The syllabus

The syllabus. Americans will probably know what I am talking about, but how about our readers from Germany? Do you know what a syllabus is? And why it is useful? 

Typically, every academic class has a syllabus at American universities. A syllabus is a document put together by the instructor of the course in order to give students an idea about its contents, requirements, expectations, due dates of homework and further essential information about the class. In other words, a syllabus is some sort of contract between the instructor and students, see this article by Slattery and Carlson.

In my previous blog post, I have suggested a syllabus for a class on the physics of modern information technology, so you might want to take a look at it if you are not familiar with the concept of a syllabus. Obviously, this syllabus only contains an overview of the main topics of the class, but no further details about expectations and requirements for the course. 

I believe that a syllabus is extremely useful and should be used more frequently in German higher education as well. In the remainder of this post, I will provide a few reasons for this statement: 

• Students get a clear idea of deadlines, requirements for assignments, and the grading policies, either before or during the first day of the class. From my experience, in Germany some expectations are not well-defined in the beginning of the semester or may even change throughout the semester. This can lead to confusion among students and avoidable conflicts between the students and the instructor (for example, discussions about how many points are needed for a specific grade, etc.). 
• An overview of all essential topics and the outline of the class can serve as a compass for students over the course of the semester. Questions like "Where are we right now?" or "Where are things headed?" are often answered by the syllabus. Furthermore, when studying for the final exam, students may find the syllabus useful.
• The syllabus document usually contains reading material and helpful literature references for students.
• Basic information about the instructor can also be found in the syllabus. 
• A syllabus can also serve as an advertisement for the class, given that the author makes clear why a student would want to attend the course.
• The document can help the students to understand the importance of various sections of the class. In other words, they can understand how much time they should dedicate to each section. Typically, different sections are not always equally important in a class. Moreover, every instructor may put the focus on different sections when teaching the same class. 

As you can see, there are a lot of advantages of having a syllabus. After my time in the United States, I have become a strong advocate of this approach. 

Finally, if you are into podcasts, I can recommend the "Teaching in Higher Ed" podcast. Given today's post, I would like to suggest episode 419 on "Disrupting the Syllabus". In this episode, highly creative approaches towards designing an effective syllabus are discussed.