One of our Teaching Consultants will take your existing syllabus and update it to fit the needs of your course and to comply with the Montclair syllabus template. You provide the content of the syllabus and the course’s schedule/calendar, and we make small edits and organize it to fit the template. 

The process:

1. Have a short consultation with a Teaching Consultant (TC) either by Zoom or email (faculty@montclair.edu, with “Syllabus redesign” in the subject line) to give our TC a clear understanding of your questions, concerns, or ideas about redesigning the syllabus. Please share your existing syllabus or draft syllabus before the consultation if possible.
2. After the consultation, the TC will update your syllabus and share it with you via Canvas (typically within two working days) along with suggestions for adding missing content. 
3. You will be able to copy the revised syllabus to your existing Canvas course page and make edits and tweaks as needed.

If your concern is more urgent or you are in the early, brainstorming process of constructing your syllabus, drop in for a 30 minute appointment. Schedule an appointment here. 

Option 1: Written Assignment Review and Revision

You can submit any assignment, from low to high stakes, brand new to seasoned. After submission, you will receive written feedback in two working days. We’ll offer commentary and suggest revisions, which you are welcome to use or not. You also have the option of signing up for a one-one-one consultation to discuss the feedback and brainstorm improvements.

When submitting your assignment, please also write up a note to clarify questions, concerns, or issues with the assignment. Consider the follow questions to help us best support you:

• Is this assignment new or have you used it in your courses before?
• If you have used the assignment before, how have students been struggling with it? 
• How does the assignment fit into your course objectives? 
• What do you want the TC reviewing the assignment to know before reading it?
• Do you have any particular questions or concerns about the assignment you want a TC to focus on specifically? 

Submit your assignment by sending an email to faculty@montclair.edu, and be sure to include in the Re, “Assignment review for [your name].”

After submission, you will receive written feedback in two working days. If it’s more urgent, drop in for a 30 minute appointment. Schedule an appointment here.

Option 2a: Consultation for Assignment Development

Through a one-on-one consultation, we will help you develop an idea into a written assignment. We will consult and brainstorm to help you design the assignment by:

• considering the course objectives
• clarifying the purpose
• creating the specific tasks
• setting the criteria 
• writing the assignment in your course

Option 2b: Assignment as Active Learning Plan

Active learning is easy in theory but hard in practice. If you have a lecture, visiting speaker, film viewing, or other content element that you need help “making active,” we can help you create assignments that:

• prepare students to engage with the activity
• assess student learning from the activity
• apply student learning from the activity

We can also help you communicate and coordinate learning objectives with your content and an active learning component.

To schedule your consultation for assignment development or creating an active learning plan, go to OFE appointments and select an appointment.  After you have scheduled your appointment, go ahead and send an email to the Teaching Consultant you have selected, providing the assignment and your notes on what you need advice on (see above questions).

Assignment review is based on design principles and practices discussed in Designing effective assignments.

For more discussion, see the recorded video, Making assignments work: Last-minute improvements for end-of-semester assignments (In University’s Panopto, for which a netID is required).