Page sections
- UW–Madison resources
- The planning process: Tips and models
- Creating a syllabus
- Independent studies
- Assessment
UW–Madison Resources
The Academic Calendar for now and in the future.
The planning process: Tips and models
Murray Sperber, Notes From a Career in Teaching (site registration required), The Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/9/2005. “I taught my first college class in 1964, at College of the Holy Names, now Holy Names University, in Oakland, Calif. I knew almost nothing about teaching, did a lousy job, and was not rehired for the next semester. My last teaching position was at Indiana University at Bloomington in 2004. After the spring semester, I retired as a professor amid much praise from students, colleagues, and teaching professionals. Over those four decades, my teaching had clearly improved. What, specifically, had I learned? Here are 10 lessons that I’d like to share in hopes other college instructors might benefit from some or all of them …..”
The World Lecture Hall, Center for Instructional Technologies, University of Texas at Austin, “publishes links to pages created by faculty worldwide who are using the Web to deliver course materials in any language.” You may browse by keyword or subject area; look for syllabi, audio, video, exams, assignments, etc.; sort results by course name, instructor, university or date.
Creating a syllabus
The Syllabus Tutorial, University of Minnesota Center for Teaching and Learning Resources, works you through issues and elements, including description and goals, expectations, texts and materials, grading, calendaring and others.
Tools for Teaching (Jossey Bass 1993), a book partly reproduced online, includes two chapters with long lists of tips and tools for course design and planning: Creating a Syllabus, and Preparing or Revising a Course.
The Syllabus Workshopis an online interactive training workshop offered by the Brown University Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning. It begins by asking you to choose a syllabus to explore that is from an academic area other than your own and to consider how effectively the proposed learning experience in the course is conveyed to you.
Ken Bain, Director of the NYU Center for Teaching Excellence, developed an exercise, Teaching as Scholarship: Reflections on a Syllabus, that asks first, that you engage in guided written analysis of your own syllabus and then, that you and a colleague exchange these analyses for critical review and discussion.
Independent studies
Planning and designing good independent study experiences for students is challenging. The first problem is to determine whether a student is appropriately prepared to do an independent study. For an example of a policy statement advising students on preparing for and proposing an independent study, see Virginia Sapiro’s Independent Study Policies (and also Policy on Supervising Internships). Posting such policies and making advisors aware of them helps advisors and faculty steer students appropriately. There are many different ways of organizing independent studies and figuring out how to evaluate students’ work. Please submit good sources of help to this website!
Assessment
Assessment and evaluation of your teaching goals, skills and past efforts should be an important element of your course design and planning. See the resources offered on this Web site at Assessment and evaluation of teaching.