Our on-line discussions each week start with each student making a short written reaction (200 words or less) to the assigned reading for class, and posting it on our on-line discussion forum. Please read before posting, try to make your thoughts unique, and please post by Wednesday morning at the latest so that other students can read your ideas and respond before class meets. I don't post on the forum myself, but I read everything that is posted to the forum as part of my planning for class. If you don't post some time on Wednesday, I may not be able to read your post before class meets.
Since our class meets face-to-face each week, the purpose of the on-line discussion is to maximize what we get out of the face-to-face discussions in class, not replace face-to-face discussions. Having some limited discussion on-line prior to class helps to ensure that everyone has thought a bit about the readings before we meet, and given consideration to how others' thoughts about them differ. With this done, we can concentrate our face-to-face discussions on evaluating the ideas that have been put forward, and working toward a cohesive understanding of the material. This is extremely difficult to do through on-line discussion alone.
Your initial on-line
reaction may be one or a combination of:
I encourage you to "mix it up" with other students on the forum (respond in a substantive, not cheerleading way), and will reward this with better grades (see below), though there is no quota for the number of notes you should post each week. There is also no required length for each post, though I encourage you not to make your posts longer than 200 words. You should not think of your posts as mini-essays, but as turns in a conversation with your peers in the class.
There may be a week or two in which the readings don't connect very well with your interests (we can't all be interested in everything). Please don't think that you need to apologize to me for not posting, or offer an excuse. There will not be any penalty for not posting in a given week. However you should read the postings each week. You might find a post that you are interested in responding to. A substantive response to someone else's post is worth just as much on my grading scheme as starting your own original thread.
Your contributions will be graded at the end of the semester based on a portfolio that you will construct in Knowledge Forum. You will construct your portfolio using the best of your notes and exchanges you have had with others, and write a narrative explaining how your work over the semester matches the criteria below. Keep your portfolio narrative to less than 600 words, or I will have to deduct marks. This video demonstrates the technical process of building your portfolio in the "enhanced" interface to Knowledge Forum. If you can't get that to work on your computer, here's a video showing how you can accomplish the same thing a bit more awkwardly in the "basic" interface. I will share an example of a high-scoring portfolio from a previous semester in our Knowledge Forum database.
Your portfolio of contributions to the
on-line discussions will be graded according to the following scheme:
A+ |
In addition to meeting all the criteria for an A, your portfolio makes clear that you have played a central role in the class' online discussions for most of the term. You are able to document several threads of substantial depth that you have both initiated and contributed to, driving deeper exploration or application of the ideas encountered through the assigned readings. |
| A |
Your portfolio is thoughtful, well-written and coherent. It provides convincing evidence that you've engaged actively in helping advance not only your own understanding of the course material, but have advanced the understanding of others in the class as well. The notes you have included each play a clear role. |
| B |
Your portfolio is thoughtful, well-written and coherent. It shows evidence of having read the assigned texts carefully and worked the ideas over.Your portfolio persuasively documents advances in your own understanding of the course materials. Each of the notes you have linked plays a clear role. |
C |
Your portfolio is clearly written, but does not reflect consistent effort to engage in undertanding the course material. You do link some notes as evidence of your thinking that are clear, and based on original thought; but there are not many of them, or many of them were contributed in a clump near to the end of the course. |
| D | Your portfolio shows no clear evidence of having done the reading or understood it. It may be made up mostly of personal ideas that don't connect to the the content of the course. |
| F |
No portfolio is submitted. |