The course syllabus is a powerful communication device. By letting students know what to expect, it articulates your course design decisions. This guide helps you develop a syllabus from scratch or redesign one (perhaps one you’ve been “gifted” from a previous instructor!) that is ultimately useful to both you and your students. Below are ideas for refining your learning goals, developing activities, establishing a welcoming and engaging environment, and more:
- Start with what you want students to do
- Write a compelling course description, and consider the tone of your course
- Include transparent policies and organization
- FAQ
Since your syllabus reflects back and summarizes the broader work of course design, designing your syllabus is inextricable from designing your course. Each section below highlights 1) the thinking/brainstorming you need to do about your course, and 2) what actually goes in the syllabus to communicate that thinking.
Start with what you want students to do
What do you want your students to know, be able to do, or still find valuable 3-5 years after your course is over? When (re)designing a syllabus, identify your goals and objectives for the course and then choose activities that align with those objectives to create a strong, cohesive course.
Why start with goals and objectives?
By starting here, we are using the principles of backward design, which is an evidence-based approach to course design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2012). Backward design encourages you to think about what constitutes evidence of learning, then works from there to decide what content, assessments, and activities are needed to help students demonstrate that learning. It allows the instructor to make strategic decisions about what content and activities to include in the course, which can help to reduce and streamline content. Backward design also supports clarity and transparency--because the process clarifies what shapes instructional decisions, it is easier for students to recognize the value and purpose of the course and assignments. Finally, backward design centers the learner, rather than the subject matter or the activities, which is a more equitable, inclusive, and effective approach to course design.
Step One—From Goals to Objectives
Thinking: Backward design begins by thinking big and drafting your learning goals, which are the “fuzzy,” nebulous, or broad things that you want your students to be able to do after our courses. Goals may be hard to measure, but they are often the big-picture things that instructors hope students come away with after their courses. Course descriptions nod to these big ideas, and we recommend incorporating your goals into your course description. See “Write a compelling course description,” below, for examples.
What you put in the syllabus: While your goals will inform your objectives it is your clear, measurable learning objectives that are the foundational component of an effective backward design process and that you will list in the syllabus document.
Learning objectives are specific, measurable, and student-centered statements that describe what you want students to be able to know, do, or achieve by the end of your course. Learning objectives should be written from the student’s perspective and addressed to them. For instance, “By the end of this course, you will be able to…”. Using learning objectives consistently can both benefit your own instructional decision-making and help guide your students as they learn.
Clear, well-written learning objectives typically follow a “how” and “what” structure, where a single action verb identifies the level of learner performance or behavior, followed by the desired result and/or specific content knowledge. For example, “Evaluate [how] the efficacy of the rhetorical movies in a piece of persuasive writing [what], “ or “Describe [how] the functions of each component of a cell [what].”
The Center for Teaching Excellence uses Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning to shape learning objectives because we appreciate its focus on helping students invest in the course material and learn how to learn as well as on acquiring and implementing foundational knowledge.
We recommend including 5-7 course-level objectives. Think big-picture for these, reserving more specific objectives for units or lessons within your course. Need help developing or revising your learning objectives? Schedule a consultation with the Faculty Development team by emailing teaching@gwu.edu
Examples of course learning objectives:
From CAH1000: The Art of the Exhibition
By the end of the semester, if you engage actively with the course (keeping up with readings, writing assignments, showing up to class and paying attention), you will be able to:
- approach museums as informed, critical visitors
- think critically about the organization of exhibitions
- pose questions that foster discussions and further inquiry
- participate actively in discussions (whether through talking or active listening)
- craft compelling arguments about exhibitions
From BISC1111: Introductory Biology: Cells and Molecules
At the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Formulate a hypothesis and design an experiment to test it.
- Interpret and analyze experimental data to draw conclusions about a research question.
- Convey information and experimental data visually, textually, and orally.
- Illustrate complex cellular processes, such as: cellular respiration, photosynthesis, mitosis, meiosis, DNA replication, transcription, and translation.
- Describe the major macromolecule groups and explain how the bonds they contain impact their structure and thus their function.
- Apply your understanding of cell structure and membrane transport to predict how cells will respond to changes in their environment.
Analyze a sequence of DNA, mRNA, or protein, determine corresponding sequences of the related molecules, and predict the downstream effects of sequence alterations.
Step Two—Designing Assessments
Thinking: Once you have established your learning objectives, the next step of backward design is to identify how you will assess whether students have successfully achieved them. For instance, will students complete research papers, reflections, presentations, internships, group projects, experiments, performances, exams, quizzes, or something else entirely? What assessments will allow students to practice with, and receive feedback on, the skills that you expect them to develop?
Examples of common assessment formats are listed below for inspiration, but the possibilities are limitless. Typically, courses will include 3–5 different types or categories of assessments. (Note that the total number of assignments in a course may be more than the total number of assessment types. A course using just quizzes and essay assessments, for example, might include 10 quizzes and 3 essays).
What assessment types might I consider?
- Annotated bibliographies
- Attendance
- Blogs
- Case Study Analysis
- Debates
- Discussion forums
- Essays
- Evaluations (self, peer)
- Exams
- Homework
- Infographics
- Journals
- Labs
- Literature reviews
- Participation
- Performances
- Podcasts
- Policy Memo/Brief
- Portfolios
- Presentations
- Proposals
- Quizzes
- Reading assignments
- Reflections
- Research papers/projects
- Reviews
- Videos
What you put in your syllabus: After deciding on your assessments, use your syllabus to provide a brief learning-focused description of each type of assessment you will use in your course. In just a few sentences, describe the purpose of the assessment to the student. Try to answer the questions: “What should a student expect to learn by completing this assessment?” and “Why should a student value this type of assessment?” You should not include assignment-specific directions here—instead, provide to the students in separate, more detailed assignment descriptions.
Example of Assessment description
From BISC1111: Introductory Biology: Cells and Molecules
Quizzes: Many class periods will begin with a 5-question quiz, designed to check your understanding of the main points from the assigned reading or from activities from the class period prior, and to help bring everyone together around major concepts before starting group activities for the day. These quizzes include both an individual and a group component. First, you will spend 3 minutes answering the quiz questions independently, and you will submit your responses to earn 50% of the possible 10 points. Then, each group will have 3 minutes to discuss the questions together, debating possible answers and sharing their ideas. The group will then submit another set of responses to earn the remaining 50% of the points. If you score higher on the individual quiz than the group quiz, you will earn your individual score for the entire 10 points.
Step Three—Planning the Learning Process
Thinking: After deciding the types of assessments you will incorporate, you can start to plan the learning experience. The learning experience includes:
- Course content, such as readings, videos, and other instructional materials
- Learning activities that students engage in during and outside of class, such as listening actively to lecture, engaging in full-class discussion, or participating in small-group work, individual reflection, and/or online discussion
In other words, you should think about both the “what” and the “how” of the learning experience.
In-class learning activities should help your students progress toward meeting learning objectives through interactions with content, instructor, and peers. By providing practice and helping you monitor student progress, they scaffold the learning process so that students can practice key skills before a high-stakes assessment, such as an exam or a research paper.
What you put in your syllabus: Syllabi typically list out all of the course readings and other instructional materials as part of the course schedule, but they don’t have to! You may want to leave things more open-ended and flexible and therefore post required readings and other course preparation directly in Blackboard as the semester progresses. However, if students will be required to purchase specific course materials, you should be clear about that in your syllabus.
Some of your assessments (e.g., participation, in-class debates) may already touch upon the learning process; however, syllabi often do not include detailed information about the specifics of what students will do in class each day. Students do not necessarily need to know this at the beginning of the semester, and you might not have gotten that far in your planning anyway! But if there is information that can help students prepare for learning activities, you can include it on your course calendar--”E.g., Bring a laptop or other digital device today for in-class research.”
Write a compelling course description and consider the tone of your course
Thinking: Again, the syllabus is a powerful communication device. Once we’ve sketched out the objectives, assessments, and learning process, we want to consider how to establish the tone of the course and engage in learner-centeredness. Consider the following questions:
- What kind of environment do you want to create?
- What kind of introduction to the field/material do you want students to have?
- What feeling or impression do you want to convey?
- How do you want to present yourself as an instructor?
In general, a conversational tone encourages students to engage with the material (and you!).
What goes in your syllabus: The course description at the opening of the syllabus should be engaging, connect to the goals you have for your students (that you dreamed up and drafted as you were writing your learning objectives!), and serve as a welcoming introduction to the course. Here is where you can include the beautiful, provocative, or engaging questions you plan to use to hook the students.
Examples of course descriptions
From CAH1000: The Art of the Exhibition
Welcome to GW! Some of you may have already visited many of the museums and galleries here; others not so much. This course focuses on what is involved in organizing exhibitions—whether temporary or ongoing; whether focused on art, culture, history, or science—for audiences in and around Washington, DC. What responsibility do curators in the DMV have to represent art from various cultures and time periods to the U.S. public and visitors from other countries? What particular challenges do this city’s museum educators, guards, development staff, directors, etc. face? What place do art and culture have in a city dense with political debate and heavily laden with historical memory?
Museums across the country (and world) are facing a historical reckoning and in many cases scrambling to address their elitism and complicity with colonialism. In this seminar, we will take museums in and around DC as our case study. Through site visits and practical assignments, students will learn about current strategies and imagine possible futures.
Three umbrella terms—accessibility, decolonization, and sustainability—have guided many recent discussions at museums, and thus these concepts will help direct our investigations. Our site visits will be complemented by readings and class discussions that sometimes directly and sometimes more loosely relate to these terms. We will address questions such as the implications of museums’ monied origins, repatriation, and the challenges involved in representation. The issues we will study through the lens of museums are, of course, of broad concern.; the hope is that you will hone critical thinking skills in this seminar that will serve you well throughout your college career and beyond.
From BISC: Biology of Nutrition and Health
Why should you care about the biology of nutrition and health?
Have you ever heard the expressions, “tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are,” or “you are what you eat?” While neither of these phrases are meant to be taken literally, they are meant to imply that the food you eat will impact your state of mind and overall health. So think about why everyone is going gluten-free? What is the link between the food you eat, genetics, and heart disease? Why is there an increase in the prevalence of diabetes across the globe? How and/or does this relate to you?
We want to explore with you the value and function of your bodies, your food and other organisms. We need to start preparing for a lifetime of healthy behavior like the way we prepare and study for our professional careers. Together we will explore the tools needed to establish a good foundation to understand nutrition and common medical problems related to food.
We want you to pay attention to your health, so you can enjoy your wealth.
How Will This Course Help You In The Future?
The objectives of this course are crafted so that you can leave this class and retain information for future use in real world applications. For instance, many public policies on health are related to literacy.
During this course you will find yourself (a well-educated individual) learning a lot about what is in the food you eat and how challenging it can be for an uneducated person to eat well. The health care problem is plastered across the news right now, which includes aspects of politics, business, and very personal and religious issues.
This course will touch on just a few important health issues, which are long-term problems that most people don’t understand. If you can’t understand what you are eating and how it may be harmful and how it can lead to a chronic disease, how can we criticize or implement effective practices in the real world. What are the solutions?
Include transparent policies and organization
Finally, include your course-specific policies (attendance, late work, AI use, etc.) and the university-wide policies applicable to your course. However, we encourage you to adapt them for your course.
Thinking: Consider how the policies intersect with the tone of the course and the material students are learning. Do the two align? If you’d like to brainstorm what policies might best meet your and your students’ needs, schedule a consultation by emailing teaching@gwu.edu
Alternatively, you can flag for students that this is somebody else’s language that applies across the department, school, etc.
What to put in your syllabus: Here are some examples of how to rewrite university policies in more learner-centered, welcoming language that helps students recognize the supports available to them:
Religious holiday policy
Am I excused on religious holidays?
Yes, you are. This is a university policy and your right as a GW student. Please just let me know during the first week of the semester if you plan to be absent from class on days of religious observance. For details and policy, see GW’s full religious observance policy.
Credit hour policy
How much time should I devote to this class? (Credit hour policy)
To promote consistency within and across institutions, federal regulations set a standard for the amount of work you are expected to do per credit hour: For a weekly, 1-credit, 50-minute class like ours, you should plan to spend about 100 minutes doing out-of-class work, which means this class will take up about 2.5 total hours per week and 37.5 hours over the course of our 15-week semester.
Everyone works at their own pace. Your timeline might not look like your classmates’ timeline, and that’s okay. But if you find that you need substantially more time than 90 minutes/week outside of class to complete course requirements, please come talk to me. We can make individual adjustments, or it may be a sign that I haven’t properly estimated the workload and need to make adjustments for everyone.
Extenuating circumstances
Keep in mind: None of the policies or schedules in this syllabus respond well to ongoing intense difficulty or dramatic changes in your personal or our collective lives. If this happens at an individual level, reach out to me, and we will discuss how we can make adjustments. Reach out to your advisor as well—they can help you map your support needs across multiple courses and semesters.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the ideal syllabus length?
Crafting a syllabus is always a balancing act between giving your students the information they need to succeed in a course and not overwhelming them with too many details. While there is no one ideal length for the document, you might consider:
- What information do students need at the beginning of the course, and what can wait until later? For example, we recommend including information about the types of assessment in your course (“E.g., there will be five brief in-class quizzes about the reading; your lowest score will be dropped automatically”) but reserving details on the specifics of assignments for later in the semester.
- Think about how the layout of your syllabus can direct students to its most important features. Using built-in heading styles not only makes your document more accessible; it can help students quickly find key information. Some instructors vary font or margin sizes or include a table of contents to help students navigate the document.
- Consider a “Syllabus Appendix” for policies that are required or important but are not course-specific. You might post the complete document on Blackboard but only print the course-specific portions of it for the first day.
What order should things go in?
Syllabi typically begin with the instructor’s contact information, details about when and where the class meets, and information about what materials students will need for class. Information about course assessments and the course calendar usually comes next, followed by course policies and program/university policies. As you make your own choices about the order of your syllabus, consider what the order of the syllabus suggests about your course environment. Placing your accessibility policy early in the document, for example, conveys that you recognize that students learn best when their accessibility needs are met.
I’ve designed a great syllabus! How do I get students to read it?
Presenting your syllabus in an engaging way on the first day of class can spark students’ interest in the document and give them time to explore it in a structured manner. See our website on engaging actively with the syllabus for ideas!
What if my department has special policies?
Make sure your syllabus includes all information required by your department, and clarify whether you need to use specified language or can rewrite policies in your own words. You may wish to differentiate course-specific, program-specific, and university policies on your syllabus, and you might consider including supplementary language to align the policies with the tone of your syllabus and course.
Where do I find university-wide policies?
The GW Bulletin contains a list of university policies for inclusion in a syllabus appendix. The Office of the Provost has detailed information and links as well.
Designing a syllabus is challenging work! How can I get more support?
The Faculty Development team is eager to work with you on your syllabus. We can talk through questions or provide feedback on drafts. To set up an individual consultation, email teaching@gwu.edu. For a structured, intensive exploration of course design that ends with a complete, revised syllabus draft, join our Course Design Institute.
Request a Consultation
Contact Form
Upcoming Course Design Workshops
No related upcoming events to show at this time.
