Participation

? Overview

In an effective learning community, all members participate to the best of their abilities. In this class, that primarily consists of being an active, engaged, positive participant in Slack discussions (and, whenever possible, in synchronous classes).

? Rationale

Participation isn’t merely showing up; it’s actively contributing to our learning community on a regular basis. A great learning community benefits from network effects, where each additional positive contributor adds value to the community logarithmically, not linearly. Plus, class is just plain more fun when everyone’s actively engaged and encouraging.

? Structure

For synchronous class meetings, attendance and participation are highly encouraged but optional. If for any reason you’re unable to make a synchronous meeting, I’ll always post a Zoom link of that meeting shortly after, and you’re strongly encouraged to watch those recordings1

For asynchronous online discussions of texts or other assigned topics, I’ll post a series of messages in each discussion group at the start of each discussion period. For books, these messages will largely be chapter titles; for shorter linked readings, just their titles; and for questions or other formats, whatever makes sense.

The goal is for everyone to leave a comment (either an original comment, or a thoughtful response) on each chapter / title / topic / whatever by the time the reading’s due. But, as long as nearly everyone is commenting on nearly everything nearly all of the time—and the energy of the discussion feels good and equitable!—you’ll be fine. The overall aim of your group should be for me to feel that things are going so well in your group that I don’t even feel the need to come in and count posts, etc.

? Grading (20 points, 2 checkpoints x 10 points each)

So that you can know how things are going, your participation grade will be split in half—the first half for Tuesday 5/14 through Friday 5/24, and the second half for Saturday 5/25 through Wednesday 6/5.

Your grade will be based on how timely and complete your participation was and how thoughtful your responses were.

? Timeline

• Checkpoint 1: Friday 5/24
• Checkpoint 2: Wednesday 6/5