Assessment

Assignment Linked Leanring Outcomes % of Course grade
Reflective Learning Journal 1 (a), 2 (b), 3(c), 4(d) 20%
Forum Presentations 2 (b), 3 (c), 4 (d) 20%
Forum Interactions 1 (a), 2 (b), 5 (e) 20% (5 @ 4% each)
Final Project 2 (b), 4 (d), 5 (e) 40%
Total
100%

Key: TWU Student Learning Outcome number (Course Student Learning Outcome letter)

The course grade will be based on the student’s class participation and on his/her performance on the following assigned projects:

Assessment: Reflective Learning Journal (20%)

You should consider your journal as a place to try out new ideas and test your assumptions.

For the reflective journals, base your comments around 2-3 key ideas from the course texts (at least one idea from each text) and follow these steps:

  • First identify the key ideas (terms, concepts, analogies, viewpoints expressed in the text, etc.) you wish to comment on.
  • Second, explain them concisely in a few words or sentences. Show you understand them.
  • Third, give your own reflections on them. Here are some suggestions for how to do that:
    • Do you agree or disagree? Why?
    • Do you find the issue esp. difficult, or quite straightforward? Why?
    • Do you have any experiences which might provide guidance for you in working through the ethical questions in the text?

These will be 250-300 words in length. Due Date: Latest date for submission of your journal is during the final week of the course but you are welcome to submit it at any time after the course begins.

Online Forum Presentations & Forum Interactions

Forum Presentations (20%)

In the first week of the course, students will sign up for one online forum seminar presentation. You will look at the presentation schedule and select the date and section on which you would like to present. Your presentation will cover the reading assigned for the date you choose. For instance, a student who chooses December 12 would present on the Lewis text, Mere Christianity, Book II, Chapters 1-5.

What the presentations will consist of:

Your seminar presentation will consist of the following two parts:

  • A basic summary of the author’s most important ideas. Your rule of thumb will be that what the author emphasizes, your summary will emphasize, and
  • Your assessment of, and response to, the passage. This is your opportunity to interact with the article and to bring your own experiences and perspectives to it. For example, after reading this passage, what questions do you still have? Does this description of Christianity fit with the way you see Christianity expressed and lived out in our culture? Would you have written any part of this passage differently? Highlight points of agreement and disagreement with the author and draw out any assumptions you find the author making.

Note: Here is a resource which provides explanatory comments on ‘Mere Christianity’. You are welcome to refer to this to help grasp the concepts in this book, however, you are encouraged first to read and wrestle with the passage you are summarizing on your own before referring to this resource.

Your presentation should be 1200-1500 words in length with approximately 2/3 summary and 1/3 assessment. You are encouraged to proofread your presentation, checking for grammar, best word choice, and sentence structure before posting it.

How do the presentations work?

Your presentation will be due on the date for which you sign up, and on that day, you will post it to the Moodle forum by the end of the day no later than midnight. For instance, if a student chooses to present on the December 12 reading, Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book II, Chpts 1-5, the presentation needs to be posted no later than midnight on December 12. This means that each Monday, a new student presentation/s will be posted. It is imperative that presentations be posted on time so your class colleagues can have the next four days to post comments and questions to them.

How to post your presentations:

Click on the ‘Presentation Uploads’ button near the top of the Moodle course home page.

Note: When you post your presentation to the forum, please also email it directly to the professor as a Word document attachment to receive feedback and grade. Paul Chamberlain

Forum Interactions (20%)

How to reply to the presentations and posts of others:

Once the presentation for the week is posted, all other class members will then begin posting their own responses to it. Each student will post one response of at least 100-150 words to the presentation. These must be posted no later than the Thursday (by midnight) following the student presentation/s for that week.

Note: On weeks where there is more than one presentation posted, simply choose one and write your 100-150 word post in response to it.

Each student will also submit at least three more posts to the responses of other class members, due the following Monday at midnight each week. The responses to other students’ responses may be shorter, approximately 50-75 words.

Note: There will normally be more than one presentation posted each week. You are free to divide your three smaller responses up among them as you wish.

Important Note: Please see the resource entitled, How to write a good forum response for further suggestions on how to construct strong and effective replies.

Students who posted the presentation for the week (presenters) will reply to all postings which are in direct response to their presentations, (to a maximum of 6 required responses) and are free to reply to other postings as well. Presenters are encouraged to begin replying to responses from classmates as soon as they come in and continue doing so throughout the week. This will create steady forum dialogue each week. Please note that the week on which you present may be your busiest week of the course so you are advised to set aside time for it.

Forum responses are opportunities to state your agreement/disagreement with specific points made by the presenter or other students and to add your own perspectives to the discussion. They will be evaluated based on the insight and understanding of the material they reflect as well as the clarity of thought and communication they demonstrate. One extra rule of thumb: Good writing is concise writing. it’s always good to be concise and clear and to economize words wherever possible.

Value of forum presentation posted: 20%

Total value of all forum Interaction postings: 20%

To begin our online discussions in this course, you are asked to complete the following forum post after reading Unit 1.

Unit 1 Discussion Forum

As stated in the Unit Overview, this course really engages three questions:

  1. What is culture?
  2. What is Christianity?
  3. How do these two relate?

For this week’s forum, I’d like us to think hard about the concept of culture. If you have ever attempted to define culture, you will know that while it’s a common term and one we use regularly, it is not easy to define. One old but still well-accepted definition is > that culture is “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” (Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, 1871).

After thinking about this definition for a moment, for this week’s forum I’d like us to give three defining characteristics of Canadian culture. In other words, think of it as filling in this blank three different times:

_________________________ is a widely held value in Canadian culture.

By defining characteristics, I mean foundational underlying values that you believe are held by the vast majority of Canadians. While we have many differences amongst ourselves as Canadians, what are those underlying values upon which the vast majority of us would agree?

A way to think of this is to imagine two people arguing with each other and disagreeing strongly about a certain idea. Then ask yourself if there is some deeper underlying idea upon which these two arguers agree that makes their specific disagreement possible.

For instance, if two people are arguing about the correct meaning of a certain statement in a book, or the Bible, or the Charter of Rights (one thinks the text means this—the other, something different), consider the fact that their disagreement about the correct meaning of this text is only possible because they both agree on the more foundational idea that texts have meanings and this text does have a correct meaning. If they didn’t believe there was a correct meaning in this text, then they would never argue about what the correct one is.

One more example: when one politician accuses another of promoting a policy which would undermine democracy, and the other fires back that his/her policy does NOT undermine democracy, what are both politicians implicitly valuing? The answer is democracy. They both agree that democracy is good and valuable. If they didn’t, they would not have this specific disagreement.

I hope we see the point here. In our culture, we have many disagreements but actually most of them are possible because of some deeper, more foundational points of agreement held across the culture.

For this week’s forum, your task is to identify three of these. These are the foundational values or ideas upon which the majority of Canadians agree. We could call these our cultural values.

So for the forum discussion this week, please do the following three times:

  1. state an underlying value you believe is widely held across culture, and
  2. explain briefly how you have seen it expressed or lived out in Canadian culture.

Total: 100-150 words

Then respond to the suggestions of three of your class colleagues (50-75 words each). State your agreement or disagreement, along with your own reasons for it. I look forward to some lively and informative interaction on both of these.