Constructing the Syllabus

I enjoyed this recent Chronicle column by Monica D'Antonio entitled "If Your Syllabus Could Talk." She was somehow assigned the task of proofreading the syllabi of her colleagues - loads of fun, no? She shares her take on what these documents told her about the teaching styles of her colleagues.

I'm not sure that I would agree with D'Antonio that all instructors with an uninspired syllabus would rather not be in class, but she makes a number of good points.

I suspect that my first few syllabi were the 1-2 page variety. I would say this is because (a) most of the syllabi I received in college were like this, (b) I was naive and didn't know I'd need so many different policies and (c) in my case, I really didn't know what I was doing.

I'm now the 15-page syllabus type. I don't know how long it took me to put learning goals into my syllabus, but it is a distressingly recent development. I say distressing because I spent over a year on leave working in a teaching center. (Partially because of my two-body problem.) One thing we always talked about in workshops is what I'll call from-the-ground-up course development. Start with learning goals: What do you want your students to be able to do as a result of taking your course?

Too often, I think those of us in the sciences are content focused. "I want students to know X" as opposed to "I want students to be able to do X." Of course, we actually do want them to do X, we just assume that will come as they learn the content. And content is about coverage. It worked for us. Right? When I added my goals to the syllabus, I found it helpful. It made me more cognizant of what I was trying to do. Am I really doing anything that supports this goal, or am I assuming students will just pick it up somehow?

My 15-page syllabus is also fairly rigid in terms of course policies. This is actually because I like to be flexible in the classroom. For me, this means both responding to the needs of the class as a whole (by being willing to toss out my own plans for the class period if the students need something different), and to respond to individual situations and difficulties when possible. However, I then run the risk of being inconsistent and disorganized. Having a detailed syllabus helps. If I modify plans for the day, that is okay, because tests and things still happen on schedule. When I'm faced with a student request I respond by referring to the policies set out in the syllabus. It lets me feel more comfortable being firm when I need to. It's not me! I'm not mean! Really! It's the syllabus! I am not trying to remove my responsibility, as of course I understand I am the one creating the policies in the syllabus. However, in the face of a student in distress, I might be tempted to give more leeway than I should.

The other reason I feel need such a syllabus is that I am actually completely disorganized. I used to have a fabulous memory, but no longer. As a result, I never developed any skills for dealing with memory issues - like writing things down. So, I can't remember when I said we'd do what if it wasn't all worked out ahead of time. Nor will I remember what I told student X three weeks ago, when faced with student Y today who is asking the same thing. Now I know that I told student X whatever the syllabus says about his situation, so I know exactly what to say to student Y in response to her request.

This all seems obvious, but every time I teach, I find another policy I need to add. Weird stuff too. Recently I developed a policy for denying participation in class trips for problematic classroom behavior. I did this because I had a situation in which I felt my liability would be too high if I allowed the student to participate. The powers that be thought I was most likely covered anyway, because the behavior was probably sufficient to remove the student from class, but there were threats of a challenge. Now my syllabus covers such things.

Perhaps as a result of all this, I have syllabus stress dreams. You know those student stress dreams where you find out you need to take a final in a class you didn't know you were taking? Well, I never had those. Instead, once I started teaching I started having dreams in which I find out 10 minutes before class that I haven't put together a class syllabus. Hurriedly, I try to put something together from an old one, but computer and/or copier issues ensue, and 10 minutes into class I'm still trying to get something together. Eventually, I go to class anyway, apologize, but the students are like "This is SO lame!" and other such things. It is always a relief to wake up.