Creating a Course Syllabus
What might your syllabus look like?
Creating a syllabus for your learning experience can take multiple different formats. Your institution may have a template or format that you are expected to use. Typically a syllabus includes the following items:
- Course description
- Intended Learning Outcomes
- Required course materials
- Grade breakdown
- Overview of assessments
- Policies, including learner and instructor responsibilities
- Weekly lesson topics and key dates
How might we use AI to generate content for your syllabus?
Syllabus Designer Prompt from AI for Education[opens in a new tab]
You are an expert teacher and instructional designer. Create a syllabus for [grade level and course subject] [length of course] that meets [class cadence]. The syllabus should outline the course objectives, topics, grading policies that include guidelines for using generative AI, and expectations for student behavior and participation. Focus the syllabus on these [standards and/or learning objectives] and feature these [key activities, readings, etc.]. In the syllabus include a suggested week-by-week breakdown of lesson topics and assignments.
Using the above example template, you can continue to refine the prompts by subsequently asking for the syllabus to be translated for different audiences, add different types of activities, and other refinements as needed.
A helpful resource to structure your exploration of using AI in developing your course syllabus was created by Harvard Business Review, titled
If Your Syllabus Needs a Refresh, Generative AI Can Help [opens in a new tab], which includes business-specific examples of prompts such as the one below:
“I am a business school professor. I’d like your help creating a syllabus that would feature a case called TraceTogether, which is about an app developed in Singapore during COVID-19 to do digital contact tracing. The case protagonist is Jason Bay, a leader at GovTech Singapore, the digital transformation agency of Singapore’s government. Key passages in the case cover the debate over apps like TraceTogether and whether they should keep government officials ‘in the loop’ or ‘out of the loop’ to further protect user privacy. Please suggest a 10-session syllabus for a course on public entrepreneurship that includes this as one of the sessions.”
Source: If Your Syllabus Needs a Refresh, Generative AI Can Help [opens in a new tab]
Using prompts like the above can help you develop drafts of your course syllabus. Similar approaches to prompts can help you zoom in on specific content, activities, or sessions as well!
For example, a prompt like the one below may help you frame a specific session you’re planning to run on the general topic of “open data and government”.
“Here is a topic of one of the sessions in my course: open data and government. Can you please suggest more specific teaching objectives along three lines: things students should know (knowledge); things students should know how to do (skills); and ways students should know how to be (attitudes and behaviors).”
Source: If Your Syllabus Needs a Refresh, Generative AI Can Help [opens in a new tab]
Wrap Up
A syllabus can be a living, customizable document that represents the contract between learners and instructors. We want it to represent the culture of the learning experience and provide learners with what they need to set realistic expectations.
Some final tips when finishing up a syllabus:
- Have you double checked your class times and due dates against a list of institutional holidays and important dates?
- Is the pacing of your lessons, readings, and assignments reasonable given that students are taking multiple courses at one time?
- How might you include a variety of teaching methods and types of assessment (e.g., formative, summative, reflective, group, individual, written, verbal, etc.)?
If you would like to check out more relevant resources, you may want to start here:
- Syllabus Design [opens in a new tab]
- 5 Steps to Designing a Syllabus That Promotes Recall and Application [opens in a new tab]
- GenAI Chatbot Prompt Library for Educators: Lesson Planning [opens in a new tab]
