Syllabus
I have a student, Marian, and she is frustrated. During a discussion with her I discovered that she was not accustomed to following a syllabus and turning in homework. She is also concerned that testing will be a problem.
I have a syllabus and stick to it as closely as is possible. Deviating from it slightly can happen but following it gives a sense of structure to the student.
I discovered that an instructor was not using her agreed upon syllabus and was not collecting assignments or giving tests as was agreed upon in department meeting. My classes are fed into by students who are now experienced learners and should have a base of knowledge to build on. This was not happening due to the instructor's deviation to established syllabus and course requirements.
This student and others are very behind in knowledge base as compared to students I have during the other class times. Am vs pm.
I now have a group of students who have a good basic knowledge and are ready to learn more and I have group of students who do not.
My question to others is how do I, in a constructive way let this instructor know the importance of syllabus and sticking to it?
Hi Jill,
I have students from different countries that read each word as literal. I do change the syllabus as I learn new material like this formum and on-line course. This give some of the students fits, but with careful discussion with the student they see we are updating the material on specific subjects and the next version will have that built into the syllabus. And then again there are suprise translations.
that will work if u teach in a university, but that wouldn't work for instructors at a tech. school. two different enviroments. as tech. school instuctors we need to be able to change class times in lab and or when lab sheets are due. ower students don't get confussed when u switch stuff up, they like it becouse it's different. plus they like the extra lab time u give them.
Hi Jill,
You ask a very common question. Since education is build on a step concept, each step lead to another step the instructor of the previous step area has to be on target with the instruction. Without knowing how delicate the situation is with the other instructor that is feeding you the students it is hard for me to answer completely. What I would do is collect some examples of how and where the students are having problems in your course as they relate to what has happen in the previous course. I would then have a one on one talk with that teacher showing where the difficulties are. I do this in the form of asking for help, rather that scolding for not sticking with syllabus and course requirements. This allows the instructor to save face and yet allows me to work with that instructor to develop a plan that will keep the students on task so they will be prepared when they come into my class. This has worked really well for me in situations where I was working with a real professional. In classes where I was working with a teacher that didn't really care then I had to bring in help from the administration.
Hope this helps to answer your question.
Gary
