If you're a student, there are few things more frustrating, and confidence-draining, than a confusing syllabus. As an instructor, be fully aware that students will get creative (and angry) when they don't understand the classwork expectations. Of course, that's if they don't email you relentlessly seeking clarification on your syllabus. I believe that the syllabus is the crux to successful teaching. In the online environment, a poorly constructed syllabus will doom a course and reveal the instructor as incompetent. NEVER MIND THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN! For this reason, I devote much time to crafting, and refining, my syllabus. In this post, I have included the typical "Weekly Page" from my standard syllabus. The "Weekly Page" provides a synopsis and road map for that week of the course. The student doesn't need to hunt through the syllabus for information - all he needs to do is have that single page in front of his eyes. By the way, note that I've included a "paper not to exceed 6 pages" statement at the bottom of the page. I've found it necessary to define acceptable length parameters for assignments. First, I believe it is important to teach students to be concise - that's the real world, right? The second part is that you always will have a few students who believe a paper's grade is determined by its length - and just because they have time to write 25 pages doesn't mean I have the time to grade 25 pages - especially when the student with the 6-page paper did an awesome job.
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