Course Policies

Your syllabus (or course outline) should include the following policies:
• Your contact information and the time frame you will return student emails (usually 48 hours for F2F classes and 24 hours for online classes)
o Many adjuncts are hesitant to put their phone numbers on the course syllabus, and I don’t blame them. Use your email address instead, and then monitor your email faithfully.
 Remember to ALWAYS use your institution’s email when communicating with students. This is a FERPA issue. Then, also require your students to use their institution’s email address as well, and explain to them that this is a confidentiality issue.
• Attendance policy: Before you write your own attendance policy, check with your institution first to see what its attendance policies are. Then, be very clear and specific in your course outlines what your policies are (if any) for missing class. More and more institutions of higher ed are requiring students to attend class. Attendance is directly correlated to academic achievement.
• Late assignment policy: Include a very specific statement about late assignments. Do you accept them? If so, what is the absolute latest a student can turn in an assignment? What is the penalty for a late assignment?
• Your course grading scale: If you require 5 assignments for a total of 500 points, then be sure to include a grade calculation based on your institution’s grading scale. If you use percentages to calculate the final grade, be sure to explain this, in detail, as well.
• In-class laptop and cell phone policy: More and more students come to class and open their laptops. If you walk around the room during your lecture, you may find some of them taking notes, while others are on Facebook, etc. You have to decide your tolerance level for this type of activity.
o While it is easy to say “Well, I don’t care because the lack of attention will show up in the student’s final grade” you must also remember that more and more students are appealing their final course grades and place the blame for doing poorly on the instructor. Grade appeals are time consuming as they always involve your program’s Chair.
o Be wise and use some preventative actions- sometimes each one of us needs to be saved from ourselves .
• Course assignments: Include a detailed description of each assignment that will be required. This helps students know what is expected.
• Writing standard and format: If you require adherence to APA or MLA formatting, be sure to include this in your course outline. Then, remember to review this requirement the first class, and review it periodically throughout the course. Provide suggested help, or resources, that students can use if they struggle with writing.
While you can never completely anticipate all the problems that might arise in your course, writing a specific and clear syllabus (course outline) will go a long way to make your expectations clear.