How to finish your syllabus when you don’t want to even think about your syllabus

Plus reminisces about my childhood, multiple pop culture shout-outs, and another cute photo of my cats.

Hello and welcome to Academia Made Easier. I am so glad that you are here. 

I spent my childhood in rural Saskatchewan in the late 70s and early 80s and the rural infrastructure of the times did not please me. We lacked a public library and I had to wait impatiently for bookmobile visits. Phone service was limited to party lines, leaving me to worry that the neighbours were listening in on my exciting grade four discussions.

And, worst of all, we had only two television channels. TWO! (Three, if you counted the French channel, which my childhood self most certainly did NOT.)

City kids - those snotty assholes - had access to cable tv and the wonders of viewing choice. My rural choices were CBC with its heavy Canadian content and the limited American programming on CTV. 

I leaned heavily into the latter. A show I had already seen? I’d watch it again. A show I didn’t like? I’d watch it anyways. A show I had already seen that I didn’t like? I could recite lines along with the actors.

Some of my favourite episodes involved programs that crossed over to other programs. There I would be, happily watching Happy Days, when Mork from Mork and Mindy would show up. It was like my friends knew my other friends! And then Mork would hang out with Laverne and Shirley, too! It was thrilling!

(No, I didn’t have a lot of friends. How did you guess?)

Television crossovers sadly seem to be a thing of the past (with a recent fan-serving exception being Better Call Saul). So in tribute to the crossover episodes of my childhood, I introduce today a new type of crossover: the column crossover!

(Yay?)

Last year, in my University Affairs teaching and learning column, The Skills Agenda, I wrote a series to help instructors construct or update their syllabi. If you feel the next semester barrelling at you like a freight train, today’s small thing will help you complete your syllabi and allow you to get back to other things.

One Small Thing to Try Immediately: The Syllabus Design Bootcamp

Syllabus design is something I tend to procrastinate on. There are so many decisions, and things in the syllabus are locked in. If you say you are going to cover soup, peas, and nuts, and then discover there is no time for nuts, you will hear about it in the course evaluations. Halfway into the semester is not a great time to change your mind about using that $165 textbook. And deciding assignments means deciding what to grade, which means thinking about grading, and wouldn’t a nap be nice right about now?

The trick to getting syllabus design done is to break it down into steps. Five steps, actually. You can do one step a day (the ‘chip away’ approach) or you can do it all at once (the “blitz’ approach). I provide a general overview here, but for more information and resources, please be sure to check out the original Skills Agenda columns.

1. Create the template and set the learning outcomes. Most programs have a template that instructors are asked to use, which can be less intimidating than a blank page. Once you have your template, start with the course learning outcomes. I created a learning outcomes worksheet to make this easy.

2. Select the readings and other learning materials. Your learning materials should tie to and support the course learning outcomes. Pay attention to student workloads and the diversity (or lack thereof) of experts and viewpoints in your assigned materials. (Some online tools that can help with thinking about course learning materials include Jane Lawrence Sumner’s Gender Balance Assessment Tool (GBAT) and Wake Forest University’s online workload calculator.) Assess opportunities to bring in engaging content through online guest speakers, podcasts, videos, or other means.

3. Design the assignments. The assignments must, at a minimum, tie to the course learning outcomes. But given that both the students and you (or your teaching assistants) will be spending a lot of time with the assignments, treat assignments as an area for potential creativity. For example, a colleague focused his history class on a board game development assignment. Another colleague had her students engage in “philosophy in the wild.” I created a pay-it-forward assignment, in which students developed learning materials for future students. Dalhousie University has a list of creative assignment ideas; check it out to spark your own creativity. 

4. Create the schedule. Start by building in statutory holidays, add/drop dates, and reading week dates. Then schedule instruction dates and assignment deadlines. In doing so, look for opportunities to build in some buffer times. This might be in the form of a catch-up class, a reflection week, or some other form of scheduling cushion. It is reasonable to expect schedule disruptions, and smart to plan for them.

5. Add your policies and your personality. The last stage is to include your course policies and any required university policies and to review the document to ensure it reflects your personality. I include a land acknowledgement and a statement about our classroom being a safe, respectful space. I use the first person, as I see the syllabus as my first opportunity to build a relationship with my students. I also proofread a few times in order to role model careful attention to work.

A well-designed syllabus matters. To quote myself (awkward!): 

[Your syllabus] clarifies your expectations, and in doing so promotes equity. Many students – particularly first generation, international, neurodiverse and Indigenous students – are unfamiliar with the “hidden curriculum” of university life. A well-designed syllabus provides transparency to students. As I have discussed previously, explicit instruction is a teaching best practice. This practice starts with your course syllabus.

These five steps will set you up for a stronger syllabus. I hope you find them helpful!

Chipping Away: What I Have Been Up To

A quick update on some of my own activities since my last newsletter, since I have your attention:

• After a month away from campus due to a work-from-home writing sprint and some vacation time, I have returned to working out of my campus office a bit. It is really nice to see people again and our campus is truly stunning in the summertime. 

• I continue to mourn the upcoming end of summer. This involves repeat listening to Camila Cabello’s “Don’t Go Yet” (“whatca leaving for … just a little more, don't go yet… stay a little longer…”). If you haven’t seen it yet, the video is very fun.

• At the initiative of my daughter, our family held a successful garage sale. By successful, I mean that she had fun, unwanted stuff left our house never to return, and there were no moments of stress. Plus over $200 was raised for the family ice cream fund. Sweet.

Until next time…

If you know others who are working on syllabi, please share this newsletter with them. As a diehard teaching and learning geek, I am excited to share these resources with anyone who might find them helpful. And I would love to hear how your own syllabus design is coming along. Please take a minute to comment and let me know!

And with that, I wish you a happy middle of August. Stay well, my colleagues. 

P.S. I have exciting cat news to report: Storm and Bandit got new baskets! Actually, the baskets were purchased with other ideas in mind, but once our cats claimed them, they were repurposed. 🥰

Want to help support my chocolate habit? You are very sweet. Buy me a coffee is a site that allows readers to show their appreciation for the unpaid labour of writers, artists, and other creatives. Check it out!

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Loleen Berdahl, Ph.D.: I am a twin mother, wife, runner, cat lover, and chocolate enthusiast. I spend far too much time on Twitter and binge-watching television, and my house could be a lot cleaner. During the work hours, I am the Executive Director of the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy. I am the author of the University Affairs Skills Agenda column and my most recent books are Work Your Career: Get What You Want from Your Social Sciences or Humanities PhD and Explorations: Conducting Empirical Research in Canadian Political Science.