Tailoring Instruction to Meet Student Needs: Don't Analyze Students--Ask Them

This article discusses the authors' effort in tailoring instruction to meet student needs. The authors began by talking to students and asking them specific questions about what they wanted and needed for an instruction setting to be successful. Sometimes educational solutions offered to faculty and students are not needed, welcomed, or wanted. They worked to avoid that problem by speaking directly with students to gauge their needs. Although the replies varied, there were consistent requests to have access to syllabi prior to class registration and to have updated syllabi provided during the term. To assist students in their requests for an updated, current syllabus, the authors presented the concept of an interactive syllabus and taught faculty how to create their own to reflect their class agenda, style, and discipline. In addition to showing instructors how to create an interactive syllabus, the authors shared good teaching techniques as a way to engage students in the learning process. When using the interactive syllabus, faculty found they had to do more work up front in creating the material for their courses--but less work as the semester went on; they could make their revisions online and redirect students as needed throughout the semester.