I have to admit I am the kind of person who agonizes over my syllabus every year. This is particularly true because there are so many topics that can be covered, but not enough class time to cover them--or at least to cover them in-depth. Over the years I have found myself covering less and less topics because I feel that classroom discussion is much more rich and nuanced when we can focus in-detail on some issues, rather than touch on every topic under the sun (or casebook). Yet I must admit that I sometimes feel torn about the balance I have struck--that is, which things I cover and which things I do not or to which I only giving a passing reference. Hence, every year I find myself adding some topics and then cutting back on others.
Recently I distributed a syllabus which excluded a topic that I felt was fairly important, but may have been covered at least in part by an introductory course. Yet I decided to survey the class to confirm my impressions. Alas, I learned that my impressions were not true and made the decision (maybe the blunder?) to change the syllabus mid-stream. I say blunder because I got the impression that while students may not have initially cared about the topics we covered in class, some seemed alarmed to find out that we would be cutting back on certain topics to make way for the new material--like they were missing out on something. I also got the impression that some students realized for the first time that there were actually affirmative choices made about the kinds of issues covered in class--again seeming to confirm an impression that they could be missing out on something. Or perhaps students were taken aback that their responses to my quick survey actually changed the direction/scope of the course.
After class, however, I wondered if anyone else had thoughts about syllabus management and student input.
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