This week’s teaching tidbit takes up where last week’s post left off. Both posts suggest ways you can draft syllabi that advance goals common among us, i.e., creating a welcoming, inclusive culture, encouraging students, advancing a culture of constructive disagreement, communicating our high expectations, and demonstrating our passion for our subjects and for student success. In last week’s teaching tidbit, I provided an explanation as to why your syllabus is important, and I then focused on syllabus provisions designed to address and help create your desired class culture.
This week’s tidbit has three sections. Section 1 addresses syllabus provisions implementing the new ABA outcomes requirements and common law school and university requirements. Section 2 deals with the barebones but essential syllabus provisions: grading, assignments, communication, attendance, and preparation. Finally, Section 3 explores which syllabus provisions are ones for which you could invite student input and why and how to do so.
The New ABA Outcomes Requirements and Common Law School and University Requirements
New ABA Standards. ABA Standard 302(b) requires a law school to “establish minimum learning outcomes for each course it offers.” These outcomes “must be specific and measurable” and must “describe the knowledge, skills, or competencies that students will be able to demonstrate upon successful completion of the course.” In fact, law schools must ensure that “every section/offering of a course required by the law school adopts the same minimum learning outcomes,” although professors can also require more than these minimum outcomes. ABA Standard 302(c). Two examples might help:
- “Students will know, understand, and, given a complex hypothetical set of facts, be able to competently identify issues, accurately articulate the law, identify at least most legally significant facts, articulate credible legal arguments, and accurately predict outcomes in the following doctrinal areas: [insert key doctrinal areas].”
- “Given a complex set of facts, students will be able to draft ____________ [insert type of legal document, e.g., a client letter, a discovery plan], evaluate ___________ [e.g., a proposed settlement , a contract provision, or a strategic litigation choice], and justify the choices made using cases, statutes, and other authority and legal reasoning.”
Common Law School and University Requirements for Syllabi. Many law schools’ universities have specific provisions that are expected in every syllabus, including provisions addressing the course description and learning outcomes as explained above; contact information for the professor; the course number, term, and year; meeting days and times; office hours; texts; and how to get accommodations. Many also require provisions on academic integrity, recording classes, and excused absences. Because professors have little control over these provisions, I am simply suggesting you make sure you know your university’s and law school’s requirements.
Most universities also require that you have provisions that address preparation, assignments, and grading, of course. Because I do have suggestions for these provisions, I address all three in greater detail in the next section as well as a few others I regard as standard and, for which, I have suggestions.
The Barebones but Essential Syllabus Provisions
Grading. These provisions are probably the most important ones to students. Make sure you address: the weight (e.g., midterm worth 25%) and the timing (e.g., December 3, 2026) of each assessment. It also is a best practice to address the nature of the questions on the exam (e.g., two essay questions and 25 multiple-choice questions). Consider including the rubric(s) you will use in grading. Given that the ABA is now requiring law schools to assess student achievement of its course level outcomes, rubrics tied to the outcomes described above will become crucial, so faculty will be creating them anyway.
If you will adjust scores for class participation, say so. I have become skeptical about these adjustments because of the potential for bias and because these adjustments also favor extroverts.
Assignments. Assignments should be specific as to page numbers in readings and due dates. This information assists students in self-regulating their workload; for example, if they have a big paper due soon or a midterm coming up, the students can get ahead on their reading the prior week. (This practice can help address a common professor complaint: students will sacrifice their class preparation when they have paper due dates or midterms.) In addition, identifying the topics and planned classroom activities will assist students in being better prepared for the class.
Though I try very hard to stick to my teaching schedule, all my syllabi include the following hedge: “Because my teaching is student-centered and therefore adjusts based on how well the students are learning, I may, from time to time, adjust the assignments and due dates below.”
Communication. Consider what your students will want to know. How do you prefer to be contacted—by mail or text or the course webpage? How quickly will you respond to student emails—within two hours? Within 24 hours? Until what day and time before an exam or paper due date can students ask questions and expect a response in time?
Timely Attendance and Class Preparation. Your law school or university may have rules that address excused absences. Make sure your attendance policies do not conflict with those rules. If you have a maximum number of absences, state that number explicitly. If you care about students arriving late to class, say so, state your expectations, and explain the consequences of being late. My syllabi typically say that, if students let me know in advance by email or text that they will be late to class and why, I will treat them as having arrived on time.
Syllabus Provisions for Which You Might Consider Inviting Student Input and Why and How To Do So
Why You Might Ask for Student Input into Your Syllabi. This last section is for you syllabus radicals. My brilliant co-author and friend Gerry Hess explained, in a 2008 law review article, that “Recent empirical research on legal education reveals that law schools can improve students’ motivation and performance by giving students significant input into . . . [the] design [of] the course and the syllabus.” The article shares data from both legal education and higher education studies in support of this thesis.
Syllabus Provisions for Which You Might Consider Inviting Student Input. The syllabus provisions into which students can provide valuable input (and for which I have sought student input that I have found helpful) include: the number of assessments and their weight, some aspects of course coverage, teaching methods, expectations in general, and expectations for constructive disagreement. (I do note that, in the above linked article, Hess explains that he does not ask for student input in his first-year, first semester courses.)
How To Ask for Student Input into Your Syllabi. Below, I suggest my process for asking for student input for each of these types of provisions. One general principle that I always follow is that I emphasize that, as the professor, I am very comfortable flexing to meet their needs, but I am not willing to do something that I believe will not be good for their learning even if they all want it. I therefore make it clear that I have a veto.
The number of assessments and their weight. I note at the outset that I have asked both first-year and upper-division classes how many assessments they want and done so using polling software. Tellingly, no class has voted for only one assessment, even though I always made that a choice. Nevertheless, I would not recommend this strategy. Instead, as the professor, I set parameters around the discussion; the overall assessment plan must include multiple assessments, those assessments must vary in type (essay, multiple choice, lawyering skills) and be fair, and the final exam must be cumulative. In my non-seminar classes, I also inform the students that their assessments cannot include class participation (for the reasons outlined above).
Some aspects of course coverage. Most of us are unable to cover every topic we could possibly cover in our subjects. For example, when I teach remedies, I struggle to have time to cover liquidated damages, rescission, and reformation, which are addressed to some degree in most contracts classes, and, until recently, I never had time to address collection of judgments. I therefore have made it clear that I will teach what I regard as the most essential aspects of remedies law (damages, injunctions, and restitution), and I give students some choice among the other topics. (Students almost always choose learning about collecting judgments, and I now bring in one or more practitioner attorneys to teach that topic.)
I would imagine that choices are even more essential in courses like administrative law and environmental law, when it is impossible to cover every aspect of the administrative state or our efforts to regulate environmental issues. My suggestion therefore is to give students some choice among the possibilities.
Teaching methods. I have adopted a similar approach to teaching methods. I let students know that I try to use a wide variety of teaching methods, and I list the ones I like to use. I then open up the discussion to methods that have worked for students and promise to try to use, at least once, any of the others the students suggest.
Expectations in general. I participate in this discussion, usually only at the beginning, to frame topics and to make it clear that the expectations also apply to me: class preparation, how people treat each other, attendance, notice of absences and late arrivals, etc. An important upside is that students are more likely to buy into these expectations if they have a role in constructing them.
Expectations for constructive disagreement. I know many law professors have this discussion in their seminar classes, where discussions should be wide ranging and often provoke considerable disagreement. In fact, students tell me that they have had such discussions in undergraduate seminars. Because I always hope the discussions in even my large classes are wide ranging and sometimes will provoke disagreement, I involve students in this conversation in every class I teach after the first semester. Having done so many times, I can assure you that the students’ list of expectations is always excellent and, in many instances, is better than I might have constructed sitting in my office. I do, of course, facilitate the discussion by asking questions, such as “What is important to you when someone is disagreeing with an idea you have expressed?” “What do you expect in terms of your peers listening to you when you are speaking?” “What are your expectations in terms of how frequently any single student speaks in class?” I also ask, at least twice, “Anything else?” Such expectations are helpful to have in hand so that anyone in the room can say, as we had agreed, “Can you rephrase your point so that it focuses on ___________’s argument and doesn’t suggest there is something wrong with her/him/them?”
This last point helps explain the documented benefits of giving students a role in constructing the syllabus: students feel empowered to make the class as good as it can be. They therefore invest themselves more in the class and feel better about their experience.
