Your grade will be calculated as follows**
| Assignment name | weight | Due Date |
| classroom observation | 10% | no later than 1-23 |
| textbook review | 10% | 1-30-2018 |
| Syllabus, assignment, exercises, | 15% | 2-27-2018 |
| Case Creation (team), assessment instrument | 20% | 3-20-2018 |
| Pedagogical research design (can be team) | 20% | 4-3-2018 |
| Textbook and comments drafts (can be a team) | 25% | 4-17-2018 |
Curriculum connection
Following are the outcomes with the assignments matched to them
- describe the basic goals of technical and professional communication and the theoretical connection to service course (research design and curriculum creation)
- create instructional materials, including assignments, activities, lesson plans, assessment instruments, and syllabi (curriculum creation and classroom exercises)
- create textbook materials to support instruction of the service courses (textbook and comments; research; classroom exercises)
- demonstrate knowledge of teaching technical communication (all of the assignments)
Turning in Assignments
Please name your files with your
last name underscore name of assignment dot file type
So your textbook review assignment would look something like this:
meloncon_textbook.docx
Groups
I have been a technical writer for over 20 years, and have owned my own business since 1995. I was ill-equipped to deal with collaboration, and it took me years get comfortable with the process of collaboration and become good at it. This personal experience serves as my practical foundation for the continuation of assigning a collaborative project, as well consistently using collaboration in the classroom. As teachers, we have an obligation to expose students to the notion of collaboration while they are in the safe, controlled environment of the classroom.
And since part of this course is learning how to model behavior, we’re going to work on our collaborative skills so that you are better equipped to teach collaboration in your classrooms.
You will be working in small teams to create a case. You will also have the option to do your textbook assignment and your research design in small teams or pairs.
Grading
While it takes a little getting used to, I do not grade in the traditional sense. Instead, the focus of our exercises and assignments are building a knowledge and competency in concepts and skills. This sort of learning is iterative and does not necessarily occur just because I mark up an assignment and give you a grade. The learning happens by my reading and analyzing what you’re doing and then adjusting the course to help you meet the course goals and outcomes. In other words, many of the exercises and class discussions build on previous ideas and concepts to try and ensure that you’re picking up the big ideas for the course.
If at some point you have a concern about where “you’re at” in the course, just ask.
You can read more about this in a blog post I wrote. We will most definitely talk about this strategy during the course not only as it applies to you as a student in the course, but in thinking through how you give feedback when you’re teaching.
**Information is subject to change based on how the course is progressing. No changes will be made without adequate discussions as a class.
Grading Scale
| A+ (97–100) 4.00 | A (94–96.9) 4.00 | A– (90–93.9) 3.67 |
| B+ (87–89.9) 3.33 | B (84–86.9) 3.00 | B– (80–83.9) 2.67 |
| C+ (77–79.9) 2.33 | C (74–76.9) 2.00 | C– (70–73.9) 1.67 |
| D+ (67–69.9) 1.33 | D (64–66.9) 1.00 | D– (60–63.9) 0.67 |