Assignment
for Week Three
In Freeman and McDonnell's Tough
Decisions read:
- Preface
- chapter 18
(pp 185-211)
- chapter 1 (pp
3-10)
- chapter 2 (pp
11-16)
Please complete
your reading of the Preface and
chapter 18 by Saturday,
and your reading of chapter one
by Thursday or Friday. Chapter
two should be completed by
Monday.
Your primary assignment
this week, in addition to the reading, will be to thoroughly
discuss and render decisions on two case studies: Maggie's
situation in chapter 1, and Jill's in chapter 2. You will
discuss one case study for the first half of the week and
the second case study for the second half of the week.
- The class has been divided
into three groups of six students each. When a group has
only that many members, everyone has responsibility to participate
early, often and actively in these discussions. When someone doesn't
participate it affects everyone else in the group.
- In your group
you will discuss chapter 1 between
Thursday and Saturday, and then post your group decision to the
forum titled "whole class group" any
time before Sunday evening.
- Your discussion
of the second case will begin
on Sunday or Monday and your group decision must be posted to the
forum titled "whole class group" any time before
Tuesday evening (10pm).
- Wednesday will
be for comments on other groups' decisions.
- You will find your group
discussion folders in the Case Studies folder.
Each of the groups
will be discussing the same cases, but whether they will
come to the same or different decisions we don't yet know.
Below you will find
a list of who is in which small group,
and in the classroom, in the case studies folder, you will find a
folder in which
your group will hold its discussions.
So your discussions
this week, at least from Thursday till
Tuesday, will take place pretty much exclusively in your small group.
After
discussing each case thoroughly, you will
need to issue a group report describing what your group's decision
is, and what the reasons for that decision were, and
then post it into the
forum titled "whole class group." Decisions about how
that group report will be written, who will compose
it, what it should say, etc, will be left
to your own group. At a minimum, the report should tell us what you
(as the
decision-making character in the story)
have decided to do, and what your reasons are for choosing to do
that.
Your group does not have
the luxury of not deciding,
just as the people in real situations do
not have the luxury of not deciding.
You should expect that there may be disagreements
within your group about what should be
done, but those disagreements
will have to be worked through so that
the group as a whole comes to a decision.
Your way of working through those disagreements
will be up to you. It will depend on the
group members and
how you choose to do it: by consensus,
by vote, by some other method. It goes
without saying that everyone's opinion
should
be treated with respect.
Everyone in class
will be able to read (if
they want to, it's not required) any or
all of the other groups' discussions, but
please post messages
only into your own group and into the "whole class group" forum.
This week is a little
light on the required reading, so you might
take advantage of the time to start considering what your research
project
will be about. Details of the research
project assignment can be found here. Your topic will need to get approved within the next ten days. It could well take several days or a week of back and forth emails between
us before your
project gets approved, so you'll want to start the process at least a week before the Oct 25th due date. (Note: the usual standard is that you can expect profs to respond to emails within 24-36 hours; I try to respond sooner than that but am not always able to.)
Reminder: Your first Midterm
Self Evaluation is due in about a week. More information available here, enough that would allow you to download the Midterm SE Form and begin to fill it in, if you'd like to get a head start on it. More details will be posted in a few days in the General Stuff forum in the classroom.
Following are the group assignments
for your week three and four discussions. If you do not see your name on this list,
please let me know. There may be a reason, or it may just be an oversight.
Group
A
- Kimberly
- Amy
- Virginia
- Chase
- Shane
- Remy
- Stephanie
- Caitlin
Group
B
- Gina
- Amelia
- Annie
- Kayleigh
- Tae
- Sara
- Lindsay
Group
C
- Ifeanuli
- Michael
- Alexandra
- Tammy
- Kelsey
- Heather
- Mimi