I’d like to begin with the main reason I offer extra credit. I offer it because I am an imperfect grader when it comes to assessing what is impossible to grade.
Where do you stand on extra credit? All but one of the more than 20 faculty who shared their views with us endorsed it. By contrast, in a 1989 survey of faculty across a range ...
These extra credit assignments were submitted in response to our request for samples. We’ve organized them by the goals they seek to advance. In some cases, they are condensed versions of the assignment descriptions submitted, ...
Extra credit can be an overused classroom tool. As a learner, I always viewed extra credit as teachers bribing students to work for points instead of cash. And as a new teacher, I thought the ...
I’m a big fan of syllabi used well. On the crassest level—and it’s important—syllabi are contracts between faculty and students, contracts that administration holds us to. When a student makes a complaint, administrators want ...
When a course is offered in multiple sections, sometimes at different locations, and taught by different instructors and worthy of transfer credit, it’s important that the students taking it have the same course experiences. Depending ...
Getting feedback from students can help you build a better syllabus. They’re the ones you’ve designed it for. They’re the ones who will benefit from using it. They’re the ones who experience a range of ...
According to the National Center for Education Statistics’ (2019) most recent data, 24 percent of college students are first in their families to attend college (p. 127). First-generation students bring a richness and depth to ...
Various aspects of the syllabus have been studied, among them issues of tone, its use of images, its length, whether it’s “learner-centered,” and the effects of its being so or not. The studies highlighted here ...
More than 20 of you responded to our call for sample syllabi by sending yours. Thank you! It may not be a stratified random sample, but your collection represents many different disciplines and courses as ...