What Did You Put in Your Syllabus?
Use this list as a guide for you to write or cross-check your syllabus. A syllabus puts in writing your course policies, requirements, tests, and assignments.
1. Your name, title, office number, office telephone, office hours, email, webpage and TA information.
2. Course by number, section, title, meeting days and times, room and building.
3. Pre-requisite(s) for the course.
4. Description of the course (use the course description from the current CSUS catalog).
5. Course goals or objectives.
6. Required purchases (texts, supplies).
7. Due dates for major assignments; place, date, time of final exam. Explain Test make-ups, if you intend to allow make-ups.
8. Topics and assignments to be covered in sequence with dates.
9. Grading criteria.
10. Laptop and cell phone regulation: No photographing, recording or text messaging is allowed without permission of the instructor.
11. Include how you handle attendance, tardiness.
12. Include how you handle late assignments.
13. Accommodations for students with disabilities
14. Please include the following wording in your syllabus: “If you have a disability and require accommodations, you need to provide disability documentation to SSWD, Lassen Hall 1008, (916) 278-6955. Please discuss your accommodation needs with me after class or during my office hours early in the semester."
15. Student Tutorial on how not to plagiarize
http://library.csus.edu/content2.asp?pageID=353
Not all elements here will be found in every syllabus. A syllabus can be much more than a list; it can introduce the course to students in a number of creative ways.
Other resources:
1) GE Course Syllabus Checklist
2) Effective Syllabi: Best Practices
3) Mark Stoner website: www.csus.edu/indiv/s/stonerm/
4) Nilson, L.B. (1998). Teaching at its best: A research based resource for college instructors. Nolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, DC pp 19-22.
