Using Your Course Syllabus As a Retention Tool
Many faculty have worked out policies and practices that provide as wide a safety net for at-risk students as they can while still maintaining the collegiate standards of their courses. Discussions of this topic in MRCTE continue to turn up variations.
The discussion below is adapted from "Motivating with the Course Syllabus" by Mary McDonnell Harris of the Professor Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of North Dakota. The article used to be at http://www.oryxpress.com/ntlf/motisyl.htm (July 28, 1996). Prof. Harris derived the ten features of a motivating syllabus during one of her graduate courses on college teaching. (References to examples in each numbered item below are to excerpts that appear on the “Syllabus-Plus” web site noted at the beginning of this paragraph.)
A motivating syllabus . . .
1. shows your enthusiasm for your discipline: The following excerpt indicates my enthusiasm if I let students know that I made the module they are about to work on.
2. indicates the rigor of the course: The excerpt at the web page is linked from the cover of my Summer, 1999, version of my online syllabus for my online course. It offers advice to students--ways to increase their chances for success in the course. Harris suggests raising the "big" questions in your syllabus rather than just sticking to procedures.
3. personalizes content by
· relating course concepts to students’ experiences
· applying ideas from the course beyond the college walls
· devising ways (or getting students to invent ways) that help students link course tasks with their interests.
The excerpt contains a portion of the directions for my midterm in an introduction to literature course. To satisfy the requirement that students must give a speech, I ask them to relate course principles for analyzing fiction to the analysis of one scene from a movie, among other options. Students choose which film; I specify only that they must explain its "literary merit."
4. makes your respect for students explicit: The excerpt shows the beginning of a student essay, usually posted by written permission of the student with the specific understanding the student's name will be used if the sample is held up as a model but not if the essay will be critiqued for its flaws.
5.
shows that the course is "doable":
Harris advocates a positive tone for goals, e.g. telling how a general education
course furthers a liberal education and even leaving blanks for students to
specify goals for themselves in the course.
The excerpt shown on the web page specifies the objectives for the "speeches" in
my introduction to literature course but also notes in the bullets positive
steps that students do take to maximize their grades, as well as participating
as good listeners to benefit their classmates.
6.
sets expectations with the grading
procedures (rather than anticipating
or stressing punishable offenses).
The notes from my
online grade roster
not only lighten up the grading and grade-checking chore but also list the
"extra-credit" options that allow my online students to start the course with a
head start--which gets even reluctant students to see a sort of safety net for
the course.
7. specifies grading criteria clearly: The excerpt at the web page follows up on the first class session during which we read and discuss a sample of the course textbook to answer the question "How should students read in this course?" Reading the sample essay (excerpted in #4, above, in the web page version of this information) helps answer the question "How should students write in this course?" This first quiz, then, is an extra-credit task; in good semesters, I return an answer to each student with an explanation of why that answer earns full credit, partial credit, or better than full credit.
8. shows variety in assignments to apply principles of current learning theory regarding differing styles of learning and kinds of intelligences. My assignments aren't as varied as those who espouse and study theories of multiple intelligences, such as René Diaz-Lefebrve of Glendale Community College in Phoenix, Arizona, but an increasing number of students are taking advantage of my extra-credit and substitute assignments, as shown, I hope, in the first four in the excerpt on the website.
9. provide learning assessment often: Both your feedback and students' own estimates of how they are doing--in specific terms--benefit and motivate students. The online self-assessment excerpted and linked at the website is given around midterm as an online survey that students answer anonymously; it gives me feedback on students' practices and gives students a reality check to help them understand their midterm grades.
10. cultivates a relationship with students outside of class time:
 | Mentioning office location and hours is only a start, Harris stresses. |
| Add voice mail and email contacts. |
| Offer or arrange help sessions. |
| Specify reasons to come by during office hours, perhaps even require conferences (counted as a quiz grade or factored into a project grade, perhaps). |
| For online students, specifying a website and even picturing the campus, the building, and the instructor (as in the excerpt below) can help reduce a sense of isolation, perhaps, even if the student can't visit the campus or instructor in person. |
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Prof. Eric Hibbison, Chair,
Midcentral Region ehibbison@jsr.cc.va.us http://vccslitonline.cc.va.us/mrcte AHSS, PRC, JSRCC, P.O.
Box 85622 804-523-5500
= office & voice mail |
1999