USF Bloggers Planet

if you boil down a syllabus to its most core ingredient you are left with its learning goals.

on the first day of classes, learning goals signal to students what they can and should expect to learn from your course. on the last day of classes, learning goals help students assess what they did or should have learned from your course.

although your learning goals will take up a relatively small space of real estate on your syllabus, they should take up a large chunk of your thinking. think hard about what you are trying to accomplish in your course and work even harder to articulate these goals in clear and comprehensible terms. if you have taught the course before, look back on older versions of the syllabus and assess whether or not the learning goals are still relevant. if you have not taught the course before, look at your colleagues' syllabi and think about which, if any, of the learning goals you would like to continue, replace, and extend.

try to craft learning goals that engage students who enroll in your course with significant knowledge of the topic and students who arrive with zero experience - and, perhaps, zero interest - in the topic. in general, consider including 3-5 learning goals in your syllabus.

so, for example, here are the learning goals for digital media production, a course i am teaching this fall:


once finished, add the learning goals to your syllabus, save the document, shut down your computer, and celebrate your progress.

the second step of designing a course syllabus is to create the course calendar.

find and download an academic calendar for your college or university. for example, here is USF's 2008-2011 academic calendar. you can usually find your academic calendar by visiting your college/university's web page and searching for "academic calendar."

type in all days that your course meets. consult your academic calendar and note which days are vacation days - thanksgiving, spring break, etc.

at this point, your course calendar will look something like this:


once complete, stare a while at your course calendar. get a sense of its temporal nature. appreciate the months that your course occupies. become familiar with how many weeks your course lasts, locate the half-way point of the course, and dream about the final weeks of the course.

then, save your document, shut down your computer, and celebrate your progress.

open up a word document, text file, web page, or any other platform you plan to build your syllabus on.

at the top of the document, type a) the title of your course; b) the days and times when it meets; and c) the building and room number where it meets.

skip a line and then type: a) your name; b) your office; and c) your office hours. if you don't have an office, list your email address, phone number, or preferred mode for students to contact you. also, because most students have busy schedules and because many of them find any excuse to avoid office hours, it's a good idea to add "and by appointment" to your regular office hours.

your now-started syllabus should look something like this:


you are now finished with step 1 of designing your course syllabus. save your document, shut down your computer, and celebrate your progress!