Lessons Learned

January 2000

Using a Daily Agenda for Course Management and Organization
By John Surdick, Department of Accounting and Information Systems  

One of the key dimensions that students rate highly in evaluating a professor and a course of study is organization. Research studies that have analyzed the responses obtained from course evaluation instruments completed by students have shown that professors who are perceived as being organized have higher student ratings (Feldman, Research in Higher Education). Many other factors also affect student ratings of faculty. However, for purposes of this article, I am going to focus on the one dimension that has been empirically demonstrated to be one of the most important--the professor's course organization.

Note that this article will not be discussing the specific selection and arrangement of course content, since that is unique to each discipline and to each professor. What I will be discussing is a day-to-day organizational tool that should enhance any professor's course management and favorably impact student outcomes. 

From a class management standpoint, I often found myself having to deal with the following issues and questions:

1. For most of my academic career, I would go to each of my classes with a mental list of what I wanted to cover in lecture that day. Occasionally, I might have a small card on which I would list certain key ideas or topics that needed to be addressed during a particular class session. The card would then disappear shortly thereafter. 
   
2. Every semester, students who were periodically absent from one, two, or three class sessions would ask me about what we covered during their absence. While I could often remember most items that were discussed, frequently I was not able to provide a detailed list. 
   
3. On other occasions, especially after a quiz or an exam, a student who had not done particularly well would see me and complain that I had not covered a particular assignment during lecture because if I had they would have understood the concept and been more successful on the test. My response usually was that I thought I had addressed the particular topic (during which class session I wasn't sure) and also had the vague recollection that the student was absent from class on that date. 
   
4. I distribute numerous handouts during the semester, and students who are absent would want to know what I had distributed during a missed class session. I did not keep a list of the items distributed during the term, and determining what they needed became difficult. 
   
5. Certain discussion questions, class illustrations, and assignments that I thought would be effective in covering a course topic sometimes did not accomplish what I had originally intended. I would make little notes in a book or on a random piece of paper to remind myself not to assign or use the item again next semester. Unfortunately, most of the time I could not find these notes again and sometimes assigned the same errant item in a future semester.  
   
6. Topics that I intended to cover during a class lecture sometimes were not addressed during the scheduled class session due to a variety of reasons. Naturally, I would make a mental note to cover the topic during the next lecture.  Unfortunately, I would occasionally forget to come back to that topic at the next class meeting. 
   
7. I teach many different courses during a semester and the academic year. A few of these are the same course each semester. However, some of the courses I only teach once each year. Preparing for numerous courses that were offered at varying intervals became a major retooling effort each time the course was taught.