Throughout the semester, I’ll ask you to participating in beyond the class work. Occurring on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, student-led discussion groups will allow informal discussion and thinking to remain centered on students and their concerns, rather than stemming from the instructor. You are required to participate in 8 7 of these activities across the term and lead at least 1. These activities total 16% of your grade.
Leadership Activities
Each week of course content, students leaders (who select the week of leading a discussion group) must write a detailed post on the weekly blogs site; this post should be tagged “Leadership” so that students can easily find each week’s events. That post is due no later than 11:59 pm on Wednesday, and it must include the following information:
- The topic of discussion for the group, in at least a sentence (a paragraph preferred)
- The date and time that the discussion group will meet to discuss this topic
- The location for the discussion (face-to-face or online)
Locations must be accessible to all members of the university community (so not in dorms). Students may book rooms in BPC, the library, Sykes, or use informal spaces throughout campus. If using a virtual meeting, participation should be limited to 8 participants (7+the leader) and you should use Zoom or Google Hangouts (create an event using google calendar). Require participants to opt-in to a virtual meeting using the comment function of the weekly blogs.
Students who make a post on or before 11:59 pm on Wednesday with the required components will receive full credit for leadership, unless the group reports the leader is not present for the discussion group.
Participation Activities
Each week, students will browse that week’s events beginning at 12:00am on Thursday and select the discussion group that works best for them. Students can participate in as many activities as they wish; at most, credit for one event per week can accrue to each student.
At the agreed on time, date, and location, students should arrive on-time and prepared to discuss the topic for that session; events without participants are canceled after 5 minutes. Participants should note the name of each member present at the meeting. During the meeting, feel free to take any notes you may need to summarize or describe the discussion group. The event can end whenever the members wish to end the event.
After the discussion group, all participants (except the leader) must write a post summarizing or describing the discussion group. That post should be between 150-250 words in order to receive credit. It must also include the names of each student present for the meeting. The deadline for writing this post is 1159 on Sunday night.
Each week’s activities receives credit or no credit; the total of this assignment is 16% of your final grade.
