Using the Syllabus to Guide and Prioritize Studying

Utilizing the syllabus to plan for your semester can be extremely helpful. When you are provided with your syllabi for your courses, you can use something like a Semester at a Glance (pictured here) to lay out your work for the entire semester, including your homework, assignments, readings, and test/quizzes. This allows you to see all your coursework in one place, and can allow you to better plan when you will need time to study and complete work. 

Other Things to Consider:

If your professor does not provide you with a study guide for exams (many professors do not), then the topics covered on your syllabus assignment schedule can serve as a guide to help you know where to focus your efforts.    

For example: If there are three weeks in the syllabus for Ethics and Law in Special Education and one week for Differentiated Instruction Techniques, then you will probably want to spend more time studying the Ethics and Law material, because your professor seems to be devoting more “class time” to this concept and which can signal to you that this material may be perceived as more important to them.  

Evaluating how much each assignment is weighted in the course was mentioned earlier in this module. This is one of the most important pieces of information that you will want to know and understand when you are trying to prioritize assignments, both at the beginning of the semester and throughout the semester.