Each week I ask my students to participate on our class Discussion Boards. These assignments are designed to reinforce critical thinking and writing skills. Active participation will contribute to a positive learning environment. For many of my students, their first few years in college will be the most memorable time of their lives. THEY WERE FOR ME! The Discussion Boards promote meaningful connections with their classmates. Everybody Wins!
Jay's Tips to His Students: Online classes may be new to many of us - Below are a few rules and guidelines to help you succeed:
- Participate - Do not hide in the background; it is not fair to lurk and let others do all the work. Contribute to discussions to get as much as possible from the course and to maintain your participation grade.
- Write for Success - Each time, Try to Improve - Do not fall into sloppy or illogical thinking - Challenge yourself and one another - Write like you mean it - Like you are writing in an essay.
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Reread and check your posts - Practice professionalism. Be mindful of how you look online; others will likely judge the tone and quality of your writing. Reread your posts and edit for clarity and mechanics.
- Follow Jay's Step-by-Step Instructions and Models - 300 Words - BE INTERESTING! - Write what you think is important.
- Don't Forget to Respond to Your Classmates (2) - Support your classmates in a meaningful way - Respond to something specific in their posts - Try to contribute clarifying or reaffirming information or a new idea to a discussion - Show you care - "That's a real good job" by itself is not going to help much. Ask thought-provoking questions.
- Grammar Counts - Punctuation Counts - Sentence Variety Counts - Work hard to get better each time.
- Don't Wait until the LAST MOMENT - Submit EARLY - Leave Time to RESPOND to your Classmates
My goal this semester in the design of my assignments is to offer something for everybody. The more we engage, the more we learn. Each week, Our reading and writing will bring us closer together. The first week of the semester I ask students to design their own "About Me" Page for submission on our Canvas Discussion Board. For their convenience, I provide graphic organizer templates to jumpstart their creations.
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I encourage students to share what they think is Meaningful and/or Important. If they want to draw pictures, that's cool. If they want to upload pictures from ther computer files, that will work. If you know how to insert text in a PDF file, that will look neat!
- I ask them, "How do you want to REPRESENT yourself to your classmates? " I chose Running, Cooking, Spanish, and Gardening. I wrote something about my teaching philosophy. Feel free to write what you want. You decide on your design. IT'S ALL GOOD!
- See my personal sample at the top of this page. I'm and OLD MAN. I went OLD-SCHOOL. I appreciate the opportunity to submit something with a PERSONAL TOUCH.
This is going to be great. You will see.
Paz,
JL
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