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You will add value to your peers' experience by contributing in class and on the blog.

Value Added

You will add value by enhancing the learning environment for your fellow students

You all start out with an assumed passing score for involvement. It's up to you to determine if that score increases or decreases.

Adding Value includes asking questions about topics in such a way that your question and the answer also help your fellow classmates. You can ask questions in class, or by posting them on the class blog. I will respond directly to each question asked. Also, if I think the rest of the class can benefit from the question and answer, I will reformat the question to preserve the anonymity of the asker and post both question and response on the blog, so that everyone can benefit.

Condition

Adding Value includes posting comments to the class blog. You don't have to do this each day, but

• you will have to post a note introducing yourselves after the first session,
• you will have to post a note about starters you present in class on the blog,
• and you will surely have something to say about one or more of the other starters or blog postings presented to you daily.

When you do a posting on the blog, be sure to use a label to identify yourself. At the end of the semester, I will look through your postings and if they are not labeled, I might miss them and thus you might not receive credit for them.

I will expect each of you to do at least one starter,
to post information about your starter to the blog,
to comment at least once on a classmate's posting.
and to create a posting for your peers to read about once every two weeks.

We should expect to see at least one posting from each of you all every four class sessions, whether you have done a starter or not. It's reasonable to expect everyone to have something to add to the blog conversations.

Standard

There is no doubt that everyone in the class will be an expert in at least one area and Adding Value also includes offering to display your skills in an area related to the topic under discussion so that we may all learn from and with you.

Be active and involved, but remember: quality of input far outweighs quantity.
During class, you will want to respect your fellow students by paying more attention to the class topics, and less to what is happening on social networking sites.

Attendance is a key indicator of your participation

I won't take roll daily, but I will notice your absence. It is very important that you do not miss classes. If you do miss classes, you would be wise to talk to me about it, either before or after the session you miss.

The amount of points earned for Adding Value is a subjective judgment and I will be making the subjective call, at the end of the semester. Therefore, you will see part of your Adding Value increase as I notice that you have done things that are listed in your gradesheet . You should have a feel for how well you are doing in this area if you follow the advice on this page.