Homework for Thursday 8/19

This assignment will have two parts. Please do them in order - the second part depends on your having thought carefully about the first.

Your assignment should be typed, double-spaced, and in 11- or 12-point font. Put your name, course and section number, and the date at the top.

1. Think about your goals and how this course will fit into them. And think about your goals for the course in particular - not just what grade you want to earn, but also how you hope it will help you gain skills for other course work, decision-making skills about your life, logical skills to use within your future career, and anything else you can think of that requires careful, skillful thinking. Write a few paragraphs about that, first.

2. Once you've completed that, think about what rules for yourself will most help you. We're thinking about rules for within the classroom - that is, rules about how you and your classmates will be expected to behave.

The books for the course, the order we go through materials, the assignments, the lectures, and the grades - those are all part of the pedagogy (the techniques and theories of teaching). That's all my duty to shape. If you knew how to set up a course to learn this stuff, you wouldn't need me :-)

But the etiquette - do you want everyone to be able to leave cell phones on and take calls in class? Text as much as you want? Wander in and out? - also contributes a major part to everyone's success in the course. That's what I'm asking you to think about. Remember that you have to make rules for everyone - you can't have a special set of rules for yourself, and another set for everyone else.

So think about what atmosphere for learning you want to create, and want your classmates to contribute to creating, that will most help you take in the pedagogy. Once you've given that some considered thought, write another several paragraphs explaining what rules you're proposing, and why.

Your completed paper, with parts one and two, should be at the very least one full page - more likely 2 or more.