Tune into Teaching: Making Your Syllabus Work for You and Your Students

Facilitators:
Megan Burnett, Associate Director, CTSI
Tamara Bahr, Manager, Teaching, Learning and Technology, CTSI

Online

A well-crafted syllabus ensures that students understand the essential requirements for participating and succeeding in a course. A well-designed syllabus can also serve as a learning tool to enhance students’ experience in the course, beyond listing course policies and due dates. This practical, interactive session will consider the essential elements of an effective syllabus, review current best practices in syllabus design and examine a model University of Toronto course syllabus. Participants will then work in pairs to provide feedback on each other’s syllabi (see below) with CTSI facilitators providing additional guidance.

As a participant in this session, we ask that you have one of the following at hand during the workshop:

• A proposed course syllabus for a new course you would like to teach one day
  
  OR
  
  
• A course syllabus for an existing U of T course you are seeking to refresh

The goal of this workshop is for each participant to leave with a well-developed plan for revising/crafting a powerful syllabus that works for both instructor and learner. Participants who join the session without a document to work from and discuss in break-out groups will not benefit as fully from this session.