BASIS FOR EVALUATION AND FINAL GRADE:

Overall Grading Philosophy

Your whole life you have been assessed in your abilities. Every course you have taken you have been assessed in some way. Your parents measured how well you did as your were growing and they still do! This class will be no different from most you have taken. You will be asked to perform a number of tasks and you will be assessed for each task you perform. The University requires me to make an assessment of your skills and attributes and also requires a culmanating assessment of some kind. That is the nature of what you have chosen to participate in. This should be no surprise to you nor should it be a process you are unfamiliar with. And I would argue that you should embrace the process.

My personal style is to try very hard to (a) give you many opportunities to provide evidence that you have mastered the material and (b) to eliminate as much of the bias, I as the assessor, bring to the process. To accomplish the first task I have developed 10 online discussions, 9 bulletin board responses, and a final culmanating project for you to participate in. This will give you many and varied ways to participate in the course and to be assessed. You may also earn extra credit by critiqueing your peer's bulletin board response. To accomplish the second task is more difficult... but I try. First, I do not meet you face-to-face which in this case is an advantage. Some of my personal bias is ameliorated due to my strictly having your written work to assess. Another strategy I use to lower my bias in assessing your work is that I assess your work without knowledge of who you are while I assess. For instance, I randomly sort and score all of your written work (bulletin board responses, online discussion transcripts, and final projects) without knowledge of your name. While it is true that my interaction with you around some of the assignments makes me aware of who submitted some of the assignments I am assessing during the quarter this is as fair a process as I can imagine. If you have some ideas about other strategies that would help me reduce bias in scoring I would love to hear them.

Overall Grading Process

My process is to score (NOT GRADE) each assignment. At the end of the quarter you will get a grade based on your total score. If you participate you will receive some points. If you participate significantly you will recieve more points. If you do high quality work you will receive the highest score possible. The bulletin board, online discussion, and final project assessments are cumulative... that means you earn scores for them. You start with 10% overall for your professionalism and can only lose those points.
Bulletin Board Assessment: I will try to score the bulletin board submissions and will publish those scores as we progress through the course. I will give overall feedback on bulletin board responses in course messages and leave small comments on individual submissions at the beginning of the course. As the course progresses I will not repeat my suggestions. I consider all of you to be adult learners who are responsible for your behavior and academic work. If you receive those small comments pay attention to them. If you do not receive those small comments then simply know I don't have anything to say beyond what I have said in the course email feedback.
Online Discussion Assessment: I will score but will not publish the online discussion scores as we progress. This does not mean you will not get feedback. First, the online discussions will be transcribed and you will receive a complete transcript of the discussion from TappedIn.Org. Also, you will receive a transcript which will detail every student's submissions separately for each online disscusion you participate in. You will also receive feedback through course email in the beginning of the course. It will be your responsibility to review the online discussion rubrics and assess your work further. We suggest that you compare your work with the other students and identify those students whom you feel do an excellent job and try to emulate them.
Final Project Assessment: You will turn in an outline, one update, and your final paper. These will all be scored and used to determine your final score.We do not give feedback on these projects but encourage you to interact with us as you develop your project.
Professionalism : You will start with a score representative of 10% of your final grade. You will lose points for being unprofessional. It is difficult to lose points. If you take your pursuit of this course (and teaching program) seriously then you will have no problem. This teaching program is designed to train you to take responsibility for as many as 45 young adults at any one time during the day. That takes a serious attitude and a commitment to excellence.

Participation in Online Chats - 30%

The on-line chats provide highly productive opportunities for exploring ideas and perspectives addressed in the course reading with your peers. These are designed to let you 'voice' what you have read and the ideas you have formulated from your reading. It is also an opportunity for you to 'hear' your peer's thoughts about the weekly issues discussed in the text. This is the time you should demonstrate your mastery of the reading you have done in preparation for the chat.

We will be reviewing each chat transcript and will look for evidence that you read the weekly reading assignment and were able to interact around the material in a free flowing question and answer period. You should review the transcripts yourselves and ask the following questions:
a) Do my answers clearly reflect ideas I read about in the weekly reading?
b) If someone else was reading the transcript would it be clear to them that I am expressing ideas I read about rather than my opinion?
c) Did I answer the questions specifically or were my responses off track?

• You will need to demonstrate that you have read and understood the readings. The way you do this is through using citations from the text during the online discussions and within your bulletin board responses.

You are required to participate in each of the 10 on-line chats during the 10-week period unless exceptional circumstances make it necessary for you to miss a chat. If this is the case, please notify the Instructors in advance (jonesp@uci.edu).

Be aware that if you regularly arrive at the chats late (after 6:30PM) you will only receive partial credit. If you do not participate in a substantial way you will not receive full credit.

Please read the Chat Protocol, Chat Examples, and Chat Rubric for clarification.

Participation in Bulletin Board Postings - 30%

The weekly bulletin board postings are designed for you to (a) demonstrate your grasp of the material you have read, (b) share your perspective with others in the course and, (c) reflect on your peer's varying ideas and opinions about the same issues (extra credit). One bulletin board posting is required each week (except the first week) and must be posted by the allotted time before each chat.

Be aware that any late submissions (after the due date) will only receive 75% credit and any submissions that are overdue (past the due date for the next bulletin board message) will only receive 50% credit.

We will be reviewing each bulletin board response to determine whether you were able to answer the 'Focus Question' you chose in a formative way using concepts and ideas that you read the within the weekly reading assignment. You should review each of your responses and ask the following questions:
a) Do my answers clearly reflect ideas I read about in the weekly reading?
b) If someone else was reading the bulletin board response would it be clear to them that I am expressing ideas I read about rather than my opinion?
c) Did I answer the questions specifically or were my responses off track?
d) Did I answer my question using the Bulletin Board Response Rubric?

• You will need to demonstrate that you have read and understood the readings. The way you do this is through using citations from the text during the online discussions and within your bulletin board responses.

Please read the 'Bulletin Board Instructions' for clarification.

Final Project - 30%

We created the Final Project to help you explore learning theory more deeply. The Final Project is a time for you to look at one of the issues we cover during the quarter in more depth. This project gives you the opportunity to gradually work toward your culminating project in the course rather than waiting for the last week and then trying to 'pump out' a bit of writing. You will find, as a teacher, that you will have many projects that your students work on gradually. You need to know what it means to encourage, cajole, and motivate your students to move forward. It is difficult! It is very important that your students understand that learning does not take place by writing one thing in a short period of time or by simply completing one bit of class or home work. It is a process that evolves over time.

Be aware that any late submissions will only receive 75% credit.

Please read the 'Final Project Instructions' for clarification.

Professionalism - 10%

Take off your student hat and put on your teaching hat!

We are going to treat you like we treat all teachers; with respect and dignity. We expect you will behave in accordance with the responsibility you either currently have as an active in-service teacher or expect to have in the future. We are serious about treating you as a professional and expect you to treat this course and every course you take in our teaching school with the same deference. You are no longer a student who is causally taking a course because you are simply interested. You are preparing yourself to be responsible for the lives of children or young adults. The more you immerse yourself in the process the more successful you will be in the classroom.

We have every expectation that you will treat this material and your study with us the way you will treat your first teaching position. We are here to help you understand how to be a successful teacher and how to navigate the teaching culture. We expect you to take every assignment seriously. If you have any question about why we have asked you to do an assignment or what the learning theory is behind any activity please ask us about it. Each and every assignment and activity is deeply rooted in learning theory and is NOT busy work or superfluous. We are more than happy to explain the design and theory that underlies each part of the course.

Our expectation is that you will treat your work in this course as a professional teacher would treat their work assignments at a school site. Professionalism reflects a timely submission of your work, an adherance to high standards in your writing, always doing more than the minimum required, an active participation in the course activities, an honoring of other's ideas, and completion of administrative tasks as requested. These are all traits of successful teachers.

Standards for Written Work and Communication

Our expectation is that you will adhere to high standards of quality in your written work and communication. Please use computer-based spelling and grammar checks. Formatting, other than paragraph breaks, will not be necessary for any work submitted through the online interfaces.

E-mail communication is expected to be professional in tone and construct. We have an expectation that you will use the proper punctuation and grammar and address your e-mail recipients in a cordial and professional way.

Academic Honesty

Academic dishonesty in any form will not be tolerated. Please review the UCI Academic Senate's statement on Academic Honesty published on the web at
http://www.senate.uci.edu/9_IrvineManual/3ASMAppendices/Appendix08.html

It is my policy to deal with incidents of academic dishonesty following the procedures outlined there. In the context of Education 173 Online it is perfectly acceptable for you to work together on course projects. Indeed, I encourage you to do so. It is totally unacceptable to copy another person's work and turn it in as your own. That is, communicate together about the assigments all you want, but each person must do and turn in work that has been individually and completely carried out on their own.

It is totally unacceptable to copy Internet or any other sources without directly attributing the source. That is, use Internet and other resources to inform your work, but each person must do and turn in work that has been individually and completely carried out on their own. Specifically, you may copy from Internet or other resources if you do all of the following: (a) attribute the work with an appropriate citation, (b) use quotation marks around all direct quotes, (c) indent and use paragraph returns between any quote that is longer than 1-2 sentences, (d) do not rely on large portions of direct quotes to make up your work (e) do not copy portions of other's work and simply change words intermittently.

Any instance in which a person turns in work copied from another person or uses Internet or other sources without attribution using the format above will result in the strictest available penalties being applied.

See the above cited policy on Academic Honesty for further clarification, if it is needed.

Late Enrollments

If you enrolled in the course late, you are expected to participate from the time of your enrollment and make up any work that has been required previous to your enrollment.