This Q&A was adapted with permission from the book Chalk Talk: E-advice from Jonas Chalk, Legendary College Teacher, edited by Donna M. Qualters and Miriam Rosalyn Diamond –
Question
Dear Jonas,
I’m teaching a newly-designed course this fall, including using a new textbook and a new syllabus. I am already falling behind on the syllabus, and I’m getting nervous. Some of my colleagues have told me not to worry as much, since there are bound to be glitches with any new course. We’re all somewhat in the same boat here, since we are converting from quarters to semesters, but I’m still uncomfortable. I’ve looked at some of your previous columns like: Jonas on Completing the Syllabus (03/27/01), Jonas on Changing the Ground Rules (02/06/03), and Jonas on Changing the Syllabus Midstream (05/07/03), and these have provided some important help.
This is not the first time this has happened to me. Is there any way I can avoid this in the future?
Thanks for any help you can give me!
Signed: New Course Nervous Nelly
Answer
Dear New Course Nervous Nelly,
I’m glad you were able to view the previous columns. As you can see, this is a complex issue that involves a lot of different issues. As far as preventing this in the future, I’d like to describe a process that could help you avoid these scheduling problems in future “editions” of the course you’re currently teaching, as well as when you’re designing other new courses. Using a systematic approach to lay out a course or series of courses, and then assessing the effectiveness of those courses during and after each semester will help minimize the need for changing the syllabus during the semester, and will lead to “continuous quality improvement” of the course.
Rather than beginning your course design with a list of topics, start by defining student performance objectives for the course. Objectives are not the same as the topics; they are statements of measurable performance that define what students should be able to do as a result of the course. For example, one topic might be “Differential Equations,” but the associated objective might be: “To solve problems with differential equations.” Or, for a topic listed as “Electrical Field Theory,” the objective might be: “To apply electrical field theory to radar systems.” Your objectives should be able to complete the sentence, “By the end of the course, students should be able to…
As an input to your objectives, you should consider the role of the course within the “global” view of your program. Ideally, you should work with your discipline group or department first to determine at least high-level objectives for each course in a sequence. That way, you’ll understand the break points between courses and the knowledge and skills you can reasonably expect your students to have. When you go through this process, you may decide that a particular topic really isn’t that important to cover in this course, or that another topic actually needs more emphasis due to the crucial role it plays as a foundation topic.
Defining course objectives in terms of measurable performance helps the course designer to think about WHY the topic is being introduced at all and what aspects of the topic and/or level of detail are required. Objectives also provide a blueprint for the types of application exercised and assessment (testing) that are appropriate. So while defining objectives up front may seem cumbersome, this process actually simplifies course design and provides a basis for evaluating student performance and course effectiveness. It will also help you prioritize how to spend your time and energy in the course.
As a further benefit to defining both topics and objectives, when both are put on the syllabus, a clear message is sent to students about why they are learning particular topics and exactly what is expected of them. This will provide motivation, and let them know that there is logic underlying the syllabus.
This method can also help while you are teaching a course. Take a step back and consider what you would like you students to be able to do by the end. Then, if you have to re-arrange your topics, you will have a guideline for doing so.
After one semester of teaching a course that has been designed this way, the final critical step is assessment of the course. As an instructor, you’ll have inputs from teaching evaluations, student grades and performance on individual topics, and your own impressions of how things went. To return to your original predicament about falling behind, this post-assessment will include the actual topic coverage and progress (or lack thereof) that you made relative to the syllabus, and provide feedback for revising your syllabus based on this first trial.
This process is a bit more work than many of our intuitive approaches to syllabus and course design, but it can be a rational way to approach developing a newly-designed course that carries a lot of scheduling uncertainties.
Good Luck,
Jonas
Quick Tip
For a more detailed look at how to write effective objectives, check out Alex Romiszowski’s article, “The How and Why of Performance Objectives: Preparing Learning Objectives”
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This content was adapted with permission from the book Chalk Talk: E-advice from Jonas Chalk, Legendary College Teacher, edited by Donna M. Qualters and Miriam Rosalyn Diamond.
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