posted 13 years ago
Something I always find helpful to fully engage in subject matter (and they're fun) are Case Studies. If you're going to do quizzes, replace some of them with a case study take-home quiz where the students need to solve a problem based on information they have thus attained. It engages critical thinking and gets students more involved with the subject matter. Field trip to the university gardens (if they have them) or city gardens would be a good class time. Identify their mistakes and how they could use permaculture practices to remedy them.
People would hate me for saying this, but a permaculture course should have short answer tests rather than all multiple choice. No one likes essay tests, but a final exam where you do a complete design that is functional would be more of an assessment of cumulative learning than something on a scan tron.
Other than that the syllabus is usually just rules of the university, attendance, office hours, and such. I'm so glad to hear that you're teaching a class like this. I would love to have one offered in my area. There are a lot of pre-ag people here (Amarillo) and the land is dead with some of the worst practices in farming I've ever seen.
Good luck and have fun with it!!!
