Reviewing a Syllabus

Tools for analyzing a syllabus--both one's own and that of a peer

A good teacher uses the syllabus to communicate to students: learning goals; course (and therefore subject) organization; forms of assessment; etc. It characterizes the course. Another teacher, then, might be able to plumb that document for clues about the teacher's philosophy and practice, possibly as indicators of that tacher's professional reflection.

The following exercise was developed by Gail Goodyear, CETaL, UTEP, adapted from Lee Shulman and Pat Hutchings (1994).

Teaching is often seen as a technique, a presentational method, rather than as the kind of serious intellectual invention we associate with scholarly work (Shulman & Hutchings, 1994). Yet, a course and syllabi can represent profound acts of scholarship (Shulman & Hutchings, 1994).

Every course we teach is a lens into our fields and our personal conceptions of those disciplines or interdisciplines (Shulman & Hutchings, 1994). We publish our approach to study and to teaching through our syllabi. Thus, the public, proclaiming nature of syllabi makes it a highly valuable piece of evidence in the evaluation of faculty performance and scholarship.

This exercise asks you to examine a syllabus prepared by another and make determinations about its explanation and rationale. Your reflections may increase your perception about the impact of a syllabus, as well as its relationship to teaching scholarship. Further, the determinations you make about another's work may define the standards to which you are willing to be evaluated.

Your Preparation

Review & Reflection: Read the syllabus and use the questions below to develop your sense of the teacher and the course.

Diagram the Course

Draw a picture, diagram, or schematic of this course.
What are the key parts of this course?
How are they related?
How does the placement of these items reflect your perception of how this professor presents the course?

The Beginning

How does the course begin?
Why does it begin where it does?
What is the thesis that is used to argue its beginning?

The Duration

What does the instructor and the students do as the course unfolds?
What do you perceive to be the pace, modulation, and emphasis (persistent themes)?
What are the key assignments?
How are student attitudes, responses, and performance gauged throughout the semester?
What is the rationale for lecturing, discussing, exploring, or other activities?

The Ending

How does the course end?
Why does it end as it does?
What does the instructor want to persuade students to believe? Or question? Or to develop new appetites dispositions?
In what sense is there integrity and closure to the course as a separate entity/experience?

Innovation and Motivation

How is the student's role in the course implicitly or explicitly conveyed?
What will students find particularly motivating about this course?
What is most unique about the course?
What might students find alien?
Where will students encounter their greatest difficulties of either understanding or motivation? What in the syllabus addresses this?
What in the syllabus connects to what students already know?
What in the syllabus gives you the idea the syllabus has evolved to meet students' needs?
How does this syllabus reflect the character or personality of the instructor?
How does the teacher convey the aims or objectives of the course?
How does the teacher allow students to demonstrate what they have learned?

Course Organization

How is the course organized?
What is the content, learning environment, and forms of evaluation?
Does its organization reflect a specific perspective on the discipline and/or field?
Why are certain topics chosen while other colleagues might make other choices?
In what ways does the course teach students how scholars work in the field (the methods, procedures, and values which shape how knowledge claims are made and adjudicated within the field)?
How does the course incorporate critical dialogues and key arguments scholars are making?
How does the course connect with other courses?
Does it lay a foundation or build?
How does the course fit into the larger conception of curriculum, program, or undergraduate experience?

Describing the Course

Does the diagram you created as your initial impression reflect all you have come to believe about the professor and the course? Try playing with some metaphors for characterizing the course and its place in the larger curriculum or in the broader intellectual and moral fives of students. Is the course like:
- a journey
- a parable
- a hockey game
- a museum
- a romance
- an organizational membership
- a dance (waltz, swing, free-style)
- an obstacle course
- an Aristotelian tragedy
- a concerto
- one or all or some of the above?
How does the metaphor(s) illuminate key aspects of the course?

Transfer of Syllabus Evaluation to Colleague Evaluation

After thoroughly reading the syllabus and formulating your responses to the questions provided to you, interpret your colleague's work and thinking. Use the content of the syllabus as evidence to support your sense of the preparer as a scholar.

The instructor has presented various features of the course in the syllabus. The answers you gave on the previous pages are integral to the holistic evaluation of syllabi, the teaching and the scholar. Use the content of the syllabus as evidence to write descriptive sentences about this teacher-scholar.

Immediately ask:

"What is important to take into account?"
Distinctiveness of approach?
Quality of reflection?
Inventiveness of the course?
Why?

Your response(s) will indicate the values and standards you place on teaching scholarship. Finally, ask, "To what extent are these standards similar to those used in judging the quality of colleagues' research?"

Also ask, " What questions does the syllabus raise about how the teacher views his or her field, the subject matter, and the task of teaching?"
"What questions about the teacher's reflection or process of justification does it raise?"

More Information...

Cornell on evaluating course and other teaching material.

Bibliography

Shulman, Lee and Patricia Hutchings. 1994. "Teaching as Scholarship: Reflections on a Syllabus." From Idea to Prototype: The Peer Review of ETeaching. Washington, D.C.: AAHE.

Duffy, D. K. and J. W. Jones. "Stalking the Superior Syllabus." Pp. 55-119 in Teaching Within the Rhythms of the Semester. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
----. "Course Design and Syllabus Construction." Pp. 28-36 in...

Matejka, Ken and Lance B. Kurke. 1994. "Designing a Great Syllabus." College Teaching 42(3): 115-17.

Cyrs, T.E. 1994. "Essential Skills for College Teaching." Pp. 6-3 to 6-20 in Instructional Systems Approach. Albuquerque, NM: New Mexico State University Center for Educational Development.

Murray, J.P. 1995. "Successful Faculty Development and Evaluation: The Complete Teaching Portfolio." ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 8, Washington DC: George Washington Univ. Graduate School of Education and Human Development.