Along the lines of my esteemed colleague's recent post about contested grades, I have a thirsty....
I am writing/revising syllabi for next term. First of all, I've discovered that students want them ahead of time (!). Second of all, the bookstore is bombarding me with email. Third of all, I might actually have a Christmas holiday this year that does not involve my biological family's reenactment of American Gothic With Turkey And Calvinist Church Service. I would like to enjoy that, sans syllabi.
Here's the thirsty:
Each year, my syllabus becomes more "defensive." I list criteria and policies like crazy. I include add/drop deadlines, I do not use participation anymore (although I will occasionally use 'attendance' in small, lower-level classes), and I spell out everything I possibly can in detail.
My colleague, whom I adore, does none of this. His syllabus is a list of texts. There are no policies. There is a grade distribution, and a list of texts. He insists that my failing lies in my attempt to over-legislate...his logic is that I cannot possibly anticipate the -depths of their idiocy- possible attempts to weasel around things, and so I should not try. I should merely exercise my iron will in the classroom.
I like my elaborate syllabi because I feel like they keep me honest--I am less likely to cave to whining. I have also been advised by other colleagues to have these elaborate things. It's only my dissertation committee members, interestingly, and a couple of very senior faculty, who have encouraged me to go policy-free on the syllabus.
I am of two minds.
First, I need all of that junk in there so that they don't get nasty and so that I don't succumb to the pressure of dead grannies and power failures and so on.
Second, I know they don't read it. They don't read long assignments, either.
What do I do? Policy-heavy, or policy-light? And what might the logic be for each?
Your comments are appreciated.
Split the difference. Use a lot of "late papers will be accepted only at my discretion, and with a grade point penalty as I deem appropriate" kind of clauses. Vague threats are more effective than specific penalties - make sure they know that you reserve the right to beat them up as much as you damn well feel like it if they step out of line. Cover everything from bad behavior to plagiarism with "I'll decide when we get there, depending on how pissed I am" type penalties. They'll scare themselves, and you won't have to TRY scaring them.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I've been informed by our student affairs office that if a policy isn't specifically spelled out in the syllabus, they will not support faculty if a student files a grievance. This lack of administrative support has made my syllabus about 12 pages long.
ReplyDeleteI'd say more specific is better, if only because you can include a clause that says "I reserve the right to modify these policies on an individual basis" -- and still nail the little buggars who deserve it.... and maintain administrative backing.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I would love to live the lives of my minimalist colleagues, my experience has mirrored Allison's.
ReplyDeleteEven at the school where I got the two student apologies for substandard work (and added two more since!), they totally caved when there was not EXPLICIT information about grading.
A couple of terms back, I stumbled -- there I said it!
I'm a parent, a spouse, I work a job in my discipline in addition to teaching, and I have a PERFECT grade point average (sorry, couldn't resist).
Anywhoo, during this term from hell, I didn't get the first papers back fast enough for them to be templates for the second paper. (I DID, however, post a "First Impressions" notice where I highlighted the most common errors and strategies how to avoid them for the second assignment.)
As you might expect, someone beotched ...
Now, this wasn't a student who got a B+ and really felt an A- was deserved. This was someone who's paper was utterly and totally unrelated to the assignment. (Another "I wrote what I THOUGHT you wanted" excuse.)
Long story short, the student won the grade appeal and magically went from marginally acceptable to spectacularly stupendous! (The program still uses narrative statements in grading.)
When I inquired of the boss -- I said, "I screwed up and expected to take some lumps (like student going from C- to C+), but this is total fiction. Someone might actually read student's transcript and believe this is someone who can write and think coherently!"
"You left us over a barrel," is what I was told.
Moral of the story: My syllabi are regularly 10+ pages and (thank you CMers) will now include a statement that I -- and I ALONE -- am the arbiter of satisfactory performance (and good taste) with limitless discretion to call 'em as I see 'em.
All hail the Grand Omnipotent Stomper!
Where do you teach that you actually get to decide what is on the syllabus? Where I am, 75%+ of the content is dictated by centralized policy, and much of that official policies on all kinds of stuff (plagiarism, late papers, handicapped students, etc.). It is designed to be an air-tight contract. It assumes that litigation and contestation are part of the process.
ReplyDeleteMuch as I'd love to be able to advocate for the short-and-simple syllabus, I, too, am in the spell-it-out camp, for the reasons others have named. I think the advice you're getting from senior faculty is much like the advice I got in the '90s from people who'd survived the job market of the '70s: well-meant and tested by personal experience, but not relevant to the current situation.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I'm not sure I'd cave to requests for the syllabus before the first day of classes. Book orders/lists, yes, of course; syllabi, no. I know much of the registration software currently in use, in addition to the course-management software, invites early release of the syllabus, but that doesn't strike me as a wise practice, especially when Provosts, Deans, etc. have a tendency to send "please include this on your syllabus" emails days before classes begin. Since the syllabus is, to some extent, a contract, there shouldn't be multiple versions out there. I occasionally send a syllabus from a prior year to a student who requests an advance copy, but only if I have one, and I don't expect to make any significant changes, and always with the caveat that it is an old syllabus and that I *may* make changes.
Cassandra (who, believe it or not, voluntarily attends services in the (a?) Calvinist tradition on a regular basis) out.
My university requires us to write the anticipatory kind, so while I used to be more like your colleague, I now follow the rules and publish a book full of policies every semester. I don't think it hurts anything, though I'm less convinced that it helps.
ReplyDeleteUnless you're fully tenured and all the way promoted, spell it out. One of the first things my boss normally asks is, "is it in your syllabus?" It is, indeed, a beautiful thing when you tell a student that you simply cannot do whatever it is the student wants you to do "because it's in the syllabus." Anything that is not written down seems to be subject to negotiation. But putting it in writing makes it True.
ReplyDeleteWow - depressing, but eye-opening, stuff. Good to know, though.
ReplyDeleteSpell it out. Make sure your policies are specific. Than when a little 'flake says that his/her Grandmother died (probably the 4th one during the term), you can point to the "no late work accepted for any reason" clause in the syllabus, and explain that it is out of your hands, since your boss states you must stick to your syllabus.
ReplyDeleteI have all my policies written, and it works beautifully. The 'flakes try to twist them around, try to go to my Chair on occasion, but I have never had to change one of my decisions based on what is listed in my syllabus.
Administratium likes written policies.
I'm a minimalist. I have three rules on my syllabi: no cheating, no late work, no laptops or other electronic devices. And that is the exact wording I use. The rest is a list of books and assignments.
ReplyDeleteBut, I detect a split between adjuncts/junior faculty and senior faculty. Perhaps the more at risk or vulnerable one feels, the more important it is to try to spell out every conceivable contingency. I can understand that. But since the snowflake mind will sink to depths of perversity and sophistry that cannot possibly be anticipated, I find that making the syllabus into a list of rules is a fool's game. They're all fucking barracks lawyers, and they'll figure out some putative loophole to whine about.
But, if you are being told to be contractual by the higher-ups, then by all means be contractual.
Yes, put it all in writing. It covers your ass. Once upon a time, I thought my colleagues were crazy when they asked their students to state in writing that they read and understood the syllabus. Now I just think it's prudent. When, for example, I discover that a student's family member is rewriting her work and the student claims to have not known that this isn't okay, I can point to the syllabus, tell her she read it and understood it, and move on from there.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I have been asked by higher-ups to remove some rules from the syllabus because they were too demanding for snowflakes to follow.
Ugh, I give an online syllabus QUIZ, even, and say that I will not answer questions about the syllabus from anyone who did not take it.
ReplyDeleteI think Angry Archie put it the best: listen to the higher-ups where you teach. Heck, I'd be obsessive on my syllabi, but I was also given good advice by folks who had gotten involved in some horrible grade appeals.
ReplyDeleteThere are two trains of thought here: short and simple but risky, and long and winding with a guarantee that no one is reading it.
ReplyDeleteI suggest a compromise.
The first 2-3 pages: Short and simple. A description of your course; office hours, name, email; the weekly (or daily, depending on your style) run-down of the syllabus. You know: the important stuff.
Then, as an add-on, a very long FAQs.
Q:What should I do if I miss a deadline?" A:Nothing. I don't accept late work.
Q:How should I get notes if I have to miss a class?
A:Make arrangements early with a student, because my notes will not be posted online before, during, or after lecture
Etc, etc. Hell, give them 6 pages of "FAQs." They won't read them, but your ass will be covered, and they won't be able to protest. They will, however, make it through the first 3 pages, which has the important stuff. Due dates, goals of course, etc.
My syllabus gets longer every single semester, because every single semester there is a dingus or two that does something that isn't forbidden by the syllabus because I haven't thought of it yet. My classroom policies are 100% student directed, in that they all exist to remedy a situation that used to exist, but doesn't anymore because I put a policy in my syllabus to fix it.
ReplyDeleteMy latest addition was to mandate that students must remain in their seats for the entire period. No leaving class. If they're sick, they can exit but they can't come back, and they get an absence. 99% of students that left and came back were answering their phones. Some took a smoking break. Now, no one leaves. Ever. At least while I'm standing there.
There's no sleeping, no talking, no electronic devices, no late homework, no plagiarism, etc., all of which is spelled out specifically, page after page, along with the penalties for violations, and specific conditions for exemption from the policies.
The result? No one leaves, no one talks, no one texts, no one turns in late work, etc. If someone tries to give me shit, I point to the syllabus.
In my experience, if there's a weakness in your syllabus, students will poke a hole in it. They're masters at that.
I think a minimal syllabus is a much stronger syllabus, because, as others have said, a few strong rules a much harder to weasel around than a lot of tiny regulations.
ReplyDeleteBut then, I think I don't worry as much about some things as others here do, perhaps because my classroom experience is different.
I don't worry about breaches of courtesy - cell phones, laptops - because i've never had a student abuse these things. I banish laptop users to the back two rows of the class so they don't distract anyone else, and I advise them to turn off their wireless access so they won't absent-mindedly check their email during class. But if they do, their loss. As long as they're in the back two rows and not bothering anyone else, it bothers neither me nor their fellow students if they waste an hour's worth of tuition fees surfing YouTube.
I've never had anyone have a cell phone go off that didn't turn it off immediately, looking very embarrassed. This is a momentary oversight, not a Disrespectful Student. And it never happens in any class more than once per semester. This doesn't require a policy.
I don't take attendance. I tell them on the first day that high grades are correlated with frequent attendance. After that, it' s up to them. They're paying for their space in the class. It's their loss if they don't use it.
I have a boilerplate "Fine Print" in my one-page syllabus that reads as follows (tweaked for different classes' requirements):
"All assigned work and tests must be completed to receive a passing grade in the course. There will be no makeup quizzes. 1% per day will be deducted for assignments handed in after the due date. Appropriate paperwork must be provided for exceptions requested in cases of illness or family emergency. Breaches of academic integrity, as described in the University Policy on Academic Integrity (URL), will be severely penalized."
This covers everything I care about.
The grading rubrics are covered in the handouts for the assignments, which I give out later on. (Usually I haven't got them written by the first day anyway.)
I've never had a syllabus that took more than a page. I'm not sure how much else I would have to put on it. What are the other things that other people put on? I'm asking seriously. What are the policies you put on your syllabi?
@merely academic:
ReplyDeleteThere are policies on my syllabus for everything. Policies for lateness to class or with assignments, policies for class behavior, etc.
One example of something I had to tweak was the assignment deadline. I had only a date and penalties for lateness. So, over time what started happening was that students would want to turn in their papers later than class time, to the point where about half my class would come without their papers on the day they were due, and crowd around my desk at the end of class, asking when in the day was the latest they could turn it in. They had an in-class assignment that was ON their papers, and they didn't have them. Others would give me sob stories about their printer, etc.
As for homework assignments, there were students that would try to turn assignments in at the end of class, when the class revolved around going over their written assignments. Sneaky ones would sit in the back, writing down the "right" answers and then try to turn it in at the end of class. They know every trick in the book.
So, the policy is that papers/assignments are due at the beginning of class, or they are late, or cannot be turned in at all. Blackboard helps with this.
As for cell phones, when I started teaching there were none, so it wasn't a problem. Then there were few, and then more, and now everyone has one. Before I had the policy I do (students are counted late if their cell phone rings), just writing "please turn off your cell phone in class" on the syllabus didn't help a lot. Without a penalty, cell phones rang. Sometimes two or three times a class. Incredibly distracting.
Now, cell phones don't ring. They're careful because if they're not, it's not simply a matter of courtesy or embarrassment. It costs them. Where I teach, that is the only thing that works.
@Merely Academic: Great Googly-Moogly...ONE PAGE? Where in the H-E double Toothpicks do you teach because I wish I could do the same. We are told that the Syllabus is a legal contract and that there are some things BY LAW that are require to be on the syllabus e.g. how the student will be evaluated with % breakdown. Much of the rest is mandated by the University. Here are just a few of the things I must have on my syllabus:
ReplyDelete-Contact Info
-Course Description (doesn't matter that it's in the catalog)
-Student Learning Outcomes (formerly known as objectives and
required by law for a class to transfer anywhere in the State)
-Grade breakdown including % and numbers. You have to spell out
exactly how they will be assessed: #of assignments, quizzes, papers...
-Make-up/Late Policy (spelled out or you don't have a prayer)
-ADA Policy (by law)
-Mission Statement of the University (mandated)
-Academic Dishonesty/Integrity (spelled out; doesn't matter that it's in
the catalog)
-Where to get help: tutoring center, online tutoring. Academic success center (mandated)
I could go on. If it's not in the Syllabus, it doesn't count. If you don't actually say that cheating is not acceptable, then you can't hold a student accountable. If you don't spell out that below 60% is failing, you don't have a leg to stand on. And so on.
I have a bad case of syllabus envy..
I put in the policies as recommended by my institution. Whatever they ask for or is considered best practice is there.
ReplyDeleteAnd then I have my own section, the "real rules" if you will.
They say things like "Intentional ignorance will get you nowhere" and "My class is not the end of the world, so stop treating it like it is."
The introduction of these real rules has cut out the bullcrap I was seeing before. In short, the students seem to appreciate the honesty. Shocking, I know.
Also, at one school, they made the first year adviser laugh so hard she told a couple people who tried to challenge me they were SOL. I love her. :)
Yes, the syllabus gets longer and more detailed every year to the point where some students say I give too much information. But even as a tenured full proffie, I still have to cover my behind. If I have documentation, my chair, dean, and VP will back me 100%. If there is room for doubt, the student gets the benefit of it every single time. We do have required elements on syllabi similar to what Prof and Circumstance describes, but we have three mandatory sections we provide our own information for: texts/materials, instructor's policies, and schedule of assignments.
ReplyDeleteOn Phones, I have instituted something that works great. Everytime a phone rings, $5 goes to class kitty from that student. Prof Monda matches class kitty at the end, and we have pizza. Max kitty in last two years in any semester - $25.
ReplyDeleteI sort of grudgingly admire Archie's minimalist bent, but I am a maximalist so I don't have to fight 100 fights every semester. Maybe he enjoys fighting and winning them all as the professor in charge, but I don't have the energy for that.
ReplyDeleteBetter for me to have the rules spelled out so I can put my time and energy elsewhere.
@Prof and Circumstance: I have the feeling we teach in the same state. At least, I hope we do. I'd hate to think that another state system is as screwed up as the one my University is a part of.
ReplyDeleteI'm among the folks who are mandated with HUGE chunks of obligatory text. I put it in 8 point font in an appendix. The rest of the syllabus is mine...and it has graphics!!!
ReplyDelete@Monda. I cannot know for sure, having never met you nor seen your classes, but rewarding idiotic students for forgetting to turn off the phones sounds like a horrible idea. Why give them pizza? Why put your own money in? How do you possibly expect to ensure our credit-based economy will lead you to cash-flush students? How does anyone hand over a crisp Lincoln without whining and destroying class focus?
ReplyDeleteI call bull shit on you.
I have to put the contact info, course description, method of evaluation, and correspondence of percentages to grade points on my syllabus. We have to put in something about cheating too, and about the conversion of letter grades to grade points; I supply both these elements with links to the university calendar. This all takes one page, including my "Fine Print" paragraph. Usually I can get a graphic in too, but sometimes I have to put it all in 10 point.
ReplyDeleteI think it helps that I don't care if people are late, so long as they don't disturb anyone coming in, and I also don't care if they're absent. So I don't need to have policies for those things.
I think what we all want is to waste a minimum of energy on regulating student behaviour, so we can put our energy into the teaching we actually care about. I find the easiest way to waste minimal energy on discipline is a minimal syllabus. Others may find that spelling out a lot of rules may do that.
I haven't yet had a lot of trouble with cell phones. I hope that continues to be true.
A one-page syllabus is something I can only dream about. I feel like my 10-pager is a document to establish a LLC (I've been married to a lawyer for 30 years).
ReplyDeleteCertainly, I would receive no administrative support for any course policy that was not in the "contract".
I think I am a middle-grounder in this discussion. I have a bunch of mandated crap, and then a few rules for things I care about like the Devil's Bargain for late work, and NO EMAILED ASSIGNMENTS.
ReplyDeleteEvery time a student makes my life hell, another line goes on there somewhere, like when I had my issues with the Shrinker, I had to put in an exam policy section that said "no cheating on exams".
I also put all my major assignments in there, so that I have a lot fewer "I didn't get the handout" complaints, and any "I didn't know what the assignment was" whiners get laughed out the door.
All the assignments go on the syllabus, certainly, and their due dates. I'm astonished that you would have to put in "no cheating on exams"; don't other institutions have a general policy that says "you cheat, you're screwed"?
ReplyDeleteMy favorite minimalist clause is "Don't be an ass," which I adopted from a friend who worked as a Res Life advisor at another uni.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for your thoughts, I will respond more at length later this evening.
We have an official departmental template, which has boxes for stuff each individual course team has to fill in - module description, learning outcomes, aims, assessment breakdown and due dates, contact details and rules (e.g. do we prefer email or phone contact, when office hours are, how to make an appointment), timetable, types of activities - and a whole swath of small print (with varying font sizes, excessive use of bold and many other uglifiers) which covers all the ass-padding stuff about late work, penalties, "professional conduct agreement" (which we have at the faculty level, it covers stuff like cell phones etc. - considered less confusing for the students, as they have one set of rules for all classes - profs can be lax on the rules if they want, but the basic rules are tough), disabilities, standardised marking rubrics (for fairness) etc. with web links to university policy and departmental/faculty documents.
ReplyDeleteAt least it saves me typing it all in. But I like to have a rant about how controlling and distorting-of-the-relationship it is every year, and critique the ugly layout :-)
I add a cover page which outlines what a student taking the course can expect to learn, how they will learn it, and what they need to do to prove they have learnt it. This has graphics, and sometimes a line or two of rules specific to the module based on prior experience and written in a 'natural tone' [e.g. There is a field trip in October. We will wade through a stream. If you do not bring wellington boots and a truely waterproof coat suitable for wading in a stream in the hills on a cold, rainy October day, you will not be allowed on the coach, because I hate filling out the forms when a student gets hypothermia. You miss the trip, you miss the marks].
Yes, my syllabi tend to be on the long, "cover-your-ass" side so I don't have to fuss with grade disputes. I do grudgingly admire the one-pagers, but avoiding such disputes is, to me, a real benefit.
ReplyDeleteA bit of a tangent, but I've also found that developing clear, bulletproof rubrics for papers, projects, participation, etc. are key to avoiding such disputes. (Those aren't on the syllabus; I post them on my website as a separate document for each assignment.) I've developed a library of standard ones over the years-- for research papers, for experiential-learning projects, etc.
Plus, all else fails, make sure to include the following phrase on your syllabus, if there isn't a specific institutional prohibition against it:
"This syllabus is subject to change at the professor's sole discretion."
@Bernice, I actually don't have many fights at all. My sense is that the more elaborate the rules, the more they will be inspired to try to find ways to circumvent them. The "no late work" rule covers the main thing they like to squeal about, and the way I avoid fights over that is by building in an opportunity to pass on a single assignment. So if they have to hand in, say, four major assignments in a semester, besides the two exams, then there are five such assignments on the syllabus. They get to decide which one of the five opportunities they want to take a pass on. The number of grandparents and treasured family pets that have been spared over the years is my reward. That's a trick I learned in my first job over in the UK, and it really does work.
ReplyDelete@Merely, I instituted the no laptop rule because I once had a student whose porn-addiction was so powerful that he was streaming it onto his computer in class. The other students complained, obviously. So after that I decided to ban the fucking things. But I've been thinking about letting them in again, provided their owners sit in the last row, where no one has to see what they are watching or playing.
So that would leave me with two rules--no plagiarism, and no late work.
Doesn't that cover the two big fights we have with them?
Although I like Dog's "don't be an ass" rule. I might put that in my seminar syllabi from now on.
Also, it strikes me that there are at least two distinct categories of things that people are lumping under "rules" in this discussion. Actual rules, like don't stroke yourself in class, turn your papers in at the beginning of the hour, and so forth; and the new-school-educrat bullshit like learning objectives, outcome assessments, participatory frameworks, and cones of learning. Those aren't the same thing, and we shouldn't conflate them.
ReplyDeleteSo my question to those of you with the LLC type documents is, how much is taken up by rules-rules, and how much by this other stuff?
About half and half, since the details and caveats in the penalties for not doing things in the assignment, rights of resitting etc. are all carefully laid out by the Faculty (which at least means I don't have to do it, and can point to an anonymous 'them' when students complain).
ReplyDelete@Merely Academic
ReplyDeleteThe Shrinker ran a grade appeal based on the idea that since I hadn't SPECIFIED that writing her entire essay out, shrinking it to 6 point, cutting it into strips and pasting it on the exam handout was forbidden, that no one could possibly know that this was cheating. She eventually lost her appeal, but it was months of wrangling, and the appeals board commended me for having changed my syllabus as a response to these complaints.
@kari I teach in a very poor State which is in the bottom 45-50 in the US. My theory is that the crappier the educational system, the more of this type of CYA you have to deal with because you have to accomodate the fallout of poor schools/teachers. Failure and poor performance is a bLame game. It's a vicious circle...poor schools create poorly educated people who go on to be poor teachers, rinse, repeat (to borrow someone else's witticism!)
ReplyDelete@angry archie... bathe in the rapture of administrative support, my love! I've had it and not had it. Once the admin goes soft, you're screwed. We went from a "tough love, let's keep standards high but within reach" environment to the "customer is always right, let's ignore or accomodate anything that might get us sued" environment. Grades have been changed and faculty AND student harassment ignored since then. It's a "gotcha" loaded place. I'm still here, though. I still believe in what I'm doing (most days!).
For those that have the luxury of a one page syllabus...enjoy it you mother scratchers...
I am enjoying my one-page syllabus, believe me. My eyes are opened.
ReplyDeleteMy syllabus is at 16 pages and counting, and being this way it saves me a lot of trouble. Of course my students don't read it, but I know what's in it. Anytime they want to argue about anything, I say, "It's IN THE SYLLABUS." Over 90% of the time, the argument stops there.
ReplyDeleteAs an adjunct, I advocate an aggressive syllabus - it protects you, mollifies the admins, clarifies and defines boundaries and standards for students. Transparency is a great means of protecting yourself in your classes.
ReplyDeleteSorry Angry Archie...I meant for Englishdoc to bathe...mea culpa.
ReplyDeleteI get away with being an adjunct AND a minimalist because the old chair was very pro-faculty. And now he's Dean of Students, but nothing about him has changed.
ReplyDeleteWe have one silverback who insisted that I have a 99 page thesis... I mean syllabus, and that I get it signed and save the signed copies for three years. But he's officially senile now, so I've been gradually blowing off.. I mean acting independantly. My syllabus was down to one page two years ago, but then an acreditation requirement mandated three sentence fragments be added (learning outcomes), and the new chair had one simple request, so it's back to two (down from one time seven pages).
I plan on leaving it at the two page mark from now on. I sometimes swap out an old policy for a new one. But the specifics of which policies get used usually winds up having no measureable effect on the success of the term, while the total number of policies stated has an inverse relationship to term success (after a critical number of approximately 3-5 policies, depending on the confidence with which the instructor can deliver them).
I honestly report to you that I get less arguing with a simpler syllabus. The longer it is, the more it implies that it is exhaustive. And since there are always inconceivables (if there weren't, CM wouldn't exist), the thing you didn't list on the thing you inadvertantly implied was exhaustive, is the thing out of which they fabricate a complaint. And since the dean doesn't want to read a stupid syllabus any more than you want to write one, the flake will probably get away with it. When it's two pages, it clearly CLEARLY doesn't cover all possible scenarios, so you are safer.
Of course, this is all institution dependant. I am lucky. We get support here.
I also like to get softer after the deadwood disappears. A syllabus full of "always"s and "never"s means you can't do that. If you say you're "never" going to curve a test, and then you decide to curve one because only 14 out of 28 people showed up for it and you want to screw over... I mean reward the good eggs, you can't. If you leave curving off the syllabus and verbally state "I don't curve" while they whine about the first quiz, without using the word "never", you have options later on.
Sorry Angry Archie...I meant for Englishdoc to bathe
ReplyDeleteThank fuck! I couldn't find the soap to save my life!
Remember the good old days when a syllabus had calendar dates and a list of readings and assignment due dates? And they were on yummy-smelling blue ditto paper too?
ReplyDelete@Marcia: I sure do. That was when I said, "Don't worry, Reagan won't become president. The American public is too smart for that!" ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnd I have said the same about Sarah Palin.
ReplyDelete*shudder*
The first line of my Classroom Behavior section is "Don't be a jerk". For plagiarism, besides the basic required information, I also point out that what's important is not a beautiful work of art, but the process that went on in their heads as they read the various basketweaving theorists, and how they are showing they've incorporated those theories into their own basket, even if the alignment is a little clunky still.
ReplyDeleteI have a sample rubric to show how most assignments are weighted (more on content/analysis than grammar, but organization is very high up there) , and I also now have my "0-6 awesomeness scale" listed there. It makes it clear how hard it is to get "6" in any element of the rubric. ("Amazing! Surprises me in a good way. Exceeds all requirements with panache.") Assignments are normally finalized right before the class itself, so they're not ready in advance, except for my online school which requires them by day 1(and I make few changes there.)
I also have a LARGE section on how to avoid your computer blowing up. (This semester I'm crowd-sourcing it to one of my upper-level classes, so they can let me know if I should update my malware/scanner/backup suggestions for the future.)
My last page is a "disasters happen" flyer that I made when I used to work at a writing center, encouraging people to back up their data various ways.
(Yes, more than behavior issues, my problem I'm fighting is computer-death, evil roommates & exes who delete files, backups that didn't work on a new computer, etc. If they would just email drafts to themselves every hour or so, their life would be simpler - we have many labs on campus where they could resume work. I remind them of this at least monthly.)
My syllabus is quite long because, as others have mentioned, just about every semester some dolt screws up in a new way and looked for loopholes to get away with it. To combat this, though, I changed my classroom conduct section to "Don't be rude." I then list some of the rude things that I've witnessed in class and explain that they are unacceptable. Going with rude gives me more leeway than what I had in the past.
ReplyDeleteLike Marcia, I have added an assessment based soley on the syllabus; however, mine is a worksheet rather than a quiz. I think it's sheer genius (even if I do say so myself). Now I have these wonderful sheets where *students* had to explain key portions of the syllabus *to me*!
As for syllabi in advance, I'm all for it. I consider it to be a way to thin the herd/screen out the idiots. I want them to know long before add/drop week that my class will be challenging. That gives them ample time to change classes before I'm required to sign an add/drop form :)
If it ain't in the syllabus, you can't hold them to it. At least that's the way things work at my high-powered urban JuCo. So I have a ludicrously long and detailed syllabus that covers Damn Near Everything. I don't actually care whether they read it or not (they don't), but if a customer (we used to call 'em students) tells me 'but I didn't know we were allowed only one late paper' I can point to the relevant passage and smile.
ReplyDeleteMy basic theory: the first day of class is your best shot to be clear with them. Therefore, I make sure that all my policies for the rest of the semester, as well as all due dates and all behavioral requirements are chuck full in my syllabus. I spend the entire first class spelling things out for them with the caveat that if they email, the first thing they should look at is the syllabus because if the answer is in the syllabus then that will be my first response. Also, this way? When they complain to my department head? I have the answer: it was in the syllabus that was reviewed the first day of class. I like that I pretty much have a captive audience one day of the semester in which to get my point across.
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