Teaching and Critical Pedagogy

SCHOOL AND SOCIETY
ES 3950
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“NICENET Portfolio

I. Overview:

The goal is to use an interactive computer conference to add a rich discussion forum to our course. During the semester, you will be required to post responses to questions/student responses on our NICENET conference board weekly.

Your entries should be thoughtful and respond to the ideas of other students. Reading student entries and responding to others is as important as entering your own responses.

Previous experience indicates this requires a regular time commitment of at least 30 minutes per week - perhaps even more.

II. Assessment:

Assessment will work this way: you will be required to print off your responses/on line conversations that you have during the semester. You will submit these responses in a THREE-RING BINDER: a portfolio reflecting your work for the semester. You should organize your responses in SEQUENTIAL ORDER, from the first entry to the last. And, you must have HEADER INFORMATION i.e. the question, its posting date, the date you responded, etc.

Failing to do any of these things will affect your grade.

I have provided a rubric at the bottom of the page to give you a better idea of what I will be looking for when I assess your NICENET responses.

NOTE: It is important to start early and keep up with the conference. It is assumed that you will respond to all of the questions, and that you will keep up with the conference each week.

By "week," I expect students to respond to posted questions within a week - SEVEN DAYS - of their original posting date. For example, a question is posted on Monday morning. You would then have until the end of Sunday to answer the posted question.

After that, your work will be considered LATE and your answer (or answers) will NOT count as an official posting.

When your portfolio is evaluated at the end of the semester, any and all late postings - even if it/they are one day late - will NOT receive any credit whatsoever.

Certainly, you can respond as much as you want DURING the week but at the very least you are expected to answer the posted questions on a week-to-week basis.

Ultimately: you will be assessed on active and critical participation in the forum for the ENTIRE semester. You will be expected to respond to each question, and expected to enter into exchanges with other participants on a weekly basis. All of the questions on this forum are NOT to be considered a series of "short answer essay questions" that you can do at any time. The posted questions directly relate to weekly classroom discussions.

Therefore, routinely answering questions late and/or skipping the forum altogether helps little when it comes to this class or to advancing the critical discourse necessary to making this course successful.

Plus, missing or skipping questions could/will also affect your grade a great deal.

Lastly, your portfolio will be assessed as one item - sort of like a book. When assessing, the 'whole' will be considered, not just the individual parts. For instance, missing questions to me are the same as missing chapters in a book: when chapters are missing, thoughts and ideas are also missing. If your portfolio is filled with missing or late work, the quality of the entire portfolio will be affected as will your grade.

Other things: Use professional manners, while being informal at the same time. Don't "flame" other people's responses -- it is often a good idea to reread an entire item before reacting too quickly to an upsetting comment from another student.

(Be mindful of how this electronic conference format extends our discussions because you may want to consider on-line communities for your own teaching using an on-line resource such as Nicenet.org).

III. How to Do it:

STEP 1 : GET REGISTERED (You will only do this step the first time you join the class.)

• Open up the Internet
• Type in www.nicenet.org.
• On the right under New Users Start Here click Join a Class under Students
• You will be asked to enter the CLASS KEY in the box. The CLASS KEY for your class is: ____________________________________. The class is named SCHOOL & SOCIETY.
• A new page will open for you to create a username & password. (Suggestion: Use the same username and password you use to log into the system at school. It might make it easier for you to remember.)
• YOU MUST FILL IN YOUR REAL FIRST & LAST NAME under the Optional Field so that I know who you are. Then click the JOIN THE CLASS button at the bottom of the page.
• Another page will open indicating whether your user name has been accepted. If it has not, it's because someone else has the same username. If that's the case, create a new username and try it again.
• Once a username has been accepted it will tell you to write it down. Then click the Finish Registration button near the bottom of the page.

STEP 2: LOG INTO ICA (This is how you log in once you have joined the class.)

• Type in the Username & Password you created in the steps above. Now you are logged into the class discussion forum.
• All topics will be posted under the CONFERENCINGsection.
• Click View Topics to look at the questions/topics your instructor has posted. You will also be able to read other peoples' replies to the topics allowing you to respond to correspond with them.
• When you are ready to respond, click REPLY . A new window will open for you to write your posting. When you finish your message, click POST NEW MESSAGE.
• Then select your posting with the mouse and then print "selection" in the print menu. Make sure that the header is highlighted, i.e. your name, date and time of your posting. KEEP ALL PRINTED HARD COPIES! I will only be grading the hard copies in your portfolio.
• When you are finished, click the LOGOUT button at the bottom of the page when you are done.

"NICENET" Portfolio Holistic Rubric

An "outstanding, exceptional, extraordinary" grade of "A" for your "NICENET” Portfolio requires that the student meets/exceeds the expectations based in part on the following holistic criteria. Again, when assessing the portfolio you will be assessed on the 'whole' and not solely on the merit of individual pieces.

The following rubric will be used to assess your portfolio:

An "outstanding, exceptional, extraordinary" grade of "A" : Means that the student meets/exceeds the expectations based in part on the following holistic criteria:

• Timeliness/Participation in Discussions: Provides comments and new information in a regular, weekly manner; there are no late postings at all; during the semester, the participant interacts with a variety of participants by responding and building upon others' comments; it is quite evident that participant was involved in the on-line discussions weekly for the entire semester, and shows consistent signs of interacting with others from start to finish; when it comes to participating and being timely, the participant was a 'model' participant
• Content of Postings: Reveals a solid understanding of the topics as evidenced by thoughtful responses and questions; connections made with topics./ideas learned in class; it is quite clear that taken as a whole, start to finish, the student took the questions seriously, and did attempt to provide thoughtful, outstanding responses to the questions; the content for each posting clearly answers the questions and as a whole the portfolio makes for a very informative, reflective and insightful read.
• Evidence of Critical Thinking : Offers critical analysis of existing posted ideas or introduces a different interpretation to an existing idea; clearly, the student is able to integrate knowledge and apply to information learned in class/to readings in an elaborated way; from start to finish, from week to week, it is more than evident that the student provides excellent postings reflective of critical thought and a willingness to go beyond the obvious answer.

A "very good/high pass" grade of "B" means : that the student might meet the requirements, but still lacks in some of the more critical areas reflective of "A" quality work. For example: perhaps one, possibly two postings are missing/late; perhaps some of the content of the postings is clearly better than others; generally there seems to be an attempt to engage and interact with the spirit of the assignment, and for the most part the student does a pretty good job when it comes to addressing the key criteria of the assignment.

An "adequate/acceptable" grade of "C" means: that the assignment likely meets some of the criteria/requirements, but leaves too many questions regarding postings, timing, quality, critical thinking, analysis. For example: a handful of postings could be late/missing (up to 3); inconsistent week to week in regard to being on time and/or with thought for content of postings; maybe some hint of ‘waiting ‘til the last minute' with a few postings and/or not giving some questions the thought they deserve on a week to week basis; quite obvious that just enough was done for this assignment; more often than not, content is general, simple answers showing little thought.

A "D" grade likely reflects: considerable problems and/or poor quality of work, postings, content. For example: student did not post consistently; more postings tend to be late than on time; possibly, there are many postings missing/late altogether (could be 3 to 4); taken as a whole, the content tends to be very vague and/or superficial; the portfolio as a whole shows little thought as a whole for the spirit of the assignment from start to finish; assignment shows lack of effort and/or lack of engagement with the spirit of the assignment.

An "E" reflects : a considerable amount of problems, most notably: postings not complete and/or portfolio is missing questions altogether (for example, 60% or less answered; 40% missing, etc.); consistently late postings and/or 'waiting until the last minute' to do the assignment; portfolio littered with very general/vague responses; it is quite obvious that assignment was done ‘at the last minute for a grade,' a last ditch attempt to make up for not participating or engaging the assignment during the course and during the semester.

Note: Organization/Overall presentation is considered and can affect grade i.e. postings should be in order; portfolio should be bound, easily read, in a three ring binder; all header information should be there i.e. questions, dates, responses, names, etc.

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