Read The Syllabus

Q: What's the most important thing to do on the first day of class?

A: Go to class. (Why, what was your answer?)

The other important thing to do is: Read the syllabus. The syllabus (from Latin, meaning "list") or course outline is my blueprint for the entire course. I spend hours writing each syllabus, making very careful choices in what I include--and what I leave out. I try to keep it short, fitting it to one sheet of paper whenever possible. That's not easy to do without going to a 6-point font. So it's really discouraging for me to have someone ask for information that's in the syllabus.

Here are The Top 10 Questions That Are Answered By The Syllabus:

1. Is this class graded on a curve?
2. Is there a textbook for this course?
3. Is there anything specific we're supposed to be reading?
4. When is the midterm?
5. What chapters are on the midterm?
6. When are your office hours?
7. Where's your office?
8. Do I need a prereq for this course?
9. What if I miss a midterm?
10. Is the final cumulative?

I'm not going to say that these are stupid questions. ("Rrrd. Fffa. Ffllabfff." I'm biting my lip really hard right now.) But if you find yourself asking one of these questions, I hope you feel awfully sheepish when I tell you, "It's on the syllabus." I mean, if you can't bring yourself to read and remember what's on the syllabus, how are you going to do on the exams?

OK, so my metaphor for the syllabus is a blueprint. The UofA, on the other hand, views it more as a contract between instructor and student. There's a lot of "Calendar" this and "Code of Student" that. It really is important for you to know what your rights are, otherwise, you're probably going to forfeit them. (When, for example, is the deadline for disputing marks on a midterm or other term assignment? Read the syllabus.)

Interestingly, university administration is thinking about cutting funds for printing hardcopies of syllabi to save money. I find that it's hard enough to get some students to read a piece of paper that been put directly into their hands--what if it's now just some e-document online somewhere? Honestly, I think I'd be willing to spend my own money to copy the syllabus and hand it out in class, if it comes to that.

What do you think? Does it matter to you if you get a hardcopy syllabus or not? Post your opinion in the comments below.

Why aren't you studying?

Update 1/4/2010: Just got the memo (which was supposed to be sent out last month) in my email: the Dean (of Arts, apparently) is "strongly encouraging" us to go with e-syllabi.

Update 5/10/2013: Great comic by PhD Comics: "It's in the syllabus."

What format do you prefer for the syllabus? (Please vote only once.)

PDF only

hardcopy only

hardcopy and PDF

I don't need any syllabus because I'm psychic

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The Question on Higher Grades

In a recent open comment, Anonymous made some pretty serious accusations (sorry, sorry, “questions”!) about grades and evaluations. I’d like to address those questions--not just in another comment, but in full postings. This post addresses the first of several claims/questions/concerns.

Claim: “...you also give relatively higher grades.”

So, relative to other instructors, I’m taking it? The University, specifically GFC, has approved grade distributions for different undergraduate courses. The fine print says this: “These distributions are provided for guidance in your grading. It is not necessary for the grades in a particular class to follow any of the distributions exactly.” (Unless an instructor is grading on the curve with the help of a spreadsheet, it’s impossible to get these exactly anyway. And I don’t grade on a curve.)

Instead, I focus on the expected medians for each course level:

1st year = B-
2nd year = B
3rd year = B
4th year = B+

If my classes don’t match these, well, I don’t know what happens. So far, nothing yet.

Anyway, here are the actual medians for the last 12 courses I’ve taught:

1st year: B, B
2nd year: B+, B+, B, B, B-, B+, B+
3rd year: B
4th year: A-, B

Any patterns? Am I consistently giving higher grades? It looks like the 100-level courses are a bit higher than expected. Why? Major components of that course (20% of the overall mark) consist of easy marks (Information Literacy, Research Participation) that boost students’ grades. These components are out of my hands; I don’t do any marking, I just accept the results as they are. So should I make my exams harder to compensate for these “free” marks? Of course not. Class means on my exams in that course are around 65%, and I don’t want them any lower than that.

Let’s skip to my 400-level course. Yup, I recently had a class earn a median of A-. They all deserved it. It was the best bunch of students I’ve ever had in that course, and I was really happy to give the marks I did. Their term papers were great, and their exams were outstanding. Didn’t even know the median was so high until it popped out of my spreadsheet when I was filling in the final grade forms. (And look, another 400-level class only got a median of B.)

It looks like there’s something funny going on in my 200-level courses. Yup, the grades are a bit high, tending to a median of B+, whereas GFC expects a B. That’s not a huge difference--in terms of the percent cutoffs I use, 72% is right in the middle of my “B”, whereas 76.5% is the middle of my “B+”. That’s a difference of 4.5%. Still, for a class of over 200 to have a grade that’s almost 5% “too high” is significant.

So, why the high marks? In my 200-level perception course, the textbook I used was extensively revised a few years ago, and the testbank of multiple choice questions that comes with it was really--how should I put it?--simplified. Because these questions make up about half of the exam, the marks went up by a few points. In my 200-level cognition course, the textbook I use is written by the same person who wrote my perception textbook. This textbook was also recently revised. Guess what the testbank is like?

It’s tough to rewrite dozens of exam questions, but I’m slowly working on it. Realizing that the marks have been increasing, I’ve also been slowly changing the percentage cutoffs for each letter grade. I don’t want to make huge changes all in one term--that’s not fair to those students. But it’s also not fair to give them inflated grades compared to other terms.

I’d like to think that my teaching improves over time--but is this reflected in students’ grades? If that were universally the case, wouldn’t instructors near retirement have sky-high marks in their classes, and wouldn’t graduate students teaching their first class have rock-bottom marks? Hmm, unless those sneaky novice instructors are inflating their students’ marks.

But that’s the topic of my next post.

Why aren’t you studying?