To have a lower grade before the final, you could do every assignment but do the work poorly and repeatedly fail to follow instructions OR miss more assignments after the last time the professor drops students (and you won’t know when that will be). If you miss three or more assignments, you are likely to get DROPPED FROM THE CLASS WITH NO FURTHER WARNING. This is your warning.

Assignments get tallied at midterm and again at the end of the semester. There’s no grade to report along the way because you should already know if you’re doing the work or not and you should notice if you get dropped from the class. Every semester, there are people who get dropped for missing assignments and they do not manage to plead their way back into the class. These are easy assignments. Do them.

Specific assignments listed in the Discussions section will guide you through the process of completing your PowerPoint project. Your project gets graded at the end of the semester, after everything else. If you only meet the minimum requirements for the PowerPoint, you become less likely to make an A in the class. Do more.

The “total” or “average” shown in Canvas for the class can be misleading when it includes things that do not count as part of your grades and leaves out some things that do. Ignore that number.

INTERNET ASSIGNMENTS

We will never use chat rooms and you will not have to be online at any specific time of day to do the assignments. Chat room technology for that is still too awkward, not every student’s computer will be able to handle it, and part of the reason for taking an online class is to keep your time flexible.

To do your assignments, check the forum in the Discussions section for this class several times each week. You should not go more than two weekdays in a row without checking the forum. You will either do each assignment on that forum or learn from the forum where to go to do each task. Each response you’re required to make counts as one point simply for following the instructions or minus one point (-1, negative credit) if you don’t do it. You will have several assignments every week. The week’s assignments are posted on the  discussion forum by the end of each Wednesday, and they often appear earlier in the week. If you see no new assignments by Thursday, ask the professor in case of a Canvas error. Because missing an assignment in an online class counts as missing class, anyone who fails to do three or more of the assignments may be dropped from the course without further notice.

The deadline for each assignment is 5 minutes until midnight at the end of each Saturday except when clearly stated otherwise. You can get half credit for up to three assignments completed Sunday – three, no more. No later work will be accepted. Meet the deadlines. Some of them cannot be done late at all.

A few students misunderstand what a “private” topic is on the discussion forum. It is simply one where you cannot see other students’ responses. It is a regular assignment just like anything else, worth the same as other assignments. Do not skip them.

If you wait until that last day and something goes wrong that keeps you from doing the assignment, well, you should have done it earlier because you’ll normally have several days to complete each task. If your Internet is out all day, you are responsible for going somewhere with Internet access. If your wifi is out, you can probably use your phone to create a hotspot with access. The Internet is all around us, the ways to access it are many, and you have chosen to take an online class. Internet access is your responsibility.

If you are unable to post your assignment because your attachment is too large, do not email it to your professor. So far, the only reason any student’s PowerPoint file has ever been too large to post has been because it included one or more images that were too large. Check each image’s file size before you add it to your PowerPoint. If file size is not the problem, the only other reasons any student has had posting have been because they timed out or they skipped a step. Uploading the file, attaching the file, and posting your response are all separate steps. If you are unable to post your assignment on time for any reason, do not email it to your professor. Emailing it does not count. When it comes time to grade your assignments, your professor will only look in the place where the instructions told you to put it. Nobody gets special treatment for failing to follow instructions or extra time for waiting until they did not have enough time left to complete and post by the deadline.

You will complete the course orientation and take a few quizzes online through Canvas. Don’t take any specific quiz until you see the discussion forum tell you to do so, usually a week before finals, although feel free to retake them as often as you want as part of reviewing for the final.

Syllabus Part II: Expected Learning Outcomes, Computer Tips, Disability Services
(not covered by syllabus quiz)

Any information in this syllabus may be subject to change, correction, or other revision.