- So now you have the ILOs and from the ILOs you've got a structure on how you are going to teach the course and assess the students. But having a plan in your own mind is not good enough. You need a course outline to specify the details and communicate the major information to the students and other colleagues. What is a course outline then? A course outline is an introduction to the important elements of a course. It answers students' questions about a course. But what information do students usually look for in an outline? - I think it's, uh, time slot of the course. - Something related to my major. - Kinda fits in with my needs and my goals. - The grade of the course, is it good or not? - Workload. - I would prefer lectures that are more interactive. - Interactive courses, because I really enjoy having courses that the lecturer will actually interact with us and do some experiment on us. - The lecturer. - Also the lecturer. I check sometimes. I just Google the name of the lecturer and I check if, what they have done, what Masters they have. That's also kind of interesting as well, too, to see whether I would like the course. - Apparently they are interested in the schedule, the assessment, the workload, the teaching method, the lecturer, and whether or not the course matches with their interests and needs. What do you think should be included in a course outline? In the courses you took before, what did you wish the teacher had clarified in the outline? Take a minute to make a list of things that you would like to include in your course outline. The elements to be included in an outline and its format vary by disciplines, types of the courses, and individual teachers. I'm sure the list you made just now will add a personal style to your outline. Many universities provide templates for their teachers which may contain some compulsory fields. From some good examples of syllabi, I identified some essential components for you to consider. Almost all course syllabi have a course description. It highlights briefly the key features of a course, such as what the course is about, what questions the course answers, why it is is important, why it is relevant, why it is interesting, and what the major teaching methods are. It answers many questions we heard from students just now. Right after the course description it's often a good idea to provide the CILOs to tell students what they're expected to achieve. Course description provides only a brief account of the course. After reading it, students would then need a more concrete idea about what are the main topics and when they will be addressed, like what was mentioned by the students just now. So better list the weekly topics and the schedule of the class meetings, typically in time sequence. Assessment would not happen until students get some learning experience, but to many students, assessment is the starting point of their learning. It's one of the three major components in the constructive alignment. We heard grades from the students we interviewed just now as well. Teachers need to explain what, when, and how about the assessment. WHAT, is about the types of assessment that will contribute to students' final grades. WHEN, is about the schedule, or the deadlines. HOW, is about the weight of each assessment component and the marking scheme. It has been proved to be an effective practise to provide the marking scheme and criteria at the very beginning, to tell the students the level of achievement a course is looking for. You may want to go back to the CILOs (Course Intended Learning Outcomes) from time to time as well and make sure the criteria match with the CILOs. Also, don't forget to check with your department and faculty about the grade scale they want you to use. Keep in mind, assessment is probably the place where students have most questions about. Make sure things are clearly defined. Are you expecting your students to do any readings before class? If so, provide a reading list in the outline. To ensure a proper workload one good practise is to label the reading by their importance. For example, a three-star label means compulsory reading. A two-star label means highly recommended, but not compulsory. One star means recommended for students who are highly interested and want to read more extensively. For each piece of reading, provide a short description in only one or two sentences to help students to make the decision. It's very common as well to include administrative information in a course outline, such as course title, course code, term, year, venue, course prerequisites, number of credits, during hours, or workload. And teacher's or teaching assistant's information such as name, title, email, office address, office number, and office hour. In my interviews with the students many showed interest in the lecturers. So if you like, it might be a good idea to provide a short introduction to yourself or they might Google you anyway. An optional element you might be interested in including is the course policies and values. You can address the questions like what policies and values will guide your teaching in this section. It is the place to clarify the policies about late submission, make-up exams, preparation for class, or class participation. Or you can communicate to students the values that will help students to get the most of the course. For example, you can tell students you expect an inclusive atmosphere in class. You want students to respect diversity and value different opinions. Or you could emphasise the importance of academic integrity. Among the things we mentioned just now, many are related to timelines. More detailed examples can be the schedule of the class meetings, weekly topics, weekly readings, quizzes, unusual assignment submission dates, feedback and revision timeline, and deadlines. Many teachers like to include them in the course schedule so that all the major elements of the course are mapped against time and referenced with each other. The alternative approach has been to map the three major components of the curriculum against each other, namely the CILOs (Course Intended Learning Outcomes), the major teaching and learning activities, and the assessment tasks. Depending on the policy and the curriculum approach in your university, you might need to include some additional standard statements in your outline, such as copyright statement, feedback policy, lab safety regulations, or a summary of how previous student feedback on course has been addressed. The purpose of the outline is to familiarise students with the course. It invites students to take responsibility for their own learning. It is seen by some teachers as a contract between the teachers and the students that sets the stage for the journey they will embark on together. There's a little trick about the course outline that many teachers do. Having a quiz on the course outline after the first class and giving feedback afterwards. That was found to be very useful in helping students understand a course. Not only will a course outline help your students to get ready for the course, your other colleagues will be able to know about your course, too. That is important, especially when they are considering the prerequisite of their course. At the programme level, syllabi help a programme coordinator to manage the alignment between PILOs (Programme Intended Learning Outcomes) and CILOs (Course Intended Learning Outcomes) as well. If you have got a detailed course outline, you are then ready to plan for individual lessons.
