
WEEK 01 DISCUSSION BOARD
Note: Creation of Groups
This course is organized in a way that you are able to regularly interact with others within a small group of approximately five class members. In fact, when you post comments to discussion board, these comments will be distributed to others within your small group. For the sake of maximizing learning, you are strongly encouraged to get to know others within your group and to be a contributing and cooperative member by looking for little ways to contribute to the learning of others. This is the Spirit of BYU-Idaho and is consistent with the learning model.
Group assignments will be randomly created in Week 1. In order to provide an opportunity for you to work with a larger number of students within the class, the groups will dissolve and new groups will be randomly re-created near the midterm of the semester (beginning of Week 7). Once again, when the new groups are created, please make the effort to get to know other group members. Doing so is a demonstration of charity. Also, keep in mind that during Week 6 and Week 12, you will evaluate the quality of discussion board posts of other group members, as mentioned in the syllabus.
Discussion Board Posts
The purpose of the discussion board is to provide a setting where students can submit and react to one another’s posts, in preparation for submitting a post to one’s personal, online marriage blog. Think of the discussion board as the work room where students teach one another and work together in order to increase the depth of learning and to prepare blogs that will help strengthen marriages. The discussion board is one of the primary learning tools for this course. Hopefully students will use it for its intended purpose. The effectiveness of the discussion board is dependent on the quality of interactions among students within a given group.
At the beginning of Week 1, students will be assigned to a group of approximately five students. Near the midterm of the semester the old groups will be dissolved and students will once again be assigned to a new group at the beginning of Week 7. This will provide an opportunity for students to work within two different groups during the course of the semester.
Initial Post: Due by Wednesday before 11:59 PM – As noted above, the rough draft of your post for your marriage blog is to be submitted to the discussion board no later than Wednesday evening. You will want to give group members as much time as possible to react to your post, so if possible submit it before Wednesday evening.
Second Post: Due by Friday before 11:59 PM - After the initial post of your rough draft, you are to read the rough draft posts from at least three other group members and react to what they have written. You are encouraged to respond by: posing good questions that further learning, sharing thoughts from a different perspective, building upon the comments of others, sharing an example that illustrates a principle or concept discussed by another member, sharing thoughts on how a principle could be applied, or by linking the comments of other group members to class readings or ideas learned in other classes. You are responsible to help other group members to create a blog that contains in-depth thoughts and is as polished and possible. Along with reacting to content, your efforts will be appreciated by group members if you point out errors in punctuation, grammar, sentence structure, etc. Especially pay attention to the context of what is written. Do the explanations from other students make sense and do they provide the background information needed to understand the principles?
Evaluation of Discussion Board Posts
Two times during the semester, your discussion board posts will be anonymously evaluated by your peers in your group using the "Discussion Board Grading Rubric," which is to be completed through I-Learn. This rubric is posted on I-Learn under “Discussion Board Peer Review” in weeks 6 and 12. You are entrusted to be honest in your evaluations. Assigning a student higher marks than what a student has earned not only does a particular student a disservice, but is dishonest. Moreover, inflated peer evaluations that are obviously out of touch with the quality of work of peers will negatively affect an evaluator’s grade. In short, you are expected to be honest in your evaluations of peers.
Peer evaluations will be based on the following criteria: (Worth 24 points each; 48 points total)
- Preparation: It is evident the student studied the assigned preparation material and was fully prepared to contribute to the learning of others and did not "wing it."
- Consistency: This group member consistently posted the rough draft of his/her blog to the discussion board by Wednesday, at the latest. Moreover, this group member consistently reacted to three group members’ posts per week and did so by Friday evening, at the latest.
- Depth of Feedback: Frank, in-depth feedback was given. The feedback helped group members to think more deeply about their written comments and to articulate their thoughts in a concise, logical, and persuasive manner. The feedback also focused on helping group members provide the context or background information so that posts would make sense to those who were unfamiliar with the content of the course.
- Helpfulness: This group member was genuinely interested in helping others improve their blogs. This member was patient, positive, and demonstrated charity through a willingness to go the extra mile to help other group members.
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