- Many of you hadn't started on the project until this weekend and were prompted to start by the requirement of bringing progress on the syllabus to class yesterday. Even if we didn't have as much time to discuss the project (in part because we spent about 10 minutes locating a DVD that would work for Jennifer's recording), we did have some discussion, and everyone has more completed on the project than you otherwise would have.
- Developing the syllabus and the other components of the project requires much more time than you had thought it would. That's a good learning reminder. Almost any new learning activity takes more time than you had thought -- writing a lit review, conducting interviews for your first story, writing code for a Web page, reading academic research articles...and developing a course syllabus.
- Figuring out the logistics is challenging:
- How many weeks? - Go with the UF Spring 2009 schedule. The number of weeks or number of classes will depend on the day(s) of the week your class meets. For example, UF will be closed on a Monday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. No classes on Thursday and Friday of the last week of classes -- those are Reading Days.
- Must you use UF's grading scale? My advice is YES! If you determine your own grading scale (such as giving minus grades when UF doesn't award minus grades -- until summer semester) or not awarding pluses, students may complain, and you might have to change your grades then. Better to follow the grading scale so that won't be a debatable issue.
- How many different assignments should you give? Good idea to have low-stakes and high-stakes assignments -- a quiz before an exam, a small paper before a larger paper. But remember, for every assignment you make, you have to keep up with the grading.
A reminder that students may call you Professor -- as more do now thanks to Harry Potter and Hogwarts -- but you aren't a professor in terms of your actual title. On your syllabus, you can list yourself as Instructor or Teacher. We talked about the academic titles, and professor is part of the tenure-track rankings.
I'd said that I would be available to answer questions about the syllabus project today on our blog. Tomorrow I'll be going to St. Louis and the convention with 5,000 high school journalism students and teachers -- and probably no Internet access. So I'll check back later today to see if anyone has questions.
As I said on the handout, approach this assignment as if you are going to send these materials as a teaching portfolio that's part of a university teaching application. Every year, I have former students from MMC 6930 tell me that they've done just that -- send their MMC 6930 syllabus project -- and that they are really glad to have those materials ready to go for the job search.
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