A syllabus is a roadmap for your class. The syllabus tells students what assignments to do, what tests to take, what pages to read, when everything is due, lists rubrics with expectations for those assignments and tests, tells students the university grading scale, lists the percentages of all assignments, readings and discussions and informs students about university policies on netiquette, research formatting, tutoring, late policy and plagiarism policy.
Usually, on the first day of class, the professor will spend the entire class period going over the syllabus so the class is aware of the expectations. I always advise students right away in my online classes to download their syllabus and read the syllabus as the first thing they do after they learn the class navigation of their online classroom.
The syllabus tells students the course description, what the course will be about, course objectives, what the objectives of the course will be, lesson objectives, what students will be doing, reading, writing from week to week and tells students what to prep for from week to week.
Some online classes have the class syllabus embedded into the website where you just click on links of each week to get the assignments. Then, you have the option to print out a paper copy of the syllabus. Students have the choice of just looking at the class website embedded syllabus or printing out a paper copy. I prefer the paper copy just in case my computer crashes and I can't access the embedded class syllabus.
Whenever I take a professional development class online or face to face, the first thing I do is look at the syllabus. I then take note in my to do notebook what assignments and requirements are due for me that week. I make a calendar of when each assignment is due based on my class syllabus. I tell my students to do the same. Some LMS even have a calendar function into which the teacher can put in assignment due dates and activities.
I also tell students to keep their own calendars at home based on the syllabus due dates. I tell students to read ahead one week on the syllabus so that they have time to ask teacher questions about the assignment.
Therefore, your syllabus is a communication strategy for teachers and students because the syllabus gives a clear description of the class time frame and format and acts as a guideline for online class participation.
The average syllabus looks like this: Course Title, Course Name, Course Description, Course Objectives, Evaluation Plan, Grading, Required Readings, Recommended Readings, Course Outlines and school policies. At my online school, we had one standard syllabus for all classes across all departments so that students would get used to reading one standard syllabus and reduce confusion.
When I used to create a syllabus for my classes at my last school, I had to follow the school template. Most schools have a syllabus template for you to follow and some schools even give you the previous teacher's syllabus for that class for you to follow. I had one boss tell me, "Just follow the last teacher's syllabus and style for this class, and you'll do fine." So, I tweaked the last teacher's syllabus a little bit and taught the class.
After I had taught the class several times, I changed the required reading, the textbook, and some of the grading percentage requirement, I changed/modified the assignments to reflect a more student centered approach and gave more multimedia choices for assignment choices, but otherwise kept the format of the syllabus the same. I always visualize the syllabus in my head before I create a class.
For me, the syllabus serves as the outline for the entire class. Without a syllabus, your class is dead in the water.
Does your school have a syllabus template? Do you spend the first day of class going over the syllabus? How do you create a class? Do you visualize the syllabus in your head like I do?
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