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SYLLABUS: COURSE REQUIREMENTS
AND POLICIES HELPFUL STUFF: HARDWARE, SOFTWARE, AND TIME REQUIREMENTS, HELPFUL READINGS |
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You will be evaluated based upon
performance and participation. I will assume that all work is entered into
freely and joyously, and that performance will be outstanding and to the best
of each participant's ability. If at any point during the class I feel your
performance is not up to expectations, I will work directly with you to get
it there. Extensions and final projects will be evaluated based on criteria
that emphasize the quality of your ideas and how well you develop them. I am a firm believer in participatory
education at all levels. You, the participant, will have complete control
over the grade you will receive. The larger system of higher education (and,
to an extent, the work place and society) demands assignment of a grade at
the completion of this course. So, in the spirit of innovation and freedom
from the tyranny of grades, you choose the grade and level of
participation you want. The quality and quantity of your participation
is, of course, strictly up to you; you will get far more from this course if
you participate fully! Please contact me as soon as possible if you feel
yourself getting behind, confused, discouraged, or bored. I must warn you,
however, that I am eternally optimistic and insufferably cheerful! Grades will be assigned based on the
traditional scale: A 90-100%, B 80-89%, C 70-79%, D 60-69%, F <60%, and
will be based on the following activities: |
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We will work with a series of Earth
Systems Science activities, based on activities originally written for K-14
students and teachers by participants in The Network Montana Project. Details of the activities can be found in
the following chapters, but in general, there will be one assigned activity
per unit designed to help you become familiar with the necessary background,
and one activity that will be left up to your choice. You may want to select
one that relates to what your classroom is studying this term, one that you
may want to adapt to your classroom situation or one that interests you. You
do not need to turn in formal answers to these activities, only a written
summary posted to the class discussion area at MSULink. In this summary,
evaluate the activity: was it interactive, informative, doable, and fun? Do
you have any suggestions for improvement? This class requirement will be
graded on an all or nothing basis: if you do all the required reviews for
each section, you will get the full 15%; if you do none, you will get 0%. Participation
in Discussions (25%) The value of a class such as this is the
opportunity to participate in discussions of science and pedagogy issues.
Participating in a discussion with your fellow professionals and instructors
can inspire you, rekindling the sense of wonder about science that you felt
as a young student. Using the resources of the web to enable your discussions
will help you become familiar with new technologies. The discussion questions are high-level,
fundamental questions about the Earth as a System of Systems. Understanding
the mechanisms and being able to discuss the material at this level is an
indication that you have a good understanding. I place high value on enthusiastic and
open, no-holds-barred debate of ideas and issues. Communicating
asynchronously via e-mail may seem somewhat stifling and non-spontaneous at
first. However, you will find that it forces you to stop, gather your
thoughts, and really think about responses. In the electronic classroom, everyone
gets a chance to express themselves! Politeness is expected in all exchanges;
if there is any doubt, don't hesitate to clarify what you say with a comment
about the spirit in which it is intended. Remember that your co-participants
cannot read the look on your face or hear the tone of your voice. In general, you are required to make at
least one posting contributing to the ongoing weekly discussions of one
of the posted discussion questions, and make at least one response
to or comment on someone else's posting. These are the minimum
requirements; it is my hope that you will go beyond these. This class
requirement will be graded on an all or nothing basis: if you do all the
required discussions for each section, you will get the full 25%; if you do
none, you will get 0%. Extensions provide you with the
opportunity to extend upon what you have learned or discovered. These should extend
beyond the activities presented by the instructors and the ESS
activities, and they should be appropriate to your own situation or
useful to you in some way. You can think of extensions as lessons or
activities that you would like to see your students or children do. They do
not have to be extensive; a few detailed examples will suffice. The idea here
is for you to think about what you are learning, both content (earth
systems science) and medium (the internet and WWW), and be able to
come up with an appropriate plan on how you would use these in the classroom.
I cannot and will not dictate the topic or the content of your extension
activities, but if you are in doubt about the appropriateness of a particular
activity, please contact me - I would be glad to discuss any of your ideas. I will use these scoring guidelines to
evaluate the extensions, including the final project. Your extension should
address at least these areas; please feel free to add more! These are roughly
in order of importance. For the final project I would expect more fully
developed ideas, lengthier discussions, and more polished writing and
presentation style. This class requirement will be graded on a 0 to 100%
scale for each extension, which will then be recalculated to 30% of your
final grade. IDEA. Is
it interesting? Is it doable? Does it illustrate and/or use good science?
Does it integrate mathematics and science? 35% DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEA. Is the writing good and are directions clear and
unambiguous? 20% DISCUSSION OF APPLICABILITY TO YOUR SITUATION. Is this extension activity appropriate for the
grade/developmental level for which it is intended? 15% DISCUSSION OF TEACHING STANDARDS ADDRESSED BY YOUR
EXTENSION. How does this activity
address teaching standards? Which standard is addressed? 15% GENERAL DISCUSSION OF PROJECT
OR ACTIVITY. Do you think it
will work? Are there "upsides" or "downsides" to the
project? Do you like it? Have you tried it out or are you planning on trying
it out? 15% In Unit 6, the last week of school, choose
one extension written by a classmate and write a critical review. Please note
that "critical review" used in this context does not necessarily
mean to criticize the work produced by your classmates, but the look at it
carefully, analyze it with regards to imagination, interactivity, degree of
development, usefulness, and overall quality. Make positive suggestions that
would help the author improve the quality of the activity. This class
requirement will be graded on an all or nothing basis: if you do the ,
required critique, you will get the full 10%; if you do not do one, you will
get 0%. You can start your final project anytime,
but it may be best to wait until you are well into units 2 or unit 3, in
order to build up a storehouse of good ideas. You should have a good idea in
mind by the end of unit 3, and the final project should be ready to submit by
the end of unit 5. The final project should follow the same
guidelines as for extensions. The final project should be complete,
detailed, and polished up in final form. The final project should take
full advantage of what you have learned about the internet and world wide
web. To this end, your final project should be ready to publish on the web.
If you are uncertain about how to do this, relax and don't worry! It is easy
these days to get something ready to publish on the web. Your text should be
in a standard format of some sort, preferably hypertext markup language (.htm
or .html), text (.txt extension), or MS document (.doc). Your graphs, charts,
pictures etc. should be in a standard graphics format (JPG, GIF, TIF, for
example.) Once this is done, transferring material to the web is easy, and I
will be glad to help you. This class requirement will be graded on a
0 to 100% scale, which will then be recalculated to 20% of your final grade. Keep all of your work in an electronic
portfolio, essentially a file on your hard drive and/or a disk, in case
assignments become lost or some other disaster happens. An electronic
portfolio is nothing more than a group of files on your hard drive and on a
diskette. Keeping all of your work in an electronic portfolio is not just a
good idea, it is essential! Accidents can and do happen, at your end or mine.
If you keep a copy of everything, then it is an easy matter to reconstruct
your work. It is a good habit to get into for the future! Set aside a space
on your hard drive for all of your class assignments. In addition, set up a
floppy disk with a duplicate in case your hard drive crashes. As soon as you
are done with your assignment, send it to me, put a copy on your hard drive,
and copy that to your diskette backup. You may also wish to keep copies of
useful information that you find during your research or that classmates post
to the discussion area - start a file of "good ideas." More and more work will be done in the
future via the internet and E-mail, so get into the habit now. I have visited
classrooms where first and second graders are turning in multimedia
assignments on floppy diskettes; I don't think we have the option to ignore
this trend! |
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This Page Last Modified on 9/13/99. © by G. E. Nelson |