together... If students could be persuaded that we are really interested in their understanding the materials we offer, that we support their efforts to master it, and that we take their intellectual struggles seriously, they might respond by becoming involved in our courses, by trying to live up to our expectations, and by appreciating our concern. - Rubin, “Professors, Students, and the Syllabus,” Chronicle of Higher Education Your syllabus is one of THE most important documents you create for your class, serving as an agreement between you and your students.
It conveys a first and lasting impression of you and the course you've designed. And it documents and shares your beliefs about teaching. Even very good syllabi have incomplete elements that could bear revision before you next teach the course. Your syllabus is a living, creative document. How to Use the Tutorial Contact Us. Technology Policies on Course Syllabi. It’s final exam time for most of us in higher education. We are scrambling to give final exams, grade student work, submit grades, and leave for the winter break with just a little bit of sanity and a few working brain cells. Then it hits: the excuses for missing or late work. In June of 2009, Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed noted that the old excuse “the dog ate my homework” has been replaced by a new student excuse for late or missing class work.
Today, tech savvy (or not so tech savvy) students blame technology for their lack of, um, achievement in the classroom. Here are a few examples: For some faculty, as Jaschik’s article notes, the “technology excuse” is a clear example of academic dishonesty (when the student lies about such technological disasters and thereby receives extra time to complete an assignment). In this new recurring series, ProfHacker will examine syllabus statements, we will share the statements that we have, and we will ask for samples from you. How about you? Developing a Digital Etiquette Policy. This week, after reading Lee Skallerup’s excellent post “In Class Distractions Are Nothing New” at College Ready Writing, I sent Lee a message on Twitter that sparked a long and productive conversation among many people about laptops in the college classroom (I’ve embedded that conversation below). In short, I’ve never banned laptops from my classroom, but I will confess I’ve been tempted.
My problem with laptops isn’t that they distract individual students—a student who wants to be distracted can do so with pen and paper—but that laptops can so easily distract all those around the students using them. But laptops can also be valuable assets in the classroom (see Mark’s post about Going Paperless in the Classroom or Amy’s about Ditching a Textbook, for example), and so, no matter how frustrated I get with an individual student’s laptop use, I do not ban them. Instead, each year I hone a section of my syllabus, the “Digital Etiquette Policy.” My policy certainly isn’t perfect. Developing an Electronic Communication Policy. I’m just going to come out and say it: this semester was a doozy. And by “doozy,” I mean I barely hung on by my finger tips. A lot of this had to do with the sheer number of students I had, and the sheer number of assignments (written and otherwise) they had—all of which equated to an an almost daily torrent of of emails which not only took far more time than I would have liked to sort out (thereby taking precious time away from other things—both academic and personal), but became a source of incredibly irrational stress (one night a couple of weeks back I actually dreamt that every time I answered one email, three more spawned in its place.).
The end result is that, for the first time ever, I’m very seriously considering developing a formal electronic communication policy. When I say “electronic communication,” I’m not only talking about email, but other channels like IM and Twitter (both of which I use extensively to communicate with my students). Schedule Required Message Contents.