This week we’ll be getting back to the nuts and bolts. Having chosen the materials for the course, the next step is to create a road map for the semester. The syllabus generally lists the assignments for the course as well as some other foundational issues: how grades will be computed, what the professor expects in terms of class participation or attendance, office hours, etc.
Carving out the assignments is generally the biggest challenge in creating the syllabus. You can discuss what to put in and what to leave out at the subject-specific posts that will follow this post. Specific examples would be extremely useful. If you’d like to share your syllabus for one of these courses, please email me and I’ll post your syllabus at the subject-specific post. (I’ll be posting my own syllabi at the Contracts and Business Associations posts as examples.)
You should also feel free to discuss larger issues when it comes to constructing a syllabus, such as:
- Do you put the “course rules” in the syllabus?
- What rules do you have? Class attendance? Participation? Preparedness?
- Should the assignments be broken down by day or by week? Or should they simply be listed?
- In the alternative, should the initial syllabus only cover the first few weeks of assignments?
Feel free to post general comments about syllabi to this post.
Here are previous installments to the Course Preparation Project.
Posted by Matt Bodie on July 31, 2007 at 09:17 AM