I. Preparing a Course

Preparing a Syllabus

Your syllabus serves three basic functions: it organizes your semester in advance, introduces students to course goals, and states requirements clearly and fully. It can protect you from pleas and challenges and support you should a student complain to a chairperson or dean. A syllabus consists of two parts: rules or regulations and a schedule of assignments. In the rules and regulations section, include the following information:

• The course title, its abbreviation, the semester and year.
  
  
• Your name, office location, office telephone number, email address, and course web site, if you have one. Your home phone is optional: if you choose to announce it, set clear limits (no calls after 10:00 p.m., for instance).
  
  
• The names, office locations and office hours of TAs, graders, lab assistants, course supervisors, and so on.
  
  
• Your office hours. Generally you should hold at least one hour per week for every hour you spend in class. Schedule office hours so that they don’t exactly match a regular course slot; that is, avoid MWF 10:00- 11:00 (students with classes at this time can never see you), and choose instead MW 10:30-11:30 and Thursday 1:30-2:30. Schedule extra hours before exams and due dates of major assignments. Make sure your departmental office knows your hours and those of your TAs.
  
  
• Required and recommended texts. Tell students where to buy books and where to find texts on reserve. (See below for details on both.)
  
  
• A brief summary of course goals and format. Such a description is most useful in courses that students may find new and confusing; it helps to explain, for example, the philosophy behind the workshop procedure in writing courses or the emphasis on authentic language use in German.
  
  
• Basis for the final grade. Note what percent of the grade comes from papers, exams, quizzes, oral presentations, other assigned work, and participation in class
  discussions. If you require a lab, discussion section, or tutorial, include grades for students’ work in the adjunct section in the course grade and explain the relationship. If it is possible to earn a passing grade without taking the final exam, require that all assignments be completed and the final exam taken in order to pass.
  
  
• Attendance policy. Students look to you for a specific statement on attendance requirements. Discussion sections, labs, language courses and studio courses often require consistent attendance and participation for students to practice and demonstrate mastery of necessary skills such as supporting an argument or analyzing a compound. Insist on the level of attendance appropriate to your course. If you are a
  TA for a course, be sure you know the professor’s policy and whether you are expected to set your own.
  Even if you teach a section of a multi-sectioned course with standard requirements, you need to establish or make clear a reasonable attendance policy and stick to it. You must also decide whether it is reasonable to penalize students for tardiness or failure to attend a scheduled conference with you. Record all absences so that you can support your reasoning should a student protest a poor grade. Do not expect the dean’s office or Student Health to verify a student’s illness.
  Athletes are excused from classes on days when they have out-of-town athletic commitments. Any in-season athletes in your class should give you a letter from the
  coach listing away-games, including the time of departure. (For instance, students are not excused from a 9:00 a.m. class if their bus leaves at noon.) Remind students that they are responsible for all work assigned in their absence.
  
  
• Your policy on late assignments. How many days late, if any, will you accept an assignment without penalizing it? How much will the grade be reduced? Decide on your policy before the semester begins, confirm it with your supervisor (if any), and hold to it! If you are strict in the beginning, you can later make exceptions in needy cases; if you are irresolute about early incidents, students will take you up on your leniency and submit more late work. You can build flexibility into your system by allowing students to drop their lowest (or non-existent) grade in one or more categories.
  
  
• Statement about the Honor Pledge. Remind students that all work is considered to be pledged. Note any changes to the Honor Pledge your course requires (for 3 further information, see the Honor Committee website at http://www.virginia.edu/honor/).
  
  
• Any useful resources. For instance, some students in elementary math courses need math tutorial services; students writing papers can obtain help at the Writing Center (see Appendix IIA for details).
  The second part of your syllabus identifies due dates of assignments and exams. If you have a fairly simple course plan (e.g., one text chapter per week), you can probably summarize the entire semester. Otherwise,hand out a schedule listing assignments through midterm or at least through the end of the first month. In any case, list the days and times of all hourly and final examinations on your original syllabus. Students need this information in order to manage their time.
  Especially if you are teaching the course for the first time, build in a few catch-up days or times for review. You might find that your students need more background lectures than you had anticipated, or a topic you intended for one day’s discussion might prove unexpectedly fruitful.

In introductory classes, every day I get to present material that is absolutely new to the students. My approach is essentially, “Did you know . . . ? Isn’t that amazing?”
—Dennis Proffitt, Psychology