Originally published at: Fellow teachers, what would YOU rather do than write the syllabus for your classes? | Boing Boing
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I would rather get urinary catheter.
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Would you rather that some else write the syllabus for you?
(I could see someone utterly incompetent writing one, without a clue if they would coincide with the lesson plans.)
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It’s a lot of work, but I love pulling together a syllabus. I find something really satisfying in building out the scaffold for the semester’s learning experiences to grow within and (hopefully) extend beyond. It’s a fun design project that I enjoy (if not as much as actually working with the students I get to work with).
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I suppose that’s one reason to get into STEM?
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Software developers have long had a special ranking for prioritizing stories/tasks that they know have to get done, but they don’t particularly want to do: dogwash. As in, I’d rather give the dog a bath than work on this task.
That said, writing a syllabus is the part of the job where I feel like I’m getting back into it. It’s satisfying to get it done.
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I had a mathematics course once and the syllabus was basically “the midterm is on this date and worth 50% of your grade; the final is on this date and worth 50% of your grade,” followed by the boilerplate stuff required by the university.
Conversely, I had a history/writing course I think the syllabus was maybe 20, 30 pages… some profs do take great pride in their syllabi (and cop a major attitude if they find out you didn’t read it).
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I have never seen a course syllabus greater than a page, and only a handful used both sides of a page. If there was any inherent overflow, that would be in the multi-page course packet purchased at the bookstore. This could have been the policy of the (two year) college in order to keep unreimbursed printing prices in check.
I think the reason they were kept concise was that a small number of attendees in the first week were going to withdraw from the course, and to keep paper “waste” down.
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Interesting. In my department nobody I’ve spoken to has a syllabus of fewer than 7 pages. One runs to 15.
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Ride the silly bus?
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At some point it stops being a syllabus and starts being the textbook. Probably somewhere around the second or third page.
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Maybe. Also there’s the problem of administrators telling faculty “if it’s not in your syllabus, you can’t enforce it.” So, if a student never shows up to class, and that matters to you, you need an attendance policy explaining how that works. If you care about plagiarism, you better explain it. If you don’t allow late work, you need to explain it. And you can’t just say “I don’t accept late work,” because there might be a circumstance under which you would accept late work (illness, death in family, dog ate it) and if you say you don’t, but make unexplained exceptions, students will complain about unfair treatment. The university considers the syllabus a contract (that I, not students, must follow) and I can’t violate the terms once it’s published.
Then there are the various university-mandated things. In my place this includes a: diversity statement, course participation statement, Academic integrity statement (different from plagiarism), Disability services statement, academic support statement, student mental health and well-being statement, Title IX & mandatory reporting, weekly calendar of assignments, university calendar of of key dates (drop/add, finals, etc), a list of required readings, course learning outcomes, assignment and grading rubrics, and a Covid statement. These things are mandatory per policy and I can be dinged on an annual evaluation for failing to include them.
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I always thought syllabi were handed down from generation to generation in secret rituals modelled on the symposia of old.
You mentioned several items that should be common to all courses taught at the institution.
- Diversity
- Course Participation (covered in grading policy breakdown.)
- Academic honesty/integrity
- Disability Services
- Academic Support
- Student Mental Health/Well Being
As most of these are common across the course catalog, wouldn’t these topics be covered in “Refer to your (Institution Name) student handbook” under the enumerated relevant sections? The only reason to go into any further depth is for inherent exceptions/additions to these noted sections. Examples include: Firearms instruction to convicted felons, background checks for certain professional courses (child care, child development, nursing, public safety, justice courses with public exposure), additional accommodations for non-traditional students/veterans by night class instructors without office hours.
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Please stop with the relentless common sense.
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Sorry, we sometimes forget that the only thing more f’d up than corporate American bureaucracies are corporate American academic bureaucracies.
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I’m sure it all started as “Refer to your student handbook,” before a student made a big stink over something (for better or worse) prompting the University to require the policy in syllabi. The professor just copies/pastes the verbiage to the end of their syllabus however, so it’s all immaterial in regards to the OP.
Speaking of which, isn’t the complaint like, “oh I don’t mind writing books, but doing the Introduction and Table of Contents gets my goat every time!”
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