Course Syllabi-Excellent or Not?

The beginning of the semester is the perfect time for students to assess their professors' course syllabuses. An excellent course syllabus can be a sign of a professor who cares about students and teaching and a course in which students are likely to acquire important knowledge and skills.

UB's primary policy on course syllabuses is a series of "Resolutions on Assessments of Instructional Effectiveness" approved by the Faculty Senate in September, 2001 (available on the UB Faculty Senate's webpage). These resolutions were approved by President Greiner as University policy in December, 2001, and distributed to all deans, department chairs, and faculty. Course syllabuses should include many kinds of information, including academic topics, general course goals, specific learning objectives, expectations and requirements, how attainment of learning objectives will be evaluated, the overall grading scheme, and office hours.

Course syllabuses should include general goals for the course as well as specific objectives for student learning. A course description, that is, a summary of the topics and content of the course and/or a sequence of course topics and assignments over the course of the semester, is not the same as general goals and specific objectives for student learning. Course goals can be abstract, vague, and not tied to content. Goals often represent ideals in teaching and learning, but can be unattainable and very difficult to measure. An example of a course goal is SUNY's Western civilization general education requirement: "Students will demonstrate knowledge of the development of the distinctive features of the history, institutions, economy, society, culture, etc. of Western civilization; and relate the development of Western civilization to other regions of the world."

Objectives for student learning, on the other hand, should be concrete, specific, content-based, attainable by students, and measurable. A list of student learning objectives on a course syllabus answers questions such as: What will students learn in this course? What are the knowledge and skills that students will acquire? Effective student learning objectives often use action verbs such as describe, explain, give examples, identify, know, understand, and use. An example of a learning objective corresponding to the preceding goal is the following: "Students who successfully complete this course should be able to describe, explain, and give examples of concepts and terms such as democracy, Middle Ages, Crusades, Renaissance, Industrial Revolution, Enlightenment, nationalism, imperialism, and globalization." A course syllabus with student learning objectives makes clear what the professor is expecting the student to learn and helps the students to use their time and energy more effectively.

Course syllabuses should also indicate how the results from various requirements will be combined into a final grade. An indication of the relative weight that various examinations and assignments will have towards a student's final course grade is not the same as a grading policy. Minimally, grading policies on course syllabuses should provide sufficient information for students to be able to closely approximate during the course of the semester--given the marks they have received on examinations and assignments-what their final course grade is likely to be. In general, the course syllabus should make clear whether final course grades will be criterion-referenced or norm-referenced or be calculated following some other procedure.

Criterion-referenced grading refers to an absolute, independent level of achievement, for example, students who earn 90 percent or more of the possible points will receive an A. Thus in addition to specifying the relative weights of various examinations and assignments, the course syllabus should provide the cutoffs for possible course grades, for example, 90 percent for an A, 80 percent for a B, etc., or (many variations are possible) 350 points for an A, 300 points for a B, etc.

Norm-referenced grading refers to relative levels of achievement and "curving," for example, students who are in the top 15% of the class will receive an A. If this is the procedure for calculating course grades, the course syllabus should provide the approximate curve for final course grades, for example, 15% of students will receive A's, 25% will receive B's, etc. It isn't important that the terms "criterion-referenced" or "norm-referenced" be used. What is important is that the syllabus informs students how marks from various assignments will be combined into a final grade.

If a course syllabus does not include detailed information about the learning objectives for students and about the basis for final grades, then there is the potential for misunderstanding between the professor and the students and perhaps a basis for student complaints as well as formal grievances against the professor. A dozen links to documents at other universities on preparing excellent course syllabuses can be found at http://wings.buffalo.edu/provost/ctlr/files/teaching_learning.htm.