The Atlantic: The "Dead" Syllabus

[dlehman]

Echoing many others here (and I'm pleased to see how many similar experiences there are):  I've resisted using the syllabus templates for years.  I lost the undergrad battles and stopped teaching undergrads.  Now it has taken over graduate courses as well.  I finally had to yield to the assessment gods and include the required elements - so I put them in a part 2 document.  Part 1 contains the stuff I want to convey - outline, objectives, evaluation, and these are short given the detail that is in the learning management system.  The "required elements" have made syllabi much like the agreements you sign for credit cards - does anybody read those, and does anyone understand them?  We could extend the discussion from syllabi to new course proposals which have evolved in a similar fashion.

The most disturbing aspects of this evolution is that every document now contains much the same information.  Wouldn't it make more sense for this to be in the catalog or a policy document for the whole institution rather than including it in every course?  But the way it is done is perfect for the accreditation bureaucracy - it is easily measured and can be checked off (or found wanting).  The tragedy is that there is little effort expended to actually evaluate the content of courses or to see if the objectives are being achieved.  Instead, we substitute the proper wording of learning objectives for any meaningful attempt to evaluate whether they are appropriate or being achieved.  "Measurable" often means whether there are points attached to each objective and each assignment.  It is a mockery of what it means to actually "measure" something.

I am heartened to see so many people with similar experiences.  I often am distressed to see my colleagues go along with this nonsense so readily - it is part of the de-professionalization of teaching and it undermines any expertise or creativity we may possess.  An extreme view (which I largely hold) is that faculty are willingly agreeing that they are easily replaced and interchangeable (and now with machines).  I'm glad I am near the end of my career and not just starting out.

[marshwiggle]

Agreed. If its a conversation among practitioners who share goals and also the classes are either hierarchical or at least share a common language (say, Thermodynamics and Mechanics--not related in a hierarchical way but related through understanding fundamental laws and mathematics and using that to solve problems), then assessment becomes not only straightforward, but potentially useful. If all of the courses are truly independent, then assessment can become a bunch of independent bs declarations.

This is something I truly don't understand. If all of the courses are truly independent, what does it even mean for some courses to be 2xx, 3xx, or 4xx? Wouldn't it make sense that within a discipline, there would be some types of analysis or whatever that would be introduced at a certain level and assumed beyond that?

[FishProf]

A lot of administrators here tend to solve a tiny problem with an onerous policy, rather than addressing the individual bad actors.

I think you have just articulated my school admin culture perfectly.

[apl68]

First, I strongly disagree that all learning outcomes should be measurable.

We all have learning outcomes that we want students to achieve that are hard to measure.  If we just focus on the measurable ones, then we end up not achieving the ones that are harder to measure.  And then our students end up getting training, not an education.

Second, if most of your students are meeting most of your outcomes, you're not ambitious enough.

If you insist that most of your learning outcomes get met by most of your students, then you don't end up teaching better; you end up dumbing down your outcomes so you look more successful.

^^^ THIS ^^^

Assessment was in entrenched in k-12 before it found its way into higher ed. We all saw first-hand, the ineffectiveness and detriment of Assessment on learning in k-12, in our incoming undergraduate college students: capable on paper--incapable in reality.

Now that Assessment has become entrenched in higher ed, is it any wonder that the employers and graduate schools are complaining about their incoming grad students/entry-level employees who are capable on paper but incapable in reality? Even worse, is it any wonder that there are many many graduates of programs who couldn't even get into a grad school or get a job, and they (and those close to them) are now questioning the value of higher education, even though all the boxes were checked on their SLOs in all of their classes?

I'm, of course, not going to go so far as saying that Assessment ruined higher ed, but it sure had a hand in it.

The whole thing reminds me of D.L. Moody's observation to the effect that we should be less concerned about failure than about succeeding at things that don't really matter.

[Caracal]

Echoing many others here (and I'm pleased to see how many similar experiences there are):  I've resisted using the syllabus templates for years.  I lost the undergrad battles and stopped teaching undergrads.  Now it has taken over graduate courses as well.  I finally had to yield to the assessment gods and include the required elements - so I put them in a part 2 document.  Part 1 contains the stuff I want to convey - outline, objectives, evaluation, and these are short given the detail that is in the learning management system.  The "required elements" have made syllabi much like the agreements you sign for credit cards - does anybody read those, and does anyone understand them?  We could extend the discussion from syllabi to new course proposals which have evolved in a similar fashion.

The most disturbing aspects of this evolution is that every document now contains much the same information.  Wouldn't it make more sense for this to be in the catalog or a policy document for the whole institution rather than including it in every course?  But the way it is done is perfect for the accreditation bureaucracy - it is easily measured and can be checked off (or found wanting).  The tragedy is that there is little effort expended to actually evaluate the content of courses or to see if the objectives are being achieved.  Instead, we substitute the proper wording of learning objectives for any meaningful attempt to evaluate whether they are appropriate or being achieved.  "Measurable" often means whether there are points attached to each objective and each assignment.  It is a mockery of what it means to actually "measure" something.

I am heartened to see so many people with similar experiences.  I often am distressed to see my colleagues go along with this nonsense so readily - it is part of the de-professionalization of teaching and it undermines any expertise or creativity we may possess.  An extreme view (which I largely hold) is that faculty are willingly agreeing that they are easily replaced and interchangeable (and now with machines).  I'm glad I am near the end of my career and not just starting out.

If it feels like people are "going along" with this, it's probably because it usually doesn't actually involve any actual loss of control over course content or assessment. If you can just include a bunch of boilerplate language and cut and paste some learning objectives with a sentence or two to make them fit in a vague way with the course and then have nobody bother you again about it, isn't that easier than having a principled fight about de-professionalization? Sometimes the best way to deal with bureaucracy is to just supply the required pieces of meaningless paper and then move on to the actual work.

[FishProf]

The annoying part isn't the assessment.  I was doing that anyway.  It's the documentation of the assessment that is a PITA.  And it is usually pointless.

[ciao_yall]

If it feels like people are "going along" with this, it's probably because it usually doesn't actually involve any actual loss of control over course content or assessment. If you can just include a bunch of boilerplate language and cut and paste some learning objectives with a sentence or two to make them fit in a vague way with the course and then have nobody bother you again about it, isn't that easier than having a principled fight about de-professionalization? Sometimes the best way to deal with bureaucracy is to just supply the required pieces of meaningless paper and then move on to the actual work.

In academia, change tends to be on the surface for this reason. It's easy to make waves and splash around and look like something is happening, still, faculty and students tend to operate the same way, year in and year out because disciplines and learning don't change too much.

So someone comes up with an idea of OUTCOMES! YAY, OUTCOMES! YAY, MEASUREMENTS! YAY, NEW INITIATIVES! And faculty get "initiative fatigue" because it's always something very surface-y that has no real impact on what academics actually do. And it's easier to go through the motions with minimal effort until Someone gets bored and finds a new laser dot to chase.

[dlehman]

Replying to caracal:
"isn't that easier than having a principled fight about de-professionalization? Sometimes the best way to deal with bureaucracy is to just supply the required pieces of meaningless paper and then move on to the actual work."

That is a perfectly reasonable and practical idea.  But:  it is how de-professionalization happens.  It is a sort of tragedy of the commons - individually rational, but collectively disastrous.  I think the idea that we just jump through some additional hoops and keep doing what we always did is disturbing in two ways.  First, it is an excuse for not doing any meaningful evaluation - it is all too rare that we actually evaluate our colleagues in a meaningful way.  Second, I think the idea that it doesn't cost much to go along with these syllabi requirements is an illusion.  You are agreeing to a bunch of assumptions that diminish your expertise and control over your courses.  Complacency is dangerous.  But I'm well aware that it takes energy to fight against the assessment mandates and many find that a waste of energy.  I respect that decision, but I'm not going to condone it.

[marshwiggle]

If it feels like people are "going along" with this, it's probably because it usually doesn't actually involve any actual loss of control over course content or assessment. If you can just include a bunch of boilerplate language and cut and paste some learning objectives with a sentence or two to make them fit in a vague way with the course and then have nobody bother you again about it, isn't that easier than having a principled fight about de-professionalization? Sometimes the best way to deal with bureaucracy is to just supply the required pieces of meaningless paper and then move on to the actual work.

Is that the way we want elementary and high school education to be as well?

[Parasaurolophus]

FWIW, at my institution, assessments are set by the course outline of record. These will typically (but not always! Ugh!) give ranges for weights, but the kind of assessment is set in stone. So I'm stuck giving a midterm, essay, participation marks, and final exam in PHIL102, quizzes, an essay, and participation marks in 101, participation, quizzes, a midterm, and a final in 110, etc. I can't introduce oral presentations except under the rubric of participation or exams, and so on.

It's not a huge loss of control, but it does make it very difficult to experiment with new pedagogical techniques, both because they have to fit the framework and because you can't cut out anything that works less well. It also means that we're stuck with crappy assessment techniques, and that there are weird discrepancies between very similar classes (e.g. 101 and 102).

The outline of record, by the way, was created based on the idiosyncratic syllabus of whoever was teaching the class when the admin started requiring these outlines. As a result, the course descriptions don't do a good job of reflecting content either, since the content is allowed to be variable.

[ciao_yall]

FWIW, at my institution, assessments are set by the course outline of record. These will typically (but not always! Ugh!) give ranges for weights, but the kind of assessment is set in stone. So I'm stuck giving a midterm, essay, participation marks, and final exam in PHIL102, quizzes, an essay, and participation marks in 101, participation, quizzes, a midterm, and a final in 110, etc. I can't introduce oral presentations except under the rubric of participation or exams, and so on.

It's not a huge loss of control, but it does make it very difficult to experiment with new pedagogical techniques, both because they have to fit the framework and because you can't cut out anything that works less well. It also means that we're stuck with crappy assessment techniques, and that there are weird discrepancies between very similar classes (e.g. 101 and 102).

The outline of record, by the way, was created based on the idiosyncratic syllabus of whoever was teaching the class when the admin started requiring these outlines. As a result, the course descriptions don't do a good job of reflecting content either, since the content is allowed to be variable.

Ugh, I would hate that! Do you have a Curriculum Committee who can, as outlines are updated, tune some of this stuff out/down? I can see that there should be some sort of consistency in rigor but at some point, even "Easy A" faculty would find a way to make these work.

We had a Curriculum Chair who wanted to impose such strictures but we all pretty much ignored her.

[Wahoo Redux]

Funny, but I signed up for an undergrad online asynchronous class at my wife's and my former uni this semester. 

The first page of the syllabus has contact info and then it has four pages of single-spaced boilerplate until we get to the 1-page schedule of class activities that, I am embarrassed to admit, already has me confused.

And then there is the cost of books which is around $250 for 2 books if I get them new from the campus bookstore.

[the_geneticist]

I'm on a committee that has been asked to "standardize the syllabus" for [baskets 101].  It's going to be, ah, interesting.  There is a really, really wide variety of how students are evaluated.  Formative assessments are from 0-30% of the grade, number of exams is 2-5, etc. 
I anticipate progress will be slow.

[FishProf]

I'm on a committee that has been asked to "standardize the syllabus" for [baskets 101].  It's going to be, ah, interesting.  There is a really, really wide variety of how students are evaluated.  Formative assessments are from 0-30% of the grade, number of exams is 2-5, etc. 
I anticipate progress will be slow.

Do you have the authority to determine the syllabus?  Who will enforce it?

[ciao_yall]

I'm on a committee that has been asked to "standardize the syllabus" for [baskets 101].  It's going to be, ah, interesting.  There is a really, really wide variety of how students are evaluated.  Formative assessments are from 0-30% of the grade, number of exams is 2-5, etc. 
I anticipate progress will be slow.

Can you just standardize the outcomes, topics and suggested textbook? And suggest/give examples of assessments without requiring them?