Though not intended to serve this purpose, the workshops provided insights into differences across disciplines and educated faculty about alternate approaches that were still within the overall guidelines and expectations of the college. Our syllabus analysis project began with what we thought would be a one-time, simple project to analyze the content of course syllabi. It evolved into a more detailed project that prompted not just more research but also professional development workshops. The workshops engaged faculty in assessing a model syllabus and in beginning to articulate their implicit criteria when designing and writing not just the syllabi for their courses but also the very content and instructional approaches they would use. We continue to assert that course syllabi are unobtrusive but powerful indicators of what takes place in classrooms, and that they can be useful tools for substantive deliberations about the nature of teaching and learning, course content and standards, and expectations for students.
Course syllabi are unobtrusive but powerful indicators of what takes place in classrooms.
In both years the complete universe of courses in the disciplines was included. If that instructor also taught a section of Political Science 201 in Fall 1995, a syllabus for that course was analyzed as well. The total number of sections offered by the college exceeds the number of syllabi coded because many faculty members teach more than one section of the same course during a term. The social science disciplines are divided into two departments. The Department of Historical and Policy Studies includes economics, geography, history, and political science.