writing an effective syllabus

Syllabus Blues? Try Reciprocal Peer Review

For university instructors, late July and August signal the transition from flexible, grading-free weekdays into long (re)orientation sessions and faculty meetings. Amidst city buses full of brightly colored T-shirts and the U-Hauls plaguing one-way campus streets, instructors often retreat to their cramped offices to

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Enhancing Instructor Presence through a Liquid Syllabus

Instructors who teach online do not share a physical space with their students, and therefore they need to establish their presence in creative ways. One tool to effectively enhance instructors’ presence is a liquid syllabus. A liquid syllabus is published on a public website, allowing

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Syllabus Feedback: Questions to Ask Students

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 different syllabi. And they’re the ones who don’t see the

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Sample Syllabi: Some Observations

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 well as differences in content, format, style, and tone. I’ve

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A Potpourri of Syllabus Ideas (Courtesy of Our Readers)

Our reader-submitted collection of syllabi and ideas about them contains any number of interesting ways of handling the small syllabus details and larger ways of dealing with the whole document. Here’s an assembled group of those small and large ideas, listed in no particular order

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Teacher and student reviewing a syllabus

What Kind of Syllabus?

A recent study found that professors and students aren’t on the same page when it comes to the course syllabus (Lightner & Benander, 2018). How about you and your students? As faculty, we probably don’t all see eye to eye, but most of us consider

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Writing an effective syllabus

As You’re Preparing the Syllabus . . .

The “find and replace” feature in Word quickly makes an old syllabus ready for a new course. Use it too many times and thinking about the course settles into a comfortable rut. Yes, we may change more than just the dates, but when was the

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Male professor in classroom with students

Going Beyond the Spoon-feeding Metaphor

Spoon-feeding: it’s a familiar metaphor that implies doing too much for students, doing what they should be doing for themselves, and making something easier than it should be. I heard it used recently in reference to a well-organized, detailed online syllabus that made explicit everything

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writing on sticky note

Preparing a Learner-Centered Syllabus

The Oxford Dictionary defines “syllabus” as “an outline of the subjects in a course of study or teaching.”

“Students who read a good syllabus are more likely to feel that course strategies have been designed to help them reach their goals, rather than merely as busywork

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