I just graduated college. One of the things I think of when I look back at good classes I had and bad, is the syllabus. Yes, I’m a dork. I think of syllabus construction.
I admire the profs who constructed clear, detailed syllabuses that left me in no doubt as to what reading or paper was due when. I remember how I took these detail-oriented profs for granted in freshman year. I assumed that all profs were this conscientious. By year 2, though, I saw the profs who handed out the infamous one-sheet syllabus, which told you the title of the course, the course aims, and a list of textbooks. Seriously. You have to wonder whether these profs didn’t get the memo on good syllabus construction.
Worse still was a professor who had a well-written detailed syllabus… except all the due dates were from the previous semester– so the papers were due on Saturdays and Sundays when the class was in the middle of the week! At no point did he attempt to make any corrections and he responded to my questions with a sort of dazed arrogance that still makes my blood boil.
One of the ideas I’ve been thinking about for the past few months is, if I could construct a syllabus, what it would be? I will answer that question in my next entry on how to construct a syllabus for general education classes.
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Here’s another entry for you:
What class would you want to teach?
I don’t think I’m currently qualified to teach any college-level class. But, at the high-school level, I think I would enjoy teaching Intro to French and Algebra. Yes! Gary! Math!
haha.
At the university level, I’d have to do some work to get there, but I would love to teach a course or two on Sports in International Relations and Sports in different countries.
That’s a great topic for another post! I will add that to my drafts list.
[...] a syllabus for a general education class A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I’d write out a good syllabus for general education courses. I’ve thought about [...]
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