Some brief syllabus advice for the young economist

Many young economists become bogged down in the first few years of teaching because they have had neither the time nor the experience nor the mentoring to think through and develop how best to structure their syllabus. By 'syllabus structure'the authors do not mean which readings are assigned, when they are assigned or what textbook will be used. Instead, they are concerned about how exactly a faculty member's expectations of the students are expressed to the students through the class syllabus. Young faculty members can encounter difficulties because of differences between their expectations and those of the students. The most obvious case of this is with respect to grading, but teaching is filled with other examples such as office hours, participation and so forth. In the chapter, the authors provide and discuss syllabus language that touches on three different areas of expectation management: managing out-of-class time, leading effective classroom discussion and setting and maintaining grading expectations.