The Student-Driven Syllabus
by
Joel Atlas

The responsibility for developing a course syllabus falls squarely on the teacher, not the students: it is, of course, the teacher, not the students, who possesses the knowledge and expertise in the field and who thus should construct the syllabus. Student input, however, can -- and ought to -- contribute substantially to the development of a course as an academic year progresses. Indeed, the teacher may wish to view a course syllabus as an evolving work-in-progress that, through close monitoring of the skills and knowledge of students in the course, is tailored to the specific needs of those students.

The teacher interested in such a model should, at the outset of a course, create a syllabus that includes all the fundamental substantive, procedural, and practical components of the course. For instance, in my first-year, lawyering-skills course, I developed the curriculum first by considering the skills that I employed regularly as a practicing attorney, such as writing, research, oral advocacy, and client counseling, and next by creating lectures, simulations, and exercises that developed those skills. Students in the course cannot at the outset contribute to the core curriculum because they do not know which skills are necessary to be an effective lawyer, nor do they have the expertise necessary to create class sessions and assignments that would develop those skills.

Yet, the teacher can amend the syllabus regularly, mid-course, to account for the revealed strengths and weaknesses of students in the course. If, for example, on a written assignment, students demonstrate widespread deficiencies in basic writing skills, the teacher should ensure that the substantive difficulty of the next writing assignment not draw students' limited time away from the area in which they need to focus. Likewise, if the teacher finds that students in a practical skills course adeptly handle one aspect of a certain professional skill (for example, the interpersonal-relations component of an interviewing simulation), the teacher should add new challenges to subsequent simulations -- perhaps by adding facts to or increasing the substantive difficulty of the hypothetical. By regularly implementing modifications of this sort, the teacher can develop a syllabus that best meets the learning needs of the particular students in the course.

Gathering the information needed to amend a syllabus mid-stream is not always simple. Classroom sessions present only a limited sample from which to assess students, and the skills or comprehension of students who have participated in the classroom may not represent those of the class at large. Fortunately, however, a teacher can often acquire a credible sense of trouble spots by individually engaging and listening to students. It should be usual, not aberrant, for a teacher to meet with students individually to ask them which of the subjects or skills covered in the course causes the most difficulty. I have found both that students are forthright in this regard and that the information they provide is greatly useful to me in altering the syllabus.

Obtaining students' input about the course curriculum not only aids the teacher to develop a more individualized course but also enhances learning further by motivating students. Students uniformly appreciate a teacher's effort to enlist their aid in suiting the course to their needs. Indeed, I have found that, when I seek and consider students' views, students take a more active role in class sessions and work harder in the course. I have also been pleased to discover that most students accept fully their role as providers of suggestions rather than of directions and, thus, that there appears to be little risk of alienating those students whose ideas are, in the end, not implemented.

In short, students' input into a course syllabus is a far too valuable resource to leave untapped.