Running head: SIGNIFICANT LEARNING IN SYLLABI

Analysis: Significant Learning in Five Course Syllabi

Megan Segoshi
Loyola University Chicago

SIGNIFICANT LEARNING IN SYLLABI

Analysis: Significant Learning in Five Course Syllabi

This paper presents, compares, and analyzes five syllabi from different professors at
different universities teaching introductory sociology. Each course is designed in a slightly
different way, with some alternative teaching and learning strategies being implemented. The
syllabi analyzed in this paper are for the following courses: Order and Change in Society,
taught at Brandeis University (Brandeis); Contemporary American Society, taught at The
University of Wisconsin (Wisconsin); Introduction to Sociology, taught at Pennsylvania State
University (Penn State); Introduction to Sociology, taught at Rutgers University (Rutgers); and
Introductory Sociology for Majors, taught at Boston College (BC).
Fink (2003) refers to three core components of every course syllabus that must be
working in tandem with one another in order to create significant learning experiences for
students. These three components are learning goals (frequently referred to as course objectives,
i.e. what the students will be able to do by the end of the course), teaching and learning activities
(in what ways the course is taught), and feedback and assessment (Fink, 2003; Nilson, 2010). I
will analyze each syllabus strengths and weaknesses through this framework, and discuss the
ways in which each syllabus could be improved.
Brandeis University
Learning Goals
The Brandeis syllabus, for Order and Change in Society, appears to be co-taught by
four instructors, three of whom are likely teaching assistants. The syllabus does not explicitly
state learning outcomes, however, it is explained that a central goal of the semester is to
introduce new perspectives that enable you to develop fresh insights from the books, films,
music, and interactions that surround you every day (Cunningham, 2015). This learning goal is

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very broad and is not knowledge-based, but rather application-based; its focus is on what the
students will take away from the course and be able to apply to the real world, and not simply a
transfer of knowledge and facts.
Teaching and Learning Activities
This course is comprised of two days each week of lecture and one day each week of
lab or discussion sections. This way of teaching the course is probably not likely to cater to a
variety of learning styles, especially since presumably the lecture hall is quite large. The course
is unique in that the required texts are not actual text books; they are novels and readings from
various authors on numerous topics. Furthermore, the professor requires a number of other
sources for students, including essays, short stories, films, songs, audio recordings, and
periodicals. While these additional sources dont necessarily change the teaching style of the
course, at least they provide students with a variety of different perspectives and styles that might
appeal to a broader audience.
Feedback and Assessment
This courses assignments consist of three response papers, a take-home midterm which
is a project or essay, final essays, and participation. It appears, after reading the assignment
descriptions, that the essays are not only intended to demonstrate the students comprehension of
course material, but also as an opportunity for them to extend these concepts to better explain
aspects of social life (Cunningham, 2015). In this way, the students are encouraged to not only
retain knowledge that they gain from the course, but to apply it to the real world. According to
Wagner (2012), it is of critical importance that students know how what they learn can be used in
real life, and this is a step in the right direction. However, because there is only one, individual

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method of doing so for the entire course, the opportunity for collaboration, creativity, and
innovation are lost.
The major disconnect between these three components from the Brandeis syllabus is
between the teaching and learning goals and feedback and assessment. It is unclear as to how the
assignments, which are essentially just essays and readings, will serve to effectively transfer
knowledge to the students. Furthermore, it is stated that each student should extend the concepts
from their paper to other aspects of life, but there do not appear to be any mechanisms for
discussing these ideas as a group.
Penn State
Learning Goals
The learning goals outlined in the Penn State syllabus for Introduction to Sociology are
almost entirely knowledge and fact-based. For example, one of the learning goals is to be able to
list at least five sociologists and their major contributions to the field (Pennsylvania State
University, n.d.). It is unclear how achieving this outcome, however, will result in any real
learning for the student. Knowing this information without any idea of how to actually apply it
to the real world seems like a useless learning goal. The only course objective that references the
applicability of the course is that students should be able to apply their sociological imagination
to a variety of social problems and situations (Pennsylvania State University, n.d.). This
outcome is very vague and is only one of ten total outcomes listed.
Teaching and Learning Activities
This course is taught in a lecture format with an online component. It appears that there
is an online portal in which students are required to post and reply to one another, providing a
forum for engagement outside of the lecture hall. Other than this, there are no details on the way

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in which the course is taught or the learning activities are organized. There is one textbook that
is required, which takes a traditional textbook form (unlike the Brandeis class). This component
of the syllabus should be laid out in more detail, so that students can assess whether or not the
course will cater to their learning styles before signing up.
Feedback and Assessment
The required assignments for this course are short papers, homework, a midterm exam, a
final exam, and a project. The details on each of these assignments are unclear. The syllabus
also indicates that there will be pop quizzes periodically throughout the semester. This form of
assessment is not beneficial to the students learning because it tests them on facts, rather than
knowledge. Furthermore, because different students are likely to retain different information
from the same readings, pop quizzes may be ineffectual in assessing the students comprehension
of course materials. At least with the homework assignments and short papers, there is some
creativity required for students to discuss what is interesting and pertinent to their own, more
general learning experience.
This syllabus lacks some details necessary for a thorough analysis, though it seems clear
that its main goals are to bestow facts and knowledge onto students, rather than teach them how
to apply what they learn to their actual lives. Perhaps with more detailed assignment
descriptions it would be easier to determine whether the students are being encouraged to think
critically about social norms and power, but this is not listed as an objective of the course.
Overall, this course could benefit greatly from integrating more comprehensive learning
objectives into its assignments and curriculum.

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Rutgers

Learning Goals
To state its learning goals, the Rutgers syllabus for Introduction to Sociology borrows
two outcomes from the schools core curriculum. The first is purely knowledge-based, but the
second is for students to apply concepts about human and social behavior to particular questions
or situations (McDowell, 2015). This learning goal is important because it encourages students
to actually use what they have learned, an essential part of learning that is often missing
(Wagner, 2012).
Teaching and Learning Activities
What is less clear about this syllabus is how these learning outcomes will be achieved via
teaching and learning activities. This is a traditional, lecture-style course, which has smaller
discussion sections. The course text is a traditional textbook, and a few other materials are
integrated into the activities. As the syllabus states, current events and films will be incorporated
into the course and available on the courses online portal. The integration of current events may
speak slightly to the ways in which the content of the course will be applied to the real world, but
as we will see in the following section, the methods of assessment are vague and do not cater to
significant learning.
Feedback and Assessment
The students in this course are evaluated based on their performance on three exams and
in-class projects. The in-class projects are completed during the class discussion sections. It is
explicitly stated that it is your [the students] responsibility to learn the material covered in
class, distancing the teacher from any responsibility in the students learning or engagement
(McDowell, 2015). Each test consists of true-false questions, multiple choice questions, and one

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short answer. These means of assessment, as with the previously examined courses, are archaic
and do not cater to diverse student learning styles and needs. They may ensure that students read
the material and retain some knowledge in order to pass, however, they do nothing to facilitate
significant learning or real world application of knowledge.
The major disconnect in this course is most easily seen between its learning outcomes
and means of assessment. Asking students to regurgitate material they have memorized does
nothing to enhance their learning experience or encourage them to take what they have learned
beyond the classroom. This course is a good example of teaching to the test, which does not
contribute to significant learning.
Wisconsin
Learning Goals
Unlike the previously explored syllabi, the University of Wisconsin syllabus for
Contemporary American Society has a learning goal that is actually about learning, and not
about retaining knowledge. It is stated that the goal is to provide you with tools for thinking
about contemporary American society that will help you think through the complexity and make
sense of what is important (Conti, 2010).
Teaching and Learning Activities
This course is also unique in its teaching style, because in addition to the traditional part,
which is lecture-based, there is also a fairly involved documentary film series that accompanies
the class. Each week, students are required to attend a showing of a film, which takes place
outside of the lecture time (in other words, it is not shown during class). They could also opt to
watch the film on their own during the week. Although the teaching activities in the class are not
diverse, at least the professor has made an attempt to incorporate an alternative form of material

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in addition to the text book. This may attract students who have interest in contemporary social
issues, and provide examples of how the knowledge they learn in the classroom is applied to
current events that are depicted in the film series.
Feedback and Assessment
The assessment for this course consists of two exams and film journals. The exams are
short answer and short essay questions, which is slightly more effective than having multiple
choice, although not if the questions are designed to simply prove that the students have been
doing their homework. The film journals are ways that students can reflect on the ways in which
the documentaries incorporate the material theyve learned in the course.
This course is slightly more integrative than the previous syllabi, however, there is much
to be desired in terms of diversifying the teaching methods, assessment, and outcome of the
course. In this case, as in all of the cases, the feedback and assessment component of the
syllabus is quite weak in that it does not explicitly connect back to the learning goals.
Boston College
Learning Goals
Almost all of the learning goals from BCs Introductory Sociology for Majors course
are targeting skills that will be applicable for students outside of the course. On top of
developing their own sociological imagination, there are also goals for students to strengthen
[their] critical thinking, reading, writing, and speaking skills, discuss openly important and
sensitive topics, and engage in civil discourse (Birk, 2015). These outcomes are noticeably
different from the other syllabi; they are, in fact, learning outcomes, and not knowledge
outcomes. They are intentionally designed to extend beyond the classroom.

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Teaching and Learning Activities

This is a lecture course taught with a discussion component, which the professor
emphasizes as being critical to the students learning. The required readings consist of two
traditional text books and other readings from the courses online portal. One grade that is
emphasized is participation, which counted either minimally or not at all (or was considered
attendance) for the other courses. Perhaps because this is a class designated for majors only at
a mid-size private school, the class size is smaller and therefore the professor can monitor each
students participation more effectively.
Feedback and Assessment
This course is also unique in its feedback and assessment practices in that each student is
required, as part of their grade, to meet with the professor during office hours at least one time
during the semester. Presumably this will allow for the student to monitor their own progress in
the course and get meaningful feedback from the professor. It also demonstrates a commitment
on behalf of the professor to her students. This course also has a co-leadership facilitation for
discussion, which every student must complete. By adding a presentation component, the
professor is integrating different skill sets and styles of learning into the course. Additionally,
the course has pop quizzes, which I have already determined are problematic. Finally, there are
two required papers for the course, one which is reflective in nature (sociological
autobiography) and one that is application-based (sociological analysis) (Birk, 2015).
This course appears to have more cohesion among its three elements, although it is not
perfect. For example, there is still little diversity in the teaching and learning activities, catering
to only a few learning styles. There is little group or collaborative work, with the exception of

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the co-teaching activity. However, overall, this course does a better job of connecting its
learning goals with its activities and assessments.
Conclusion
It is important to look at these syllabi in context. There is a lot more information needed
to form more concrete conclusions about the classes, for example, we do not know how many
students are in the classes, or in what format they are taught. Perhaps some of the lecturers,
though teaching within a traditional paradigm, integrate engaging and diverse learning activities
into the daily classes. These are questions that we do not have answers to and that may
drastically affect the level of impact and learning outcomes of each course.
All of the syllabi examined in this paper should be enhanced through an examination of
the ways in which their three basic components connect with and complement one another. The
most common shortcoming was their lack of clearly stated learning goals, or a thorough
explanation of how their course objectives facilitated learning and not just memorization of
knowledge. The applicability of what one learns in a class to the real world is, after all, one of
the main reasons people go to college. If we do not achieve significant learning experiences in
our classrooms, then why do we bother to attend? Professors ought to be more intentional about
the designs of their courses as to facilitate creativity and innovation for future leaders (Wager,
2012).

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References
Birk, L. (2015). Introductory sociology for majors. Retrieved from
http://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/schools/cas_sites/sociology/pdf/2015S/SOCY10010
1Birk.pdf
Conti, J. (2010). Contemporary American society. Retrieved from
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/soc/courses/syllabi/125Conti1011F.pdf
Cunningham, D. (2015). Order & change in society. Retrieved from
http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/sociology/syllabi/Spring2015/1A.pdf
Fink, L.D. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to
developing college courses. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
McDowell, D.J. (2015). Introduction to sociology. Retrieved from
http://sociology.rutgers.edu/documents/undergraduate-course-syllabi/spring-2015/393mcdowell-101-2-1/file
Nilsen, L.B. (2010). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Pennsylvania State University (n.d.). Introduction to Sociology. Retrieved from
http://www.la1.psu.edu/online/courses/syllabus/soc001syllabus.pdf
Wagner, T. (2012). Creating innovators: The making of young people who will change the
world. New York, NY: Scribner.