Improving Your Syllabus: Linking Your Syllabus to Learning and Teaching


	The final elements of a syllabus to include are the schedule and the administrative details.

	The schedule is one element that your students will demand. You don’t want your schedule to be so ‘tight’ that you can follow up interesting lines of discussion when they occur. On the other hand, you don’t want your schedule to be so loose that students don’t know what’s coming next or how they should prepare for class. I always build in a ‘catch-up’ day to my ‘unofficial’ schedule, and sometimes I include that in the official schedule as well.

	I also recommend adding a statement that the schedule is subject to change. Because students see the syllabus as a contract, some of them get very upset if you don’t stick to the schedule. Adding that statement gives you some leeway. I have never, in all my years of teaching, followed a syllabus to a T. Even for classes such as FLA or SLA that I teach regularly, no two classes are the same. So, give yourself a little room for slack.

	Policies and Administrative Details – this is another area that’s often overlooked. However, I have found this to be one of the crucial areas of my syllabus for smooth running of my courses. I include a policy on late assignments, student conduct, important dates for students to remember and the statement for students with disabilities under this section.

	I want to spend just a minute on my policy for late assignments and the conduct parts. My initial syllabi did not contain these, and I added them after several problems with students. My policy on late assignments developed when I had several quarters where students turned in homework or papers weeks after the assigned due date, with the apparent expectation that I grade them. I was stunned. And miffed. I teach several homework intensive courses, and grading homework after the fact is a pain. In addition, it’s not fair to those students who busted their butts to get them in on time! And then I also discovered students who missed a deadline and assumed that since they’d missed it, they couldn’t hand it in, and so failed the whole assignment (and often the whole course).

	So, my policy on late assignments speaks to these issues: It lets them know that there is an ultimate date beyond which I will not accept late assignments and it applies a mild penalty for being late (i.e. gives the students who were on time an advantage). Beyond that, it keeps me from being the homework police. And while my policy makes me sound a bit like the Wicked Witch of the West, it puts the burden of responsibility back on the student. I’ve had many students come to me on a due date and say “It’s just not ready to hand in. I decided it was better to do another draft and take the penalty than to hand it in as it is.”

	Paradoxically, this policy also makes me look ‘nicer’ to my students. When I didn’t have a late policy and I lowered a grade because something was late, the student was disgruntled. And it makes me look petty. When I do have one, I can choose to apply it or not. If a student has been sick, or comes to me with a plausible tale of woe, I often ‘waive’ the late penalty. (I’ll usually waive it on the first one for almost anyone who gives a good excuse.) That makes me look magnanimous.

	Student conduct is also something to consider. I started to include conduct expectations for discussions/classroom behavior after one disastrous seminar. I had one student who would not be quiet, who rambled on, often with off topic or just plain old inappropriate comments, and never let anyone else speak. It was so bad that we had to sit down as a class and create ‘discussion guidelines’ so that the other students didn’t throttle the problem students. (Wait 30 seconds before answering; if you have addressed two previous points, wait 5 minutes before addressing another one…)

	Ironically, after I’ve included this blurb in my syllabus, I have never had to enforce it. I don’t know if it’s the blurb and my brief mention on the first day that nip the problem in the bud, or if I’ve just been lucky and never had a student quite so bad since. But, I have had several students who have come to me and said “Thank you for including this. I’m in a class now with a student who is constantly monopolizing the discussion and I’m going nuts!”