The syllabus shall be designed in a problem-centered approach so that students can engage in the process of instruction through bridging gaps, answering questions, debating on some issues raised in the syllabus, and the like!

Dear Amar, thanks for sharing the Q. Start with envisaging your, or your institution's vision. From the vision, you follow the steps: (1) How you can realise your vision? The answer is designing your mission. (2) What goals you need to achieve in order to implement your mission? These are your institutional goals/objectives. (3) How can you achieve your institutional goals? The answer means your "Edcational Strategies". (4) How can you implement program adopting the prescribed educational strategies? This leads you to design the graduate outcome based on the future job description of the graduate. (5) How can you make your student upon graduation able to acuire the described outcomes (abilities to do)? This means what knowledge, what skills and what professional behavior are required. (6) The resulting elaborate lists of knowledge (and its application), skills and attitudes and behaviours, will constitute the "REAL SYLLABUS" that you need to adopt and distribute across the study years, units, weeks, days and individual educational activities. I agree, it is a long series of steps BUT this is the right way if designing syllabi, and certainly redesigning syllabi IF you are redesigning in order to improve your bit of eduaction. Good luck. Ghanim Alsheikh.

Following Articles would help you.

Redesigning the Education Workforce: A Design Thinking Approach

https://educationcommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/redesigning-the-education-workforce-design-thinking.pdf

The Syllabus as a Tool for Student-Centered Learning

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236796353_The_Syllabus_as_a_Tool_for_Student-Centered_Learning

How do I create a strong syllabus?

https://isidore.udayton.edu/flexteaching/coursedesign/topic5.html

The main point is changing the conception that higher education is about content transmission. While we do not understand that HE is about developing professional and personal skills to change the real-world it's hard to change educational practices and outcomes.

A lot of teachers do not understand what is learning objectives (the core of the syllabus), how to propose them and their implications to prepare learning activities.

Hi Amar, thanks for the question. I share in the thoughts of GY Mustafa Alsheikh . I would also like to add to the discourse. Redesigning your syllabus can transform your teaching by allowing you the instructor to see your content from the perspective of your students and this definitely directs how you will deliver the content and consequently enhance your student's learning. For a moment see your syllabus through the eyes of one of your students who is having a challenge understanding the content. Ask yourself how you (the student) would want the lecturer to take a second look at the syllabus so it can make meaning to you. If the lecturer agrees and delivers the content of the syllabus how the learner will understand it, it will inevitably enhance the learner's participation and classroom dynamics would be interesting. In sum, redesigning your syllabus for instance by having a kind of backward design where you have what your learners need to learn outlined at the beginning of your syllabus will definitely affect your teaching strategies, how you manage your classroom and engage your students to better learn the content.

The syllabus shall be designed in a problem-centered approach so that students can engage in the process of instruction through bridging gaps, answering questions, debating on some issues raised in the syllabus, and the like!

Dear Prof. Ismail!

You spotted a critical issue. The question is case - and context dependent:

1) Ramrathan, L. School curriculum in South Africa in the Covid-19 context: An opportunity for education for relevance. Prospects (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-020-09490-1 Open Access:

Article School curriculum in South Africa in the Covid-19 context: A...

2) Charland, P., Deslandes Martineau, M., Gadais, T. et al. Curriculum response to the crisis. Prospects (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-020-09526-6 Open Access: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11125-020-09526-6

3) A case -study from the USA: Eva M. Aagaard, Timothy Yau, Carolyn Dufault (2020). Curriculum renewal in the time of COVID‐19: The Washington University School of Medicine Story, FASEB BioAdvances, 7 November 2020, Open Access: Article Curriculum Renewal in the Time of COVID‐19: the Washington U...

4) A case -study from Israel: Hadar, L.L., Alpert, B. & Ariav, T. The response of clinical practice curriculum in teacher education to the Covid-19 breakout: A case study from Israel. Prospects (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-020-09516-8 Open Access: Article The response of clinical practice curriculum in teacher educ...

5) Alanna Gillis, and Laura M. Krull (2020). COVID-19 Remote Learning Transition in Spring 2020: Class Structures, Student Perceptions, and Inequality in College Courses, Teaching Sociology 2020, Vol. 48(4) 283–299 © American Sociological Association 2020, Open Access: Article COVID-19 Remote Learning Transition in Spring 2020: Class St...

Yours sincerely, Bulcsu Szekely

Updating syllabus to meet students current needs and expectations is key. Syllabus development with up to date teaching and learning strategies/methods/techniques is crucial and helps achieve quality learning outcomes.

Many thanks Dr Amar for raising this important topic.

To just "redesign syllabus" per se is full of shortcomings. If you look into the syllabus, any syllabus, in isolation of the surrounding educational environment, is short of achieving any change to your program's outcomes. Syllabus is the mere " subjects in a course of study or teaching." Whatever the content of syllabus, the achievement of the course or program goals and outcomes depend immensely on how the learners be prepared. This reflects the educational strategies, organization, teaching and learning methods used, regular monitoring and evaluation, AND the way the educational and learning objectives are formulated. Please see my article on : Misjudgement and Misuse of Learning Objectives (DOI:10.33762/mjbu.2020.129154.1056):

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347241133_Misjudgement_and_Misuse_of_the_Learning_Objectives

The syllabus is the core of the "hardware" of your class. It reflects the complete purpose of the class. It must be flexible to adapt to each group.

Thanks all for your valuabe comments.

Thanks all for your valuabe comments.

The syllabus acts as a guide and should be continually changing to adapt to context. More importantly is how do we achieve what's in the syllabus.

Redesign the syllabus according to contemporary issues, that may engage students and teachers to search for actual and relevant information rather to the same old scenario.

Syllabus design is central to how learners grasp concepts. It should be noted that African countries need to move from theory based learning practices to practical ways,

In my redesign of syllabi, I linked to the international standards of practice in our field. I connected policies and expectations to those professional standards of practice. Then in listing assessments, I connected each to the course objectives and the program student learning objectives. Each of those changes support understanding the WHY of course priorities and content and assessments. Then to support student success, I organized the course calendar into topical modules, consistent with organization in the learning management system. Finally, I organized a section listing resources to find supports and learning strategies most helpful in learning the content and skills of each course.

Updating technological skills, teaching methodologies and didactic innovation

Se podría rediseñar teniendo en cuenta el contexto socioeducativo del estudiantes, pues en caso de las universidades y escuelas estatales más del 75% pertenecen a la clase baja y media, muchos estudiantes no tienen acceso a itnernet, algunos no tienen celulares modernos o son post pago(recargables). con ese diagnóstico, se puede decir que la presencialidad es fundamental para evitar la deserción. Sin embargo, en vista de esta pandemia que se está alargando es necesario que las instituciones cuenten con plataformas virtuales amigables y que además se trabaje un plan de estudios (sincrónico y asíncronico) y cuyos materiales se van a seleccionar de acuerdo a las necesidades.

Thank you Cameron, after Google translation.

I think it is important to always carefully review your syllabus seeking to improve the course, especially if you have taught the same course more than once.

The syllabus should be redesigned continuosly and periodically to bring out innovation. This is very important for global trend in education.

Dear Dr. Ismail,

I can see that there are many views in re-designing syllabi to help students learn better. I think that the process of re-designing entails that there are certain new conditions that emerged which necessitate the reconsideration of the instruction methods. Many of us who teach, may have gone or are going through this during the COVID19 pandemic. in other words, 're-designing' should have a clear goal (e.g.: is it to improve motivation to learn? or comprehension? or inclusion?)

Therefore, I am tempted to revisit the way this question is posed, because as many colleagues earlier mentioned, there are context-based issues for designing syllabi. I would therefore ask, What are the most effective ways to redesign a syllabus to help students with DIFFERENT learning preferences and needs?

I have noticed that one new trend in the field is gaining momentum, and it is called MULTIMODALITY.

Students come to school with a wide variety of learning styles. As such, the ideal educational experience should represent all modes and support each of these styles. Multimodality supports a universal design for learning by communicating concepts in the most effective ways and making sure everyone gets exactly what they need. For instance, having:

• Both text and audio supports reading and hearing
• Images and animation can help focus attention
• Examples can aid understanding, etc.

Best regards

Dear Ismaillov, your question asked a raised hot issues to this discussion.

Your research is very interesting.

Nice question indeed. In fact the syllabus and the content of the course you teach should be tailored to meet your students' needs, expectations and interests . This is very essential to ensure students' engagement and in your course. And by redesigning the syllabus we will seek the best teaching strategies to achieve the new objectives of the syllabus.

it is a good qestion

To achieve the redesign of a training program, the first thing we must do is know about the curriculum and didactics. From there, changes can be proposed that will transform a teacher-centered education, so that from now on it will be focused on the student.

By brainstorming method

The adoption of curricula that take into account individual differences It provides an organized scientific material for the teacher and the learner, and the use of educational means that contribute to the delivery of the scientific material to the student. Taking into account the renewal of the curriculum vocabulary according to the recent developments of the scientific subject and that this will be reflected positively in the integration of students and their reception of the scientific subject.

Redesigning the curriculum must cater to individual differences among students as well as their learning styles.

Interesting question and replies.

Redesigning and reforming teaching is expected to have impact for sure.

Normally, any change in the syllabus or the approach to learning is made to adapt to new patterns which are expected to be more effective

This could be in the tasks we do, the goals we set, the materials we use.

Greetings

I agree with Amel Asmar Zaboon & Murod Ismailov

Moreover, it's convenient to promote student engagement by using diverse pedagogical approaches that meet students' differences, e.g. PBL, TBL, assignments &presentations.

Thank you very much

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691192208/syllabus

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-09-10-redesigning-the-syllabus-to-reflect-the-learning-journey

https://educationcommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/redesigning-the-education-workforce-design-thinking.pdf