Finalizing the Course Syllabus: The Peer Review Process

As a student in AEE 530, my task was to design/create a syllabus or a learning contract for a course or non-formal/informal learning experience. The process was very simple to follow consisting 3 stages the snapshot, the deep dive, and the evidence. The first good thing about the whole process was “Autonomy” which means as a student, I can choose the course contents of my choice. The autonomy in the process was kind of motivating factor for me, because one could write and communicate well about things of interest. I decided to design a course syllabus for “Mechatronic Systems Agriculture” because I am working on similar stuff in PhD

The writing of initial draft was very exciting. While writing the initial draft, I have to think from the prospective of an instructor as well as a student who could be interested in this course. I spend much time in organizing the contents, making the course overview sound and clear, stating the objectives clearly and providing the reading/text recommendations. I included things like course grading scale and policies, attendance policy, assignment and course schedule, and other institutional and academic policies.

The peer review process was very helpful in improving my final version of syllabus. The first peer review stage was “The snapshot” and for that I have to exchange my syllabus with 5 students in the class and get their feedback about style, clarity and tone of the syllabus. I got the chance to look into different style syllabus what my peers have created/designed and at the same time I got feedback from my peers about the syllabus I designed. For me, it was the best part of the whole process because during that quick process I met different audience who are from different field and they may look or perceive the things differently. Every peer I exchanged my syllabus with gave me a valuable opinion about the content and style I used in the syllabus so that gave me a chance to improve my major shortcomings that are evident even in a quick snapshot like deleting some text as the document looks too wordy, breakdown for project/lab grade, formatting, and consistency in wording.

The next stage of the peer review was “The deep dive” where one peer who should not be from the 5 peers during snapshot stage will spend some time in assessing the document I designed. I really appreciate my peer review deep dive partner “Alejandro” who did some excellent review that helped me to improve the clarity, organization, grade breakdown and set a tone that motivate students why they should enrol this course. The deep dive review process highlighted some important things that were overlooked at the initial draft and snapshot phase. Overall, the peer review process was very exciting and it helped me to improve the final version of my document.

Creating a syllabus and the importance of a peer review

Since the first moment the professors told us we would have to create a syllabus, I had clear the course I wanted to create. The truth is that I’m considering the outcome of this assignment as a tool I will use in the future rather than an academic task. That’s the reason why I pushed myself to make it as clear and as detailed as possible.

I created the syllabus for the course “Agroindustry crops: Cacao (Theobroma cacao L.). Yes, I know that the long name can be overwhelming but I don’t want to miss the opportunity to point out that this course focuses on the “food of gods” (theos  meaning “god”, and broma, meaning “food”).  I’m excited of teaching an entire course about Theobroma cacao for two main reasons: the first one is that I have been working on this crop for more than six years, and the second one is because I didn’t have the opportunity of taking such course. 

I intended to create a course were students bind together all their agronomy knowledge in one crop: cacao. I also wanted to define the current needs of the cacao sector as a frame for the course with the goal of showing the pertinence of the course’s topics. Receiving four “snap shot” peer reviews and one complete revision of the syllabus guided me create a more understandable and impressive document. In general, the peer review suggestions were focused on clarity and tone rather than in the course content and policies.

The reactions of the peer reviewers that realized my course was planned to be taught Saturdays at 6:00 am was, unanimously negative; “I would never enroll this class” one of they told me. Although my intention of selecting this time was to avoid interferences with my labor days (Monday-Friday), I agreed my classmates are right and that this is not a fair time for both the students and the professor (me). Another recurrent comment was about the “Travel Experiences” in the course. Travel Experiences are thought as essential components for accomplishing the course’s objective, especially the application’s ones. However, I didn’t have clear what students could do in case they are unable to attend to the travels. Improving the flow of the information was also a suggestion I took into account to enhance the clarity of the syllabus.

After having a broad idea of how should I improve the syllabus, the “deep dive” came and provided me the guidelines at a more detailed level. And it was possible not only for the comments that Azlan, my peer reviewer, did but also for the in-depth analysis I did to his syllabus.

Finalizing the syllabus: a student’s perspective on the value of the peer-review process in critically informing revisions

As a student in AEE 530 this semester, I am responsible for creating a syllabus for a course on a topic that I would be interested in teaching in the future. During the process of the assignment, I had the opportunity to obtain feedback from several of my fellow classmates and professors in a “snapshot” session, as well as a “deep dive” with a specific partner in the class. This blog post details the comments I received and how I decided to address each of them.

After reviewing the feedback I received during each of these parts of the assignment, from people I considered to be “prospective students” interested in taking my course, a few key points about how I had structured my syllabus emerged. In particular, there were sections of my syllabus that I initially thought were well-structured or complete, but were viewed by others as confusing. A few details and other sections were also revealed to be missing. These points made it clear that my syllabus was not as student-centered as possible. The syllabus should serve as a guide that students, and me as the instructor too, would follow for success in the course. Therefore, incorporating changes and additional information was necessary for me to improve my work in the final assignment. I was also able to clearly see the parts of my syllabus that others thought were clear. As a result, I was able to focus my time and effort on addressing areas that needed attention.

In the “snapshot” sessions, I received the following feedback and addressed it as follows:

·      Some of my terminology (including class locations and course abbreviations) were not all from the same university system. This was an issue of consistency and appropriate to update; everything reflects Penn State’s standards, since I am currently a student here, but recognize that these details could change depending on the campus I teach my course at in the future.

·      Several of my course objectives, while worded well overall, were “double-barreled” and needed to be split into individual objectives or goals. I’ve created a section for course goals (broad) and a separate section for course objectives (narrow). However, I am not entirely certain that my course objectives are correctly phrased and also think I may have too many course goals (there are currently 19). This is a section that I would like additional feedback on for the assignment, but also use in future projects.

·      It was mentioned that I could add a section of “assignments addressed” to my course schedule, so that students would know what was being covered in lecture/lab that they would be later evaluated on. As a part of this, I was also suggested that I number my assessments in the course. I chose to do both of these items because I felt like it made it clear that if a student missed a session, they could miss information for 2-8 assessments! Having this information could also help me, as an instructor, better connect information in the course to students’ assignments each session.

·      Since I don’t have a TA established for the course at this time, I have not added this information to my syllabus. In the future, should I have one (which would make for a great instructional team, I feel), I would certainly include all of their contact information and office hours on the syllabus.

·      It was indicated that the required/recommended text/materials sections were a bit long. I agreed, and tried to find ways to make them shorter, but they were also found to be missing details, so now they are a little longer. I’m not sure if there is anything that can be shortened here or not – this is another area I’d like feedback on specifically for future projects. I want students to know what they need access to, how much it costs (I added a “total estimated cost” section, as suggested), and why it is necessary for the course, but don’t want to overwhelm them with information.

·      One of my peers said that they’d never take a class with 2 exams in a single week. When I looked back at my schedule, to see if changing this structure was an option, I decided not to since the materials covered in the lecture and lab exams focus on the same topics. If students study for one, I hope that it helps them to study for both and do better on each of them. I also hope the review sessions I included as a part of class time helps them better prepare for these evaluations.

·      I was asked about my attendance policy for the course. Attendance is required in the “student expectations” section, the “assessments section”, and now also part of the “assignments addressed” on the course schedule so that students can see that each day is part of this assessment. That said, I didn’t want students to confuse the “assignments addressed” column as a “deadlines” section (it’s not), so not all of the assessments are included as listed on the days that they are due (only this one is) – doing so would have been redundant with the “assessments” section. This seemed like a good balance, but feedback on other ways to approach this would be appreciated.

·      The lab/lecture numbers in my course schedule were also a bit confusing for several people at first glance, so I’ve worked to specify lectures and labs more distinctly in this column.

·      Many students felt that my “course significance” and “course goals” sections should be reordered and moved closer to the course description, and before the required/recommended text/materials sections. I’ve moved them up, since I agreed, but they are still after the “estimated total cost” section, since I want students to know how much extra they may need to budget for my course and I felt that the course description covers enough of the details about the topic to get them interested and keep them reading if they like it.

In the “deep dive” process, I received this additional feedback (thank you, Devin!) and addressed it as follows:

·      It was suggested that I clarify the course numbers at the beginning of my syllabus. I have two course numbers because my course is designed for enrolment by both undergraduates and graduate students. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to better represent this than with “#/#” and I think it has been standard to do this, based on the few courses I’ve been in which have this aspect, when they have the same instructor, to keep things consistent between all of the students. The lab and the lecture are co-enrolled as well, so there isn’t a separate number for each of them.

·      I have now specified that textbooks would be purchased from the instructor. I had assumed this was implied, but assumptions shouldn’t be made since everyone has the ability to interpret things differently – this was a helpful reminder!

·      The budget for the class is now detailed, as outlined above. I’m glad that most people seemed to think this would help students! I agreed, but it wasn’t something I’d thought of previously.

·      It was suggested that I add a repercussion to something to keep students accountable for maintaining and returning materials borrowed during the course. I agreed, so I’ve adapted and added this section.

·      I had some minor redundant information under the materials that were not required, but were recommended, that I hadn’t realized was repetitive, so I’ve removed this to make it simpler. It also helped make it a bit shorter overall.

·      I retained the Bloom’s verbs for my objectives (since they are great and we all agreed on that), even though this section is now split up based on feedback from others in the course.

·      My course significance was good, but the stronger “why” needed to be more strongly represented, so I’ve added a new sentence to strengthen this aspect. It was clear to me that making the importance of my course topic more obvious to students should help them decide if the class is something that they want to engage in or not. It may also help maintain their motivation in the course throughout the semester.

·      Everyone liked that I’d included essential questions for each week of the course, but Devin also specifically suggested moving them up ahead of the lecture/lab topic column. I didn’t end up putting them where she suggested (as this would have made connecting the topics to specific calendar dates difficult), but I did move them ahead in the column. I agree with the reasoning behind this suggestion too – posing the question first may better engage students’ thinking in the specific topics being discussed that week.

·      I tried to make lecture/lab term use more consistent. This is something that I didn’t realize could be interpreted as inconsistent in my original draft, so it was helpful to have it pointed out.

·      One of my sections is about a field trip schedule, and I also require field trips as part of a separate attendance grade. To make things more clear and connect this for students, as suggested, I’ve added a short line about the requirement to the general field trip schedule section of the syllabus.

·      Devin (and at least one other fellow classmate) felt that my assessments section may have had too many details and would overwhelm students, or that details would not be able to be changed later in the class. These are valid concerns and I think this section was a challenge to balance because of them. Others felt that my descriptions were of an appropriate length and didn’t need any changes. I ultimately chose not to change this section for a few of reasons: 1) leaving some of the details would help students connect the assessments to the course topics, goals, and objectives, 2) I want students to realize the amount of time and effort some of the assignments will take ahead of time (before they get a separate handout with the instructions and rubric for each assignment) so that they can plan their semester, and 3) I have included the minimum necessary standards/expectations for each assignment, which will not change at any point.

·      Similarly, I didn’t have a grading policy, so I added a short note and have referenced that each assessment will have its own specific requirements.

·      I also hadn’t specified a make-up policy for my course and this is now outlined fully. I realized that having this specified in the syllabus would be beneficial for both myself and my potential future students. This will allow them to make plans, and allow me to have an established protocol for keeping students and myself accountable.

·      My Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) & University Student Disability Resources section has been improved with details that Penn State requires in syllabi, but this section could also be flexible depending on the university my course would be offered at. Considering and including a university’s requirements is necessary when developing a syllabus. In general though, I agree with Penn State’s information provided in this section (as well as the Academic Integrity section, which I’ve also updated to align with Penn State’s since I’m currently a student here), and would include these sections/applicable details even if they were not required.

·      I did not have an established late policy, so I have added one (it will be helpful for reinforcing student expectations), but I am not sure at this time if it is as effectively worded as I would like it to be. This is something that I would like feedback on.

·      I chose not to add more specific lab policies to my syllabus as this is likely to change depending on the university, possibly even by semester, and I do include a statement about how they will be reviewed and acknowledged by students in the first lab session. I believe that this is enough to satisfy the requirement for the syllabus and adding more details might also be too much information for students at the start of the semester, or for those just considering taking my class.  

·      I have added a section detailing examination policies, since it was indicated that this could be clearer. I agreed, but am not sure if what I have now included is appropriate, if other possible details should be considered for inclusion, or if it could be worded better overall. Feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Overall, I believe that I addressed each of the concerns and suggestions made on my syllabus draft. Thank you, everyone, for sharing your critical, honest, and constructive feedback! This process was valuable and I think that the quality of my syllabus assignment is better as a result. I also know that I’ll use the insights I gained in future projects! I am also looking forward to further feedback, particularly in the areas noted above.

Syllabus generation with engineering design

The generation of the first draft of the syllabus was straight forward following the progression of course design that was focused on in class. In a more general sense, it is the same development path as used for any design work (being a chemical engineer, chemical process design comes to mind). It starts at the highest level with defining the purpose of the design. In the case of a syllabus that is the goal of the course, for an industrial process it is the opportunity and input/output(I/O) mass balance.

                Once the purpose is defined, the design process follows a logical descent to greater levels of detail. For chemical process design, from the I/O comes the definition of unit operations (reactors, mixers and separators) needed to convert the inputs into desired outputs.  Then the units are further defined as a specific type, e.g. A/B distillation column, fluidized bed jacketed reactor, hammermill, etc. The cascade continues further to fine details such as specific location of everything down to check valves and wiring.

                Syllabus generation has a similar flow, with the objectives taking the place of unit definition. Both take the purpose and give it an observable structure. The structure is further specified by deciding how the structure will be recognized. Recognition or measurement of objectives are via assessment and unit operations through their specific types.

                After this point, the process takes a less sequential route as the fine details are generated. Compiled process designs are submitted for review as was our syllabi. It was interesting that both short and deep peer-reviews addressed the same areas for improvement in my syllabus. The peer review was helpful in seeing where further clarity and details were required. It is often difficult to see those areas oneself by virtue of being its creator, one knows the whole plan.