Monday, December 5, 2016

Standard Class Information

Below you'll find information related to courses that I teach. You'll note at the bottom that this information is under constant revision in order to best reflect my current philosophy of teaching.

Office Hours

I do not schedule set office hours. I'm generally available and at work between 8:30AM and 7:00PM M-TH and 8:30 to 5:00 on Fridays save for class, research, advising, program meetings, faculty meetings, recruiting visits and other meetings that pop up. With this number of meetings and their often unpredictable nature, I try to make sure that I'm scheduled for meetings rather than random drop by. I also often times work on the weekends between 12:00 and 5:00 at work, but if I'm not at work, I can probably be found at Monks, Jitterz or if its late enough Jubeck's. This means that in order to meet me, you should e-mail first and check when I'm available and then schedule a meeting. You can also try my doodle meetme page to try to request a meeting. I will also hold on-line office hours on twitter, follow @EngagedBrain for updates. By scheduling meetings our time can be more productive because I can prepare for the meeting rather than have to drop whatever I'm working on and try to switch gears.

Lecture Attendance 

Students are required – and expected - to attend all of the classes for every course.  While I will not enforce a daily attendance policy, a failure to attend will reflect poorly in your participation portion of your final grade.  A portion of this grade is reflected in the critical thinking journals, which are randomly distributed throughout the course. If you are going to miss a lecture, please do your best to let me know before class. Also, please do your best to let me know if you have to leave class early. If you need to step out of class to take a break or use the bathroom or for another personal reason, there is no need to ask for permission or let me know.

Class/Lecture Characteristics

All courses have some mixture of lecture/discussion/small group work and student presentations. The mix of these will depend on the particular lecture and the course topic and level. In my reflections, I find that the less I talk, or maybe the more focused my talk is during a class, the better the class goes, so I try to tend towards more active and student driven work.

Absences and Make-ups

It is expected that you will turn in each assignment and take each examination at the scheduled time. A make-up exam can be taken only for excused absences. Unless highly unusual circumstances prevail, approval for excused absences must be obtained prior to the scheduled exam. If you fail to take an examination (an unexcused absence), you will receive a score of zero for that exam.

College Sponsored Events
If you are involved in intercollegiate athletic competitions, theater and choral performances, or debate (or other academic based co-curriculars), and have activities that may conflict with this course you should follow these instructions from the College’s official policies:  
1.     Submit a copy of your team/organization’s schedule to your instructors no later than the first day of class with all specific course conflicts highlighted.
2.     Through oral and email notification, communicate with your instructor(s) at least one class prior to each class that you are scheduled to miss to coordinate how you will make up and turn in missed work.  Your course syllabus may require greater advance notice of a pending absence.  You are expected to make up coursework missed (or an appropriate equivalent) by the original due date.
3.   Forward all relevant changes to the schedule to your instructors as soon as you are notified.
4.    Submit all course syllabi and schedule of course commitments to coach/moderator as soon as possible.
5.   It is a privilege to participate in college sponsored events.  Students found to be intentionally abusing this policy will lose the opportunity to participate in college sponsored events.
This policy does not cover practice/pre-game for any college sponsored event, or academic/co-curricular conferences. Even if your scheduling conflicts are due to college-sponsored activities, there are many “nonreplicable” activities in this course that cannot be made up.  

Posting of Lectures

PDF’s of the lectures will be posted on the eLearn page for your reference.  I will do my best to post lectures within 24 hours after the lecture. This is for both practical (I’m often working on these until the last minute) and pedagogical (I like you to take your own notes) reasons. Please note that these PDFs are not comprehensive in their information as much of what we study in class is through discussion and activities.

Academic Integrity

Loras College’s policy: “Dishonesty (cheating, plagiarism, etc.) in class and/or assigned work will result in total loss of credit for the class and/or assigned work. Dishonesty in examinations, which are not final examinations, will result in total loss of credit for the examination. Dishonesty in final examinations will result in the grade of Fail for the course. All cases of student dishonesty are reported in writing to the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs by the faculty member. The student may appeal cases of dishonesty to the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs.”

Cell phones, etc

Please turn off or silence all electronic devices during class. I will remember to do the same. Feel free to use a computer/tablet for taking notes in class. If you want to record a lecture for personal use, please get my permission and do not post or share it publicly. While I encourage the use of computer in class and try to make purposeful use of them, I do not what you to distract others with your computer usage. There is evidence that off-task computer use affects not only the user but the other students within eye-shot of them, so it took me a long time to consider the data, but it is my hope that everyone remains respectful so that we can harness the power of using computers in class.

Twitter/Social Media

I use several on-line technologies in my courses including (but not limited to) Twitter, YouTube, Blogger, Wordpress, and Tumblr. I do this for several reasons: to practice social media skills, to practice public engagement and communication, and to practice using modern technologies. This means that I require you to follow two twitter handles @LorasNeuro (for program and college announcements) and @EngagedBrain (for class and research announcements). This means that you need to either use your personal twitter handle or create an anonymous one for the purposes of this class (How to sign-up, Getting started).

Getting Help

If you find that you are having difficulties with the any of the material please contact me as soon as possible! Do not wait until late in the course. It is difficult to significantly improve your grade if there are only a few weeks left in the course.  I am happy to help you. Its my job and something that I like. Honestly, I probably do a better job explaining and working with you 1-on-1, but with time constraints try to work with everyone in class. If you are not able to see me during hours that I'm available, we can make other arrangements. You can also find resources at various centers including the Library, Writing Center, Office of Academic Support and Student Counseling Center.

Assignments

If I can't find your assignment or its corrupted or there is some problem with it at the due date, that's a problem and will be considered late. In general, the deadline for assignments should be considered a last resort deadline. I think that everything should really be aimed to be done and turned in the day before the deadline to account for any problems with the submission.

Midterm Grades

Often times my classes are not scheduled in a way to provide accurate feedback of your midterm performance. Yes, I'm sorry that the classes are backend loaded, but I think that it works best for the material, concepts and our learning goals. So that means that at midterm you will all automatically receive a "B-" regardless of what you've done in class so far (unless you're "failing" in which case you will receive an "F"). I'll make sure that I have submitted the things that I've assessed at midterm, but it will be up to you to calculate what that means.

Late Work

10% off everyday after initial due date. No assignments accepted after 10 days past due. Can you have an extension? Sure, any extension only costs 10% per day past the deadline. I don't think that I ever include deadlines or assignments that are not included in the syllabus at the beginning of class. As I note above, the deadline is really the last possible time to have the assignment done and really you should aim to have the assignment done a day before the deadline. Lastly, I will note that any assignment turned in before 5:00AM the day after the assigned deadline will not incur the 10% penalty, though some assignments have hard 9:00PM deadlines and are noted in the syllabus, general assignment page.

Due Time

Assignments are due at 9:00PM on the due date unless otherwise noted. However, I will note that any assignment turned in before 5:00AM the day after the assigned deadline will not incur the 10% penalty as you have decided to impose your own penalty on yourself by foregoing sleep. Late work and due time are not applicable to finals, these are due at the specific time with no exceptions.

Electronic File Naming Conventions

Any file you submit should be in the form:
Lastname_Firstname_Year_AbbreviatedAssignmentName
e.g., Kurczek_Jake_2016_Draft or Kurczek_Jake_2016_AB1

*These policies will be continually updated over time, make sure to check back

FAQ

1. I missed last class, did I miss anything?

Yes, you missed last class and anything that we did during class. Most assignments are turned in on-line so you likely didn't miss an opportunity to turn something in.

2. Can we have class outside?

No, I'm too easily distractible. I also likely find "nice" temperatures for most people to be too warm to be comfortable for me.

3. Do we have class the day before a break?

Are we scheduled to have class on that day or is it part of the break? If our class day falls on the day before break, we will still have class. Is it ok for you to miss it? Sure, you just lose points for that day related to whatever measure assesses that.

4. Its the end of the semester, can we talk about the class?

Well, that depends, do you want to know more about the course topics, maybe, but the end of the semester isn't the best time. I might be able to recommend another class where we can talk about similar topics. Do you want to talk about your grade? No, you're too late. Although I mentioned above that the course is heavily backend loaded, you should have a pretty good idea about what's going on in the course and your performance. The week before finals or the week of finals is too late, and we can't really fix what's already happened. For this reason, you should talk to me at the first sign or worry that you have so that we can proactively figure out how to be successful in the course.

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