ABSTRACT
We try to teach well, and we know that most of our colleagues do, too. Still, we are constantly amazed at how many students tell us about courses they have taken that were so disorganized as to leave students wondering whether they learned anything other than not to take another class with certain instructors. These students describe courses in which instructors provided no syllabus (leaving students in the dark about reading assignments and even exam dates), took so long to grade and return exams that feedback came too late to be of much help, went off on so many tangents during lectures that relevant material was never covered, and even failed to explain how course grades would be determined. This is a shame, because most of the course organization problems that students complain about, problems that could well interfere with their learning, can be prevented simply by taking the time to prepare a course properly. In fact, one of the main keys to effective teaching lies in careful planning (Center for Teaching Excellence, 1999).
