Creating a Learning Centered Syllabi

January 2000
Ken Jones

Why do you create a syllabus?   What is it supposed to accomplish for your students?  Does it have any usefulness to you?  I don’t know if my experience is anything like yours, but when I began teaching I think I  put a lot of thought into my syllabi.  I said something about the period of history we would be covering, indicated the number of papers, and listed the books we would read.  Gradually, I realized that if I laid out a more detailed day-by-day plan – with specific assignments – in the syllabus, it not only reduced student confusion and resentment, but encouraged me to stay on schedule.  Eventually, I moved from syllabus-as-schedule to syllabus-as-contract, adding course goals, policies, and much more detailed descriptions of the assignments.

 What I would like to focus on today is something that can, I believe, move us another step forward.  My central message is that we can use syllabus preparation as an opportunity to think much more intentionally about the learning that we want to occur each day in the classroom.  (This isn’t something I have created; I’m drawing heavily on Judith Grunert’s The Course Syllabus: A Learning Centered Approach.)
 

Step One — Scholarly Reflection 

I’m sure that when we get ready to create a syllabus, lots of us pull up what we did last time, or work off the table of contents in a text.  This makes great sense, but I would like to encourage you resist the quick solution in just one of your courses for next semester.  Instead, try Judith Grunert’s suggestion that we first engage in some “scholarly reflection” about the teaching and learning we want to take place in the course.  She suggests thinking through questions in six areas.
 

1.

Who am I teaching?   Are there things other than disciplinary content that I want them to learn?  Do I want them to learn to communicate effectively, improve their critical thinking, assess and use resources effectively, work collaboratively, understand and respect differences, clarify personal values, or develop the ability to initiate and assess their own learning?
 

2.

What is the argument my course is making?  How does where it begins and where it ends shape that argument?  What do I want my students to believe or question?
 

3.

Would someone else design this course differently, and why do I do it this way?
 

4.

How does this course introduce students to the methods, procedures, values, and arguments in my field?  What specific content and ways of knowing do I want to        communicate?
 

5.

How does this course connect with both the departmental and larger institutional curriculum?  Is it a foundational course, and if so, in what ways?    Where might this course fit into the larger intellectual life of my students?
 

6.

What parts of the course are going to be most interesting to students?  Where will they experience the most difficulty either in understanding or motivation?  What parts of your course connect to matters students already understand or have experienced?  What will seem most new?  How have you/can you address these common student responses?
 

If all this seems a bit much, I suggest that you simply start by asking yourself what would you most like to overhear a recent graduate say about what they got out of your course.
 

Step Two – Reasonable Expectations

Once you have created huge list of what you want a student to gain by being in your course, you need to move on to the very difficult task of scaling down expectations to a rasonable level.

Grunert suggests that we start by thinking about the audience and the situation; is this the first class in a sequence or a fairly esoteric elective?  Does it fulfill particular departmental and/or institutional goals, and if so, what are the guidelines.

As you do that, I believe that we must repeatedly ask ourselves, “is this material absolutely essential, or is it something that it would be nice for them to know or fun to cover.”   If it isn’t “absolutely essential,” it has to go.  As you make this evaluation, keep in mind that they are not you; much of what seems wonderful to you as a specialist in the field is not essential for an undergraduate.
 

Step Three — Creating a Conceptual Framework

Ask yourself if there is some conceptual framework that can be used as an organizing structure to tie together the information in this course.   This exercise is helpful for two key reasons. 

First, trying to look at how everything fits together – and what connects it – is another way of working at the “what is essential” question. 

More importantly, if you can provide a clear organizing structure, it will help students hang on to the big ideas and the key factual information.  What we see with perfect clarity is going to look to the beginning student like a dizzying mass of data with no connective tissue.  (Since we are all specialists in our areas, it is hard to remember this sensation. Try reading a detailed text in some other discipline sometime, and as you do so remember that you are a much more sophisticated learner than any of your students.)

If we want them to move beyond rote memorization, if we want them to be able to use the information, we need to understand how new and disconnected everything is to them.  We need, therefore to think of some kind of framework that can help; this can be a basic theory, a theme, a typology, or a controversial issue.  Yes, focusing this way will mean that you will have to give up some complexity and nuance, but keep in mind the needs of the people you are helping learn.
 

Step Four — Choose Reading Materials 

Again, this is an area where ideal goals and reasonable expectations have to be kept in balance.  The old guideline is about two hours of work outside of class for each hour in class, but remember that depending on the nature of the material and the skill of the reader, the reading rate can range from 10 pages an hour to 50 or more.

As you pick what you want the students to read, keep asking yourself “how does this further my goals for student learning?”   Is it essential?   Do I want them to read this as the central means for introducing new information and a springboard for discussion?  Or am I assigning this to re-enforce a concept or as a supplement for materials that I am presenting in lecture?
 

Step Five — Achieving Congruence Between Goals and Methods

In this critical step we need to carefully ask ourselves if our methods of instruction are compatible with our goals.   One way of helping yourself think through this is to ask yourself not what you are going to be doing in each class, but what will the students be doing.   If what they are actually doing mirrors your goals, then it is a lot more likely that you will have a learning centered classroom.

I would like to emphasize that I am not suggesting that you have to use the same teaching method all the time.  You can certainly mix lecture, demonstration, discussion, group work, or whatever.  The point I want to make is that the technique you use to help them learn new material should be consciously chosen in light of your overall learning goals.

Obviously, we need the same congruence between our goals and our means of assessment.  If one of your goals is to enhance writing, you probably don’t want to use multiple choice or short answer tests.  Instead, you would want to give multiple writing assignments, and perhaps build in some incentive for revision.  Or if fostering the ability to work cooperatively is one of your goals, then you need to give them lots of opportunities to do so, and they need to be evaluated on their success.  If the goal is to enhance critical thinking, then we need to make sure that we sequence assignments in a way that builds toward more and more complex requirements.

Grunert suggests that if one of our goals is to help students become life-long learners, then we need to build in to the structure of our courses practice in self-evaluation.   She offers a number of approaches to doing this in her book.   
 

Step Six — Create the Syllabus 

Finally, you are back to the task you would have started with if I hadn’t taken you on an extended detour.  Hopefully, however, the results will be more satisfying for you and result in better learning for our students.

Different people naturally include different bits of information in their syllabi, but here is a list of fairly standard things that you might want to consider including.
 

Basic Syllabus Content

v      Fundamental Information

§         year/semester/course title/number/room/time

§         professor’s name

§         office number/phone/e-mail address

§         office hours, appointment or drop-in

§         home phone and limits

v      Course prerequisites

v      Overview of course purpose – how it fits in larger curriculum

v      Learning goals/objectives

v      Class format

§         Student responsibilities/role as well as faculty role

§         Group structures and policies if used

v      Required materials

§         Books/Other 

v      Assignments/schedule 

§         Daily reading

§         Outside events – films/speakers/other

§         Dates for exams/papers

v      Assessment methods

§         Different portions/relative weights

§         Additional:  Extra credit/revisions/dropping exams

v      Course policies

§         attendance

§         makeup exams/late work/extensions/illness

§         drop date

§         S/U policy

§         cheating/plagiarism

v      Invitation

§         to talk about subject matter

§         for students with special needs to contact you

If you want to go into more detail, the possibilities are almost endless.  I’ve included a few below.  Keep in mind that there is always a trade-off between the advantages of providing all the material at once in a nice packet versus the fact that students generally pay attention only when they perceive a need to know.
 

Other Possibilities for Syllabus

v      Detailed policy on grading

§         what criteria have to be met for each level

§         examples of quality papers

v      Advice on how to master this material

§         how to read/take notes/study in this discipline

v      Resources

§         Web-based and library materials that are especially germane

§         Additional suggested reading

Grading is always a problem area, so let me include a few of Grunert’s specific suggestions in that area.   She advises that we provide a clear rationale based on student performance, avoid curves and/or grade reduction for attendance, keep students informed of their progress, provide multiple opportunities to show what they know, and keep the evaluation format consistent so you aren’t grading on their ability to adapt to changes there.

Over the years, I’ve come up with my own list of some other things to consider as I’m constructing the schedule.  For what they are worth, I suggest the following:

Ø       Should I build in a catch-up day or days?

Ø      Do I need to plan for review sessions before exams?

Ø       What do I need to do differently on the “down” days after a particularly large reading assignment, the day after vacation, or when a big paper is due?

Ø       When/where I am going to fit in a mid-term and final evaluation?

Ø       Is this a course where I need more flexibility so that it would make sense to provide the daily assignment portion in unit by unit increments rather than handing out the whole semester at the beginning?

Ø       Do I want to set aside a day or more at the end to pull things together?
 

Step Seven — Talk About the Syllabus.
 

Grunert’s final admonition is that we make sure that our students see the syllabus as a central part of the course.  At the very least, this means a careful discussion on the first day.   Hammer home whatever it is that you see as the central goals for the course.   If one of your goals is to make it a student-centered environment, then go out of your way to explain their role in the class and emphasize the learner’s responsibility for his/her own education.  You can also engage them in the conversation by using an individual writing/small group process to surface what they see as the key components of the best class they have taken in the past.  With a little luck, they will come up with the attributes of the class you have designed. 

Some faculty ask students to write brief reaction paper on the syllabus in which they explain how they see their role in the class, and raise questions or fears they have.  Others ask the students to review the syllabus and then use a brief content-oriented quiz on the second day to push them take it seriously.

My sense is that if we really want them to hear and to understand, we need to keep coming back to the syllabus as the course goes on.  When you give them a new assignment or ask them to do something in class, be transparent: explain the link between the stated learning goals and the class structure/assignments.  (This can be especially helpful if you are asking them to do something they would rather not do.  Structuring it this way can make you seem like someone who has a particular goal in mind that is in their long term best interest, rather than simply being mean and insensitive.)

Sources:

Judith Grunert, The Course Syllabus: A Learning Centered Approach
Barbara Davis, Tools for Learning