Planning the IH Syllabus
by Dan Tompkins
Basic Information
The syllabus is no longer just a list of readings. It serves other purposes as well:
· a contract between you and your students
· a document to be shared if you discuss teaching with colleagues
· an introduction to a key part of the Temple curriculum
Beyond some mandatory items such as office hours and a statement on plagiarism, IH has no rigid rules about syllabus format or contents. But there is every reason for you to write a careful statement describing the course. This is the first and one of the most influential documents students will receive. If you write a serious document, adhere to what you say, and refer to it frequently, your students will be encouraged to accord it similar respect.
Reading reams of student evaluations, I have been struck by the student desire to understand. Students are frustrated by:
· teacher divergence from syllabus
· teacher insistence on lecturing for an entire class period; inadequate time for discussion and questions
· disproportionate allocation of assignments (especially end-of-semester gridlock)
· overuse of videos in place of real class work
· seeming unavailability of faculty outside of class
A well-planned syllabus carefully adhered to can help you avoid these problems.
We aim in these courses not just to expose students to major texts of the western intellectual tradition, but to enable them to understand and use them. In this regard, scholarship on student evaluations has revealed two consistent correlations:
· enthusiastic teachers are highly rated
· well-organized teaching wins high, though somewhat less exuberant, ratings but has an even closer connection than enthusiasm does with student learning.
In IH, we aim both for enthusiasm and for organization. Don’t forget the second of these if you want your students really to learn. Obviously, the syllabus is one important organizing tool.
[Teaching and Learning Centers around the country have good sites about syllabus construction. It is always worthwhile to exchange information. For this presentation, I have adapted some material from a site at the University of Minnesota:
http://www.syllabus.umn.edu/tutorial/]
Basic Information: In this section you're sending the students a message that you are accessible and interested in their success.
· Your name (you'd be surprised how many students have no idea what their teacher's name is)
· course title, number, and reference number (off your class list or find it here: http://www.temple.edu/tu_courses/)
· class meeting days, times and place
· office number
· office phone (if you don't use voice mail, provide departmental number)
· office hours (try to vary these so students with different schedules can reach you; be sure you can be in your office as scheduled; if teaching an evening class, be sure to set up times evening students can use) If it is necessary to cancel office hours, try to notify your students.
· email address (N.B. most Temple students use e-mail; all should have accounts, and all have access on the main campus. You can expect them to use it, but should know that they may only log on 1-2 times a week, especially if they commute and have jobs. So I would not count on itfor last-minute communication.)
· ih website address
· advice on how/when/why to contact you (You may want to comment here on how students can reach you in emergencies (if sick on exam day, etc.), adding that you expect them to do this. Too often, Temple students just 'check out' when they run into personal, financial, or health problems. (You're not a therapist, but you should minimize obstacles to their reaching you at such moments.)
· statement on plagiarism (see below)
Until recently, Temple teachers did not routinely include a section on expectations. Why do so now? Mainly, because it should help the students understand the course and what you expect of them in the classroom and in their written work.
Typical topics (thanks again to http://www.syllabus.umn.edu/tutorial/):
Approaches used in the class:
· Lecture
· Discussion
· Group work
· Why have you chosen these approaches? What is the student's role in each? You might want to explain what you are up to, as this teacher at the Minnesota website does:
Teaching method: This course is primarily a lecture course, presented in module form, supplemented with discussion, films, and guest speakers. I have purposely broken the material in short segments to facilitate its absorption. During a typical class period, I will begin with general business, and then will present two (approximately 20 minute) segments of material broken up by a "topic of the day." [UMN]
Rules about:
· attendance
· class participation (what do you mean by"active" participation)
· reading assignments (when should they be completed)
· workload (how many hours of preparation time are appropriate per class or week)
· expectations about technology usage
· student conduct (eating in class, tardiness, exiting during a class, etc.)
· civility: you as teacher are responsible for maintaining a positive learning environment. Occasionally, though never in my own experience, students disrupt a class and must be asked to leave. It will help the Intellectual Heritage Program immensely if you report such cases to the Director, Associate Director, or Administrative Assistant.
· respect for student diversity
· course-specific ground rules (starting times of the class, need for succinctness in discussions)
· how you deal with plagiarism (Temple's policy can be found at:
http://www.temple.edu/bulletin/ugradbulletin/policies_part2.htm#pac)
· Special Procedures (teams, debates, etc.)
Texts
Tell students what books and materials they will need to purchase and where they can purchase these items. It is worthwhile to state that you expect them to bring these books to class and use them in discussion. Surveys show that many American students avoid buying the books for their courses unless required specifically to do so. It is also helpful to state the price of the books.
In teaching athletes and non-native speakers in the summer of 2000, I found that it paid off to develop as many approaches to understanding a text as I could. We used film, of course; we also read aloud on occasion, and enacted key scenes of literary works (not just the plays, but moments from
Genesis). You may want to advise students to read aloud or act out scenes, preferably with classmates, and request this of specific passages (e.g. Iago persuading Othello in Act III).
Grades matter to students. Intellectual Heritage has two strong traditions: of fairly rigorous grading standards, and of instructor independence in assigning grades. The Director and Associate Director will inform faculty each semester about overall grading patterns and how their section fits into
these patterns. We will discuss problems that arise with individual instructors. But grading is your responsibility. In the event of disputes, students are instructed to discuss the grade initially with their
instructor, then with the student ombudsman, who can initiate a mediation effort. Eventually a dispute may percolate up to the Director, but we hope to see very few such cases. If the syllabus is a contract with students, that contract is especially important in the area of grading. Telling a class clearly what your standards are, and then maintaining these standards, protects you against charges of arbitrary or whimsical behavior.
You'll do well to list in your syllabus:
· which student activities you evaluate
· how you weight each activity.
· paper revisions
· make-up work and exam retakes
· polices for late and incomplete work
Note on incompletes. Temple students too often request teachers to give them a grade of Incomplete, to be made up at some future time. Students can be quite creative in their suggestions as to how they'll
do this, and quite persuasive in their pleading. They do, there is no doubt, operate at times on a very thin margin of safety, and finances, health, family problems etc. can all through them into tailspins. But they are seldom served well by the Incomplete grades they request. Most, in my experience, never complete the work, and so get no course credit even when they'd done a lot of work. Too, they often risk losing financial aid, which they need 24 credits per year to retain. And if you leave Temple there is
often inadequate information to permit completion of a course. So we strongly recommend that you give very few-preferably no-Incomplete grades, and tell students this in the syllabus or early in the term. That way they will not count on it.
Student work needs to be assessed and returned promptly, with assessment beginning early in the term. Your feedback on their work is a key guide to student improvement. Without this, students are flying blind, not knowing what to correct, and they are justifiably resentful when a flurry of high-stakes assessments is bundled into the last few weeks. On this note, it is of course essential to return students’ work promptly. Otherwise they will not learn from your evaluation.
By the 6th week of the semester, faculty should have assigned and graded some form of student written work. In this week we’ll request faculty to report students in academic distress to the Director. The Director will work with individual faculty to urge students to utilize the services we provide: undergraduate tutors, a writing coordinator, the Tuttleman Writing Center, and student advisers.
As the University of Minnesota site states, "In general, the greater the number of items used to determine grades, the more valid and reliable the grades will be. It is rarely justifiable to base a student's grades solely on their performance on one or two items, such as exams. One or two graded
items do not provide an adequate sampling of course content and objectives. An off-day could lower a student's grade considerably and be an inaccurate reflection of how much she or he has learned."
The Minnesota site reports that many evaluation experts discourage grading student participation, on the grounds that this privileges certain personality types. There are ways to avoid this by constructing a class so that all are encouraged or required to contribute. One is by assigning students to report out on group work, making sure the whole class ultimately does this. If we learn by formulating our ideas to others, everyone should be allowed to do this-not just the assertive types. So, don't hesitate to grade students for their participation but be sure to give everyone a chance.
The University of Minnesota site recommends that teachers describe their evaluation criteria in some detail (e.g. stating whether mechanics of writing figure in the grading, and what sort of knowledge and intellectual work will be required on exams). This seems a good idea at Temple, where students may not previously experienced a course like the one you are teaching.
These criteria should reflect your course objectives, and should be made as clear as possible to students.
You may want to list various Temple resources in your syllabus. These might include:
· Tuttleman Counseling Services
· Writing Center
· IH Writing Coordinator
· Student Tutors
· Ombudsman
· Complaints
· Bookstore
· Office of disabilities
It is also worthwhile to list key online sources at Temple, especially since
they're not always easy to find.
Key dates to include:
Dates when semester begins and ends
Fall term:
calendar adjustment days, when used
Thanksgiving recess
Spring term:
Spring break
Final Examinations, including your own
[Plagiarism: Please include the following note in your syllabus. Alter the wording if you wish but please do keep the substance]
The Intellectual Heritage Program aims to acquaint you with important original texts and prepare you for careers in which you’ll have to understand and use other challenging texts.
Because writing is an essential tool in understanding and communicating about this reading, we take your writing very seriously in IH 51 and 52. Two basic elements of this writing process are ” the development of independent thought and a respect for the thoughts of others” referred to in the University Bulletin statement on Plagiarism and Academic Cheating:
http://www.temple.edu/bulletin/ugradbulletin/policies_part2.htm#pac.
As the Bulletin goes on to say, “The prohibition against plagiarism and cheating is intended to foster this independence and respect. “
The Program expects all students to follow University policy on this matter:
Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use of another person's labor, another person's ideas, another person's words, another person's assistance. Normally, all work done for courses – papers, examinations, homework exercises, laboratory reports, oral presentations -- is expected to be the individual effort of the student presenting the work. Any assistance must be reported to the instructor. If the work has entailed consulting other resources -- journals, books, or other media -- these resources must be cited in a manner appropriate to the course. It is the instructor's responsibility to indicate the appropriate manner of citation. Everything used from other sources -- suggestions for organization of ideas, ideas themselves, or actual language -- must be cited. Failure to cite borrowed material constitutes plagiarism.
Your Intellectual Heritage instructor is responsible for assigning penalties for plagiarism. Penalties usually range from failure on a particular assignment to failure in the course. In some cases, the penalty can be suspension or expulsion from the University.