The Promising Syllabus Enacted: One Teacher's Experience

Abstract

The purpose of this report is to describe a rationale and strategies for use of the Promising Syllabus (in Bain, 2004, What the best college teachers do). This syllabus reflects the learner-centered paradigm where students take charge of their own learning. The syllabus creates a series of promises between teacher and student, focusing on a question—or questions—of significance the course will help the student answer. Allowing students input into the direction and evaluation of their learning challenges current pedagogy. A Promising Syllabus was used in COM 365, Organizational Communication. This report explores the use of the Promising Syllabus and one teacher's attempt to challenge students to take ownership of their learning experience.

Notes

1. Bain (2004) conducted a 15-year study of nearly 100 faculties in a variety of disciplines and schools. Bain's primary criteria for excellence highlights teachers who “achieved remarkable success in helping their students learn in ways that made a sustained, substantial and positive influence on how those students think, act, and feel” (p. 5). Bain refers to a “natural critical learning environment” (p. 18) where students “learn by confronting intriguing, beautiful or important problems, authentic tasks that will challenge them to grapple with ideas, rethink their assumptions, and examine their mental models of reality” in which, among other key concepts “learners feel a sense of control over their education … work collaboratively with others” (p. 18).

2. For a good outline and discussion of assessment, including guidelines, please see Saulnier et al. (2008). Such a discussion, while essential, is beyond the scope of this report.

3. All syllabus examples taken from my own COM 365 Syllabus, are taken liberally, with permission, from the example at http://www.montclair.edu/center/promisingsyllabushr/default.htm