Time savers when updating syllabi

For more great syllabus tips, check out this Twitter thread by Angela Jenks

Too long; didn’t watch

Transcript

Here are a few tips to help reduce the time you spend updating your syllabus. Step number one, start with the HRS syllabus template. There have been some slight changes from last year, so be sure you’re using the most up to date version of the syllabus template by downloading it. You can download it from Teams under the HRS Office of Academic Affairs team and go to files. Look for the syllabus templates and related materials folder. If you’re not in teams or don’t want to go to Teams, go to our HRS teaching site at u.osu.edu/hrsteaching. Scroll down a bit on that page and you’ll find a link to our syllabus template. Once you’re here to this page, just be sure to click to download and save a copy before you begin editing.

Another huge piece of time is updating all of the dates. Here are a couple tools to help reduce that time. The generic syllabus maker is an amazing free website where you can come in, specify the dates of the semester, the days of the week that your class meets and hit, submit and instantly get a list of exactly those dates for the semester. This is also great if you need to have a list of recurring dates for whatever reason, for a committee or group or series of meetings, it’s a really easy tool to use. I would say for a bonus tip, generate one day of the week at a time. So for example, if you need to know all of the Mondays of the semester for an online-only asynchronous course, when is your content going to update? You can make a list of all the Mondays, but then if all the assignments are due on Sundays, you can make a separate list of all of the Sundays of the semester. Or, as you see here, if you have a Tuesday, Thursday class, I like to have one list of Tuesdays and one list of Thursdays. It’s a really easy tool to use. Do, you do you! But this is one that saves me time.

Also, be sure to check an inter-faith calendar. For example, here are the lists. Here are the dates for October 2022. This may or may not change your plan for the semester, but it does give you a chance to think about what your policy should be around flexibility on certain dates.

Finally, check out this course workload estimator. This course workload estimator is set up to let you go through, you can see the columns going across here to go through and really sort of try to get your best estimate of how much time it’s going to take students to complete your course. It is an estimate, although it is fairly detailed. And you can read more about how Betsy Barre and others made this at this particular website. But it’s a terrific tool and it helps you get a sense of are you providing enough or too much for your students to do? Or you could even use it to include for students to let them know about how much time they should expect to spend on a particular assignment. Thanks for watching. Let me know if there’s any other content you’d like to see.

Recommended listening

Teaching Town Hall – Metacognition

The objectives for this town hall were:
  • Identify components of a learner centered syllabus
  • Utilize the interactive syllabus to improve communication in an online course
  • Have an opportunity to discuss questions about transitioning summer courses to an online format
  • Brainstorm ideas for future teaching round tables
Here are the slides from this town hall: HRS Teaching Roundtable 5_8_20
And here are the resources provided: