Beyond Copy-Paste: Syllabus Strategies to Scaffold Student Success

Semester to semester, many of us copy-paste ever-growing lists of policies and resource recommendations for our syllabi. When we’re down to the wire the Friday before classes start, it can be tempting to recycle old materials after a quick skim, rather than closely rereading and analyzing our choices. But of course, syllabi set the stage in important ways for the work your students will do in your course. Crafting a syllabus is an excellent time to assess the scaffolding and support you provide to students in your course.

In past years, we’ve offered guidance for using your syllabus to describe the role of writing in your course and in your discipline, create an inclusive and accessible course environment that promotes belonging, and clarify expectations around AI tool use. In this post, we discuss how insights from backward design and scaffolding can strengthen your syllabus.

Set the Stage & Build the Scaffolds

As you sit down to revise an old syllabus or prepare a new one, begin with the end in mind: what should students be able to do at the completion of your course? Your answer(s) should inform every course design choice. This process of backward design—identifying desired learning outcomes, then working backward to make sure your pedagogical choices guide students toward those outcomes—helps set the stage for student success.

While having outcomes in mind while planning may seem intuitive, it’s easy to lose sight of those goals as you brainstorm exciting new activities. So, to keep yourself focused, ask yourself for each decision made for your syllabus and course planning: how does this help students achieve course learning outcomes?

Syllabus and schedule preparation also provide an opportunity to reflect on and plan ahead for your scaffolding. Identify skills students need for major assignments and areas where previous students struggled. Then, look back: where can you integrate low-stakes practice and feedback beforehand? Gradually increasing the complexity of your assignments and activities over time helps ensure students are building skills rather than struggling.

Finally, don’t forget to let students in on the plan. Strong syllabi make desired learning outcomes—and the path to get there—explicit. After reviewing a syllabus, students should understand key course learning outcomes and how course activities will get them there. Clear planning and expectations build motivation and self-efficacy (which, in turn, promotes engagement and discourages cheating). 

Revise Policies 

Many of us have a boilerplate list of policies we reuse semester after semester. It can be easy to develop overly complicated policies that reflect every way we’ve been “burned” by students before. But how recently have you reviewed your policies for consistency with your learning outcomes?

One area of policy that may be due for an update is your statement on generative AI (genAI) tool use. As students become more familiar and comfortable with genAI tools, it’s more important than ever to clarify if and how these tools may be used in your courses. Backward design strategies and attention to scaffolding can inform your policies: consider how a range of uses of generative AI tools might variously support or hinder students’ learning in your course and on each assignment. For instance, while it’s clear that copying material directly from a genAI tool without revision, or relying on a genAI tool to supply all ideas, would displace important intellectual effort connected to students’ learning, using a genAI tool to help proofread might actually reduce extraneous cognitive load and keep students’ focus on course content. You might prohibit genAI use early in the semester while students practice foundational skills, but gradually allow more collaboration with these tools as students develop expertise. Pragmatic, nuanced policies like these center the learning outcomes of the course in guiding how students might interface with genAI tools. Of course, make sure you also share this rationale with students—ideally as part of a broader discussion about how genAI use influences

In your syllabus, set the stage for effective engagement with (and/or avoidance of) genAI by providing a clear, comprehensive genAI policy. The University recently released updated guidance on genAI syllabus policies, including adaptable template language. If you’d like to discuss genAI policy further, consider scheduling a TWW consultation, or join us for our Fall 2025 reading group on citation, attribution, and plagiarism.

Connect to Learning Resources

Scaffolding doesn’t just happen in the classroom. The U provides a wide range of support resources that can help students be successful in your courses, and many faculty share a standardized list in their syllabi. But on a large campus like the U’s, students often find themselves inundated with resource recommendations. Thus, in your syllabus, it’s helpful to give tailored recommendations that specifically connect available resources with course activities and desired learning outcomes, guiding students to the resources that will be most salient to them.

For courses involving writing, consider connecting students with one or more of the resources below that support student writers. Encouraging students to utilize these resources strengthens existing scaffolding in your course and helps students develop good habits around soliciting feedback and support. To help students best take advantage of these resources, we recommend giving some guidance about how students can seek support to augment specific learning activities or support particular outcomes in your course. For example, in addition to directing students to Student Writing Support, you can provide specific suggestions for times the resource may be especially helpful. (For example: “Many students struggle to get started with their writing when facing a new and somewhat unfamiliar topic. Creating an appointment with Student Writing Support can provide strategies and accountability. Consider asking for feedback on the draft introduction we wrote in class, strategies for getting started with writing, or an ‘accountabilibuddy’ for getting words on paper.”) It can also be helpful to point to specific connections between available resources and key course learning outcomes (e.g., Libraries Media Services can support composing in multiple modes, while Peer Research Consultants can support academic research processes). 

Student Writing Support

Over the course of the fall semester, the Center for Writing’s Student Writing Support (SWS) will offer several thousand one-on-one appointments to support your students with writing projects from courses across the curriculum. SWS offers this blurb to include in your syllabi: 

"Student Writing Support (SWS) offers collaborative one-to-one writing consultations in a supportive space to help student writers develop confidence and effective writing strategies. Writing consultants will listen to your goals and concerns, read and respond to your written work, and pose questions that help you clarify and articulate your ideas. Consultants can work with writers at any stage of the writing process, such as brainstorming ideas, developing a thesis statement, creating an outline, crafting cohesive sentences and paragraphs, or documenting sources. Book an appointment or learn more about what we do—we’re here for you!"

We are pleased to share that Student Writing Support is able to offer some classroom visits this year. You can complete this form to request a class visit. You can also link to or show SWS’s promotional video. 

It’s often particularly helpful when faculty share their own experiences as writers benefiting from feedback and support when recommending resources like SWS. Sharing your own experiences can destigmatize seeking support during the writing process, showing students that it is a normal part of expert writing processes.

Peer Research Consultants

For courses involving research, consider taking a few minutes in class to introduce students to the Peer Research Consultants (PRC) program, hosted by the University of Minnesota Libraries. Peer research consultants are trained to help students move through the research process and navigate library materials and databases. You might refer students to PRCs for help narrowing a paper topic; crafting research questions; devising a search strategy and identifying keywords; using library search tools and databases; and finding, reading, and evaluating scholarly sources.

Libraries Media Services

Considering integrating multimedia assignments? Consider connecting students with the Libraries Media Services. The Libraries Media Services offers support to the campus community for creating media projects, notably videos, podcasts, websites, and immersive (VR) experiences. As you plan your courses, you can work with Media Services for design assistance and support for customized course-integrated student-created media assignments and assessments that align with articulated learning objectives. In your syllabus, you can connect students with their student-focused services including media project consultations, equipment loans for media creation, multimedia computing/software, media capture spaces, workshops, and online tutorials.

Support Beyond the Classroom: Keep the Whole Student in Mind

Finally, the start of the semester is an ideal time to (re)familiarize yourself with—and encourage your students to learn about—the range of resources available outside of your class to support them as learners, residents on a large campus, and members of a community. Connecting students with resources to support their health and well-being is not only kind, but also helps them maintain their academic engagement even when they’re experiencing challenges. In short, being prepared to point students to needed resources is a backbone of a well-scaffolded teaching plan.

Beyond “Syllabus Day”: Writing Support throughout the Semester

As you refine your syllabus, also consider how you will reinforce crucial information therein to students. While syllabus policies and university information often feel intuitive to faculty, students are typically juggling four or more classes with different expectations and processes while also navigating a complex university infrastructure. This makes it easy to miss important details. 

As an instructor, you can promote student success by identifying syllabus information central to students’ success in the course and reinforcing it throughout the semester, particularly at key moments where students may forget important details or encounter new processes. Returning to learning goals that ground class activities is helpful at any time during the term.

To discuss scaffolding within and beyond your syllabus, schedule a consultation with Teaching with Writing. To continue developing your pedagogy through the semester, check out our Fall 2025 Teaching with Writing events). We also encourage you to discuss below: how do you use your syllabi to set students up for success in your courses?