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Constructing a Syllabus

• April 21st, 2005

Constructing a Syllabus
http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Sheridan_Center/publications/syllabus.html

Excerpts:

Linking Effective Teaching to the Course Outline…

“How can I get students to discuss more in class?” “Why aren’t they completing required readings?” “Why did my students do so poorly on the mid-term?” “I’m teaching a class for the first time. What books am I going to use?” “How am I going to assess my students?” Sound familiar? Although these common questions may appear to be isolated issues, they are, in fact, closely related.

The source of the problems giving rise to these types of questions can usually be traced to the manner in which the course has been set up, or, more specifically, to the course outline, that apparently benign document instructors assemble and distribute to students at the start of semester. Whether it is intended or not, the quality of the course outline is a fairly reliable indicator of the quality of teaching and learning that will take place over the course of a semester.

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