Assignment Tips for Discussions and Reading Questions
For each week of this course you will be asked to complete Reading Questions and to participate in a Discussion. In total, the completion of these weekly assignments comprises 40% of your overall assessment for the course. It is important that you understand the process of participation and completion of these assignments. The objective or reason for these assignments is to offer you an opportunity to reflect on the week's work and to engage in your class community.
For each set of Reading Questions you will be asked specific inquiries about the relevant module's assigned videos, articles, presentations and text book chapters. In general you should answer each question in the set in one or two paragraphs. Your answers are due on the Friday of each week, giving you approximately 4 or 5 days to complete.
On Saturday, you will be assigned a classmate whose answers you are to peer review. Your review for each answer should also be one or two paragraphs (maximum). In that review you will comment about the quality of your classmate's responses. This is constructive critique about how your peer responded to the questions posed. It might include whether the answers were similar or different from your own. Your comments might notice if your peer's perspective offered you more insight into the questions. Peer reviews are due on Monday, giving you approximately 3 days time to complete the review from the time you are assigned a peer. For Reading Set questions you can earn 1 point for your original answer(s) and 1 point for your peer review comments. The maximum grade for each is 2.0, and since there are 10 sets, there are 20 points possible on this portion of your grade. The only exception to this process is Module 10. For Module 10 you are to answer the Reading Set questions by Friday but you are not required to peer review. That means your original answer(s) can earn you up to 2 points.
For each week's Discussion you will be asked a prompt or prompts related to the content of the relevant module. You will be assigned to a small discussion group of three or four (you and 2 or 3 peers).
You must respond to the prompt first before you can see the comments of the rest of the group. You must contribute two posts minimum to get the full points. You must contribute a one-paragraph answer to the original prompt(s)(one paragraph per question), and then one response to one of your peer's original post. If you like you can respond to all or your peers and also if you like you may reply to each comment.
Your original post is due by the end of the day Friday (same day as your Reading Set answers). Your response to one of your peers (or more) is due the following Monday (also similar to the Reading Set peer reviews). You should consider this a kind of group project. So if one member of the group is not doing his/her post, that will affect others in the group, and you need to decide how to deal with that. As a last resort, you may notify an instructor (gsedgwick@seattleu.edu) that one of your group members is not participating, and she will adjust the grades. You will not be able to give responses or see other peer’s posts until you post an original comment.
The maximum grade for the Discussion is also 2.0, and since there are 10 Discussions, there are 20 points possible on this portion of your grade.
To clarify again the due dates for these assignments, note that you must post your original answer(s) in order to get access to your peers' in both the Reading and Discussion assignments. Original answers and posts are due on Friday. Peer reviews and discussion comments to your discussion group are due on Monday. Your contributions to both are graded in accordance with the rubric which can be found by clicking the three vertical dots in the upper right corner of the relevant assingment window. The first two components (quantity, grammar and appropriateness) are applied to your original post and the second two (reflection and engagement) to your peer comments.