At the beginning of the Fall semester, ProfHacker authors provided a number of tips for how to quickly improve, set expectations or learning goals, include catch-up days, or even perform an extreme makeover on syllabi. Now, as we are nearing the Spring semester–or perhaps have already started, as I did yesterday–the young ProfHacker’s thoughts turn to preparing syllabi for a new round of courses. My preparation time this semester was radically lessened by having the opportunity to reteach a couple of courses. But I hit a real snag in that one of the courses was originally taught on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday (MWF) schedule and this semester I’m teaching it on Tuesdays and Thursdays (TR).
In theory, this shouldn’t really create too many problems. Since my MWF class had 50-minute sessions, I had the students for 150 minutes per week. My TR classes meet for 75 minutes, so I get them for the same amount of time: 150 minutes. Supposedly I should be able to assign the same amount of reading and cover all the same materials in the course of a semester which has the same number of weeks from year to year.
Yet the very real division of days makes for a very different class. While I suppose I could try to do half of Wednesday’s class material on Tuesday and half on Thursday, that will make for very odd transitions and unsatisfactory endings to many class periods. (I’m big on endings. One of the best things that I learned from a mentor in graduate school was to use class sessions–and the class as a whole–as stories. I’ve found that it helps the students retain the information better as they can slot it into the schema of whatever story I’ve decided to use.) What’s more, I’ve discovered that it’s not all that much more difficult for me to lead a discussion about a group of poems or a short story for 50 minutes as it is for 75. So using all the time productively in class sessions is not a problem.
The only answer for me seemed to be to cut material from the course. (I know, I know. Even ProfHackers can be slow at times.) The problem of how to use the time more effectively was complicated by this being a survey course, one in which it’s important for the students to get adequate coverage of the major movement, themes, and authors of American literature from 1865 to the present. While the syllabus is still getting worked on, I thought I could share some of what I learned in the process, as well as tips from other ProfHacker authors:
- Consider if it would be possible to teach 3 topics in 2 days (or 2 topics in 3 days when moving from TR to MWF). While this didn’t work for my particular situation, there’s nothing to say that it won’t for yours.
- If it’s not possible to do so, try to let it go. You’ve taught the course before and it went wonderfully well. You can certainly be expected to have mixed feelings about cutting out topics that you had decided were necessary and that the students responded to. But you almost certainly had to leave off some things you thought were essential when you first designed the syllabus. This is no different.
- Recognize that you probably do know which things can be cut away from the course. After all, you designed the first one. As you’re cutting, don’t be afraid to leave off “canonical” things so that you can teach something you know you teach well. Both you and the students will be happier with the end results.
- Consider using an Extreme Makeover approach to your syllabus. If you start with a blank slate rather than simply updating last year’s document, it might be easier for you to think about what is really necessary for this particular course.
- Try to avoid teaching different sections of the same class on MWF and TR. But if doing so becomes necessary, treat each section as if they are completely different classes. They will certainly feel that way.
What tips do you have for shifting a syllabus from one teaching schedule to another? Do you have to do anything differently when moving from a TR schedule to MWF?
cc licensed flickr photo by davidsilver
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3 Responses to Shifting The Days of Your Syllabus
Aileen Fyfe - January 14, 2010 at 11:35 am
I agree: think in weeks; that way, you have the same number of topics to cover in each version of the course, and all you change is quite how much detail you go into on each of them.
I learned this when changing a day-time course (2 * 50 min lectures) into an evening course for mature students (2hr lectures). I had to cut out a lot of material from my 24-lecture course to make it fit 11 night sessions, and I had to pay more attention to little mini-breaks and activities to keep the 2-hrs lively… but it worked so well that I subsequently retrofitted my day-time course to be organised at 11 topics. They do have to be split into two halves, but it hasn’t proven too difficult.
I also think that a topic-per-week gives the course more structure than a topic-per-session.
PhilosopherP - January 8, 2010 at 2:39 pm
I run into this all the time — I’ve resolved parts of it by looking at the course in terms of weeks instead of meetings. Thus, all my students have a quiz due before the first class meets. The powerpoints are the same across the board and are focused on topics, not days. As I go — I plan how to break up the material according to the way the class works — some sections need more discussion and detail in the initial presentation of materials, others want to go to the objections more quickly and the detail gets added in concerning objections.
I do think the advice of trying to avoid the same material MWF and TTh is good — it’s easier to do TTh and an evening class than two varieties of day classes.
Benjamin Miller - January 8, 2010 at 3:24 pm
I’ve had to go back and forth three times now, here at Hunter College, and I agree that it’s not easy. This is especially the case with a writing-intensive course – I teach composition – where the students are actively composing something both during and between just about every class meeting; I don’t have a powerpoint to divide up, and the students need time to generate the materials we work with. That time works very differently for a 3-day/week class and for a 2-day/week class.
With a 75-minute period, I’m able to break the lesson up into small-group and full-group activities; we have time to puzzle through something, get lost, and still come together to reach a satisfying end, setting up the night’s homework. (An excellent point about endings and stories, Brian!) When switching from 75- to 50-minute lessons, I’ve found, it’s important to realize that this won’t necessarily work: I can generally set only one activity goal for the day (as opposed to two or even three).
Conversely, this sometimes works to my advantage: If the discussion gets exciting and engaged, I can let it fill a 50-minute period without getting too far behind in my course goals. In a 75-minute period, letting the first activity take 45 minutes instead of 25 will often kill subsequent activities, with fewer days to make them up. I’ve therefore often found it worthwhile, when switching from 3 days to 2, to let my students know at the beginning of each class period what I’m planning to get through, and about how long each bit should take: they get the benefit of looking out for connections between segments, and I get the benefit of additional timekeepers. (Actually, this helps in the shorter periods, too. I’m not always able to abide by my one-activity-per-day rule.)
The final wrinkle I’ll offer is that at Hunter, and perhaps your college, the 3-day schedule is not MWF but MWR or TWF: that is, we always get two of our three days back-to-back. My first semester with this schedule, I tried to assign little homeworks between the consecutive days, but I’ve since realized that it’s better to treat them as a single unit with the equivalent of a bathroom break in the middle. i.e. I can ask students to bring in something they’ve already done or read (but left at home), but if I ask for more than that, I often just don’t get it. (Making this a free day for homework also makes it easier to preserve assignments between the 3-day and 2-day schedules.)