tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post8832450400429585380..comments2023-05-22T03:04:42.242-05:00Comments on Dame Eleanor Hull: More heresy (plus nostalgia)Dame Eleanor Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06512884104691200975noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-21544741105164495902011-11-19T14:03:53.003-06:002011-11-19T14:03:53.003-06:00On syllabus as contract - you can still nail down ...On syllabus as contract - you can still nail down a lot of specifics in it that you won't change. It's tedious but useful when you have people not ready for school, etc., and who think you're more like their policeman, social worker, CPS officer, welfare officer, which is how many freshmen see faculty now.<br /><br />But yes, college is now high school and the PhD is now college.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-57475466550151867292011-11-19T14:00:19.748-06:002011-11-19T14:00:19.748-06:00I could say more but I'm on the road, will lat...I could say more but I'm on the road, will later.<br /><br />Did we both go to the same undergrad institution? I remember planned out syllabi for the large lecture courses. The more advanced in the discipline and the smaller the class, the more flexible it got.<br /><br />When I became a professor I tried to do the planned out route, for the reasons listed here. I found I couldn't - if I plan, I plan to go far too fast, and I plan for different students. In the places I've worked, one *has* to meet the students first to find out what kind of syllabus they need. I have even changed books and course topics once I meet the students, so I can teach something that fits their interests and skill level. It may have to be more advanced or less, or what will interest them so they will be able to have their intellects kick in may be quite different than what I've predicted. <br /><br />This is for an institution which functions as junior college for some, R1 PhD granting place for others, and where there is no agreement on what learning goals should be, what sophomore level is, etc., and where students take your class because it fits a requirement and their schedules, not because they are able to handle the topic you've announced.<br /><br />So now, I have the vague schedules (although I never change exam or paper due dates) of yore. I order a lot of books but tell students not to buy them until we get to them, because we may not use those which are there or we may decide other ones are better for us.<br /><br />I am slightly exagerrating, but you get my drift.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-53308773016010113822011-11-19T12:03:56.218-06:002011-11-19T12:03:56.218-06:00As a student, I had a sort of medium -- syllabuses...As a student, I had a sort of medium -- syllabuses with lists of reading and projected dates -- but we often deviated from these and no one was surprised. When I tell my students now that they need to be flexible, that we may get off lecture or discussion by a day or two, they seem mystified. I think it's because they are often not emotionally involved in thinking through what must come next -- they want to write this down in their planner and not have it change so they don't have to think about what might most usefully happen next in their own education. <br /><br />On my own side: I think a lot of people, including me, are teaching in settings where the syllabus is now seen as a contract. Every campus I've ever taught on had a list of things that had to be included in the syllabus. I have found this increasingly frustrating: that just at the point that classroom technology is changing to the point that I could teach a class based entirely on my perception of what the class needs -- including making decisions about readings based on what's interesting to the class -- the administration around me is insisting more and more that I have to plan ahead exactly what will happen. The bookstore wants book orders five months in advance -- just at the point at which theoretically things could be downloaded shortly before they were needed; the dean's office wants the exact grading percentages specified so that I have to do five papers I planned even if I discover during the term that three would be better; the students want a cast iron list of what will be discussed on any given day so they can flit in and out of the class without committing to a stream of instructing. <br /><br />I understand this on some level, also being a person who deals poorly with surprises, but I don't think the general trend is all that great in terms of me having the capacity to respond to what my students need instruction on (as opposed to defining a topic and then instructing it whether or not that serves anyone).Servetusnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-21635306446295987182011-11-18T23:01:55.079-06:002011-11-18T23:01:55.079-06:00I didn't even get a syllabus for a lot of the ...I didn't even get a syllabus for a lot of the classes I took, at least that I remember. I seem to remember only assignments written on the board and a book list. Some of the classes must have had a syllabus, but I don't remember the elaborate scheduling that we now do.undinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05589384016564587214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-2920404569389262432011-11-18T21:39:49.873-06:002011-11-18T21:39:49.873-06:00WhatNow, I think you may have just made my point (...WhatNow, I think you may have just made my point (not in this post, maybe in a comment somewhere else) that I'm now teaching high school to the undergrads and college to the grad students.Dame Eleanor Hullhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06512884104691200975noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-19551227864559743222011-11-18T20:56:00.095-06:002011-11-18T20:56:00.095-06:00Interestingly, I've had to learn how to teach ...Interestingly, I've had to learn how to teach in this fluid (to use Fencing Bear's apt term) way now that I am teaching HS. I always received detailed syllabi as a college student, and always created them as a TA and as a professor, so naturally this is the way that I thought syllabi had to be constructed and courses had to be taught. And so when I started at FGS, I started writing out a complete syllabus ... and hit the wall when I realized that the courses each met four times a week for an entire year -- an overwhelming syllabus creation! So, glancing furtively at what teachers around me were doing (and foolishly not asking anyone about what to do, because I was afraid of looking like the brand-new HS teacher I in fact was), I gave the students on the first day a syllabus for only the first three weeks. And then, in the second week or so, I learned that all of my juniors would be missing a day for a fieldtrip, one I hadn't known about and thus hadn't accounted for in my syllabus. This is when I started learning the lesson -- which I found very difficult -- to have a roughed-out plan for the year but to make specific plans only a few weeks at a time, and to be willing to change even those more immediate plans if something arises. It's been an interesting transformation in my planning style, but I've come to embrace it for all of the positive reasons you point out in your post. I really can tailor what we're doing in class to what I think the students need most; just this term I completely changed my planned assignment because it became clear to me that the students weren't ready to tackle it and needed to do another kind of project first. Of course, as you say, number of students makes a difference, and I'm sure this is much more possible in an independent school than in a public one (especially because for the latter I think I'd have to file class plans ahead of time).What Now?https://www.blogger.com/profile/04017629066466055668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-72648861954639494072011-11-18T16:08:16.017-06:002011-11-18T16:08:16.017-06:00Maybe it's a field specific thing, but I never...Maybe it's a field specific thing, but I never experienced the kind of syllabus you are describing. All of the courses I took in college came with clear lists of readings to be done for particular days and due dates for papers and exams. Depending on the level of the course, there might be more (higher) or less (introductory) leeway, but especially in science and math courses, you knew exactly what problem sets you'd be doing when pretty much from day one (unless I am totally misremembering). So I wonder what it would be like to teach more fluidly. I can do that some in my graduate courses, but I still tend to give specific due dates for things. It's an interesting problem to think about!Fencing Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16825525662123382529noreply@blogger.com