EXPECTATIONS:

GENERAL COURTESY:

Whether we meet in person or remotely (when the university calls for it due to winter weather, or it might be the case for some speakers), I expect you to come to class prepared to learn. I love teaching about Earth and environmental sciences, and I want us to make the most of our time together. I expect you to be respectful and participate by asking/ answering questions. Please try to attend as many classes as possible. This will help with overall class engagement and will also allow you to ask questions.

COMMUNICATION:

Two-way communication between the instructor and students is key to the success of any course and for students to achieve their highest potential. Please communicate regularly with me and let me know if you are having any difficulties at all in the course or if something is not clear. I am available to you via email, text or Zoom/ phone call, and happy to answer any questions or provide help with the material when needed, either in person or remotely. I expect students to check their email regularly and reply promptly (within 48 hours) to any direct communication I send them. Please let me know if my communication is ever unclear or if you have any suggestions for improvements in this area. I always welcome them!

ATTENDANCE:

The ASU class attendance policy can be viewed at http://academicaffairs.appstate.edu/syllabi. Attendance is of great value in this class, both for your contribution to class discussions through questions and PollEverywhere and your benefit in understanding the material. I expect you to attend every class (ie, MWF 11:00-11:50 am), or as many as you can, and keep up with anything you miss when absent. Your attendance, whether in person or for remote sessions, will be factored into your class engagement grade. Remember that it is your responsibility to keep track of lecture notes for class periods you miss. See the next section for more details.

ABSENCES:

Attendance is factored into your Class Engagement grade. However, there might be days when you’re not feeling well, have conflicts, or are away on a trip. If you communicate with me about your absence before the lecture (even if a few minutes earlier), you will be able to make up the participation points (you can do this for up to 4 absences). No explanation is needed; just let me know you will be absent. After 4 absences, you will not be able to make up participation points, but you can take advantage of extra credit opportunities to boost your grade.

To make up the participation points: complete the Guided Notes Template for that chapter (and any additional activities that were completed) and submit them to the “Lecture Make-Ups” dropbox in ASULearn (under the Class Engagement category). Make-up assignments need to be submitted before that unit’s exam date.

Please note that some of the “special lectures,” such as guest speakers, team activities, or review sessions, cannot be made up. But you can use extra credit opportunities to recover any missed points (refer to the Absence Policies Flowchart for a recap of the absence policy).

Sometimes emergencies arise, or there are extended medical or family issues that affect a student’s attendance beyond their control. Please communicate with me if this is ever the case, so we can figure out together the best way to support you.

READINGS:

My lectures are designed based on the assumption that you have read the day’s materials before class. They will be fast-paced. Keeping up with the readings will help you focus on the lecture content with some basic knowledge of the topic, rather than coming into class without any knowledge of the subject to be discussed.

University policies state that you are expected to spend about 2-3 hours on “homework” for every hour you spend in class. The class will cover the main concepts in each chapter, but your textbook readings will fill in the gaps, so it’s important for you complete them. The InQuizitive activities (Section 5) will also help you assimilate the material better.

My slides are intended to serve as visual aids during lectures and generally have very little text. They contain images, data visualizations, and sometimes video clips to help you understand the main concepts in each chapter (many match those in your book so you will hopefully recognize them from your reading). If you miss a class or prefer not to take notes during lectures, use the green sheets, guided notes templates, previous slides, and e-textbook as guides to figure out what the important concepts are from each chapter. Just looking through the lecture slides alone will not be very helpful.

CLASS TEAMS:

The class will be divided into 8-10 class teams. The purpose of the teams is to give everyone the opportunity to get to know some people in the class better and provide a smaller environment in which you can support each other, get notes when absent, answer group discussion questions, and attend small study sessions. The class teams will be the same throughout the semester. There will be some group activities, such as discussions and Kahoot challenges that will be instructor-initiated, but for the most part, how often you interact with your team and the method of communication/ meet-up you use between you is entirely up to your team. Sometimes teams set up regular ZOOM calls to go over material and vent frustrations or just hang out, and other times teams set up a GroupMe loop/ text thread and just use it to ask questions about what’s going on in the course, etc.

TECHNOLOGY:

The main webtools/ instructional technology we will use this semester are:

ASU Learn- In the course’s ASULearn portal you can find your grades, past lecture slides, as well as all course documents.
InQuizitives- Interactive homework assignments that are produced by the publisher of the textbook and have been curated by your instructor to match the learning objectives for the chapter/s.
Poll Everywhere- Instead of clickers, we will use PollEverywhere as an interactive tool during lectures. You can access PollEverywhere through any mobile device, laptop

Other tech tools we will use include: VoiceThread (voicethread.com), Padlet (padlet.com), EJSCREEN (https://www.epa.gov/ejscreen), iNaturalist (https://www.inaturalist.org/), and others. All tech tools we use will have free web-based tools and phone apps, and are available through a variety of devices.

INCLEMENT WEATHER:

If in-person classes are canceled due to weather, we will meet on ZOOM. Check your email before class if you get an App weather alert about classes for more specifics.

USE OF AI:

In this course, you are welcome to explore the use of Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, DALL-E, Copilot, etc. These are powerful tools that can help your writing better, help you summarize technical content, review concepts, and brainstorm ideas for projects. However, keep in mind that all large language models can sometimes make up information or come up with inappropriate outputs. You will be responsible for any inaccurate, biased, offensive, or otherwise unethical content you submit, regardless of whether it originally comes from you or an AI tool. If you use any AI tools to create an output that you turn in, you must include a statement somewhere acknowledging their use. Please also note that different courses have different guidelines surrounding the use of AI, and it is the student’s responsibility to conform to the expectations for each course. It is also worth considering the huge, global environmental cost of AI (primarily energy and water consumption) so use it sparingly and don’t depend on it.

CLASS ENGAGEMENT (14% of your grade)

Class Engagement is made up of Poll Everywhere and Self-Assessment participation components. Your Class Engagement grade will be updated 4 times during the semester, once after each unit exam. Like the InQuizitive component, the objective is for you to work on improving your engagement in the class as the semester moves along by evaluating your own progress, rather than just being assigned a grade.

POLL EVERYWHERE (10%)

The PollEverywhere portion is essentially linked to your attendance (you get points for answering the polls when in class).

Recovering Lecture Points:

As mentioned in the Absences policy, you are able to make up 4 missed lectures if you inform your instructor ahead of the class. If you submit the completed Guided Notes Templates for the corresponding missed lecture in the “Lecture Make-Ups” dropbox of ASULearn, you will recover the corresponding percentage of points in the PollEverywhere category. For example, if your PollEv score is 95% because you missed two classes, and you make them up, you will get the 5% back. Please refer to the Absence Policies Flowchart for more help with the absence policy.

Please note that some of the “special lectures” such as guest speakers, team activities or review sessions, cannot be made up. But you can use extra credit opportunities to recover any missed points (refer to the Absence Policies Flowchart for a recap of the absence policy).

Self-Assessment for PARTICIPATION (4%)

The Self-Assessment component will be determined by you, based on active participation in class discussions such as volunteering answers/ asking questions, participating in group activities, interacting with speakers, etc. You will complete 4 self-assessments on class participation, at the start of each of the four sessions marked as REVIEW on the course calendar. I will send you a simple Google form link, and you will complete it during the first few minutes of class with the score you feel you deserve for class participation to that point (I will provide some “categories” to help you self-grade).

HOMEWORK (14% of your grade)

Because class attendance is highly valued in this course, I only assign ~2 hours of homework a week (a lot less than the 6-9 hours that are expected for a 3-credit course, but remember you will also want to spend some time going over material on your own).

Homework assignments will include InQuizitives (see below), and things like VoiceThread, Padlet, or Google Form exercises. Check the course calendar for homework assignments for each week.

InQuizitive is a quizzing tool with gaming elements that supports Norton textbooks like the one we're using. Questions adapt to your progress, so the more questions you answer correctly, the harder they get, to help you gain a deeper understanding of the material and also to help prepare for exams.

You will complete 9 InQuizitive activities in total throughout the semester, generally due every Wednesday at midnight. They can be accessed via ASULearn. Each activity should take less than an hour, depending on how well you know the material and how many points you wager in each question. You can answer as many questions as you want to get up to 100% score. For more information, see https://wwnorton.knowledgeowl.com/help/inquizitive-students

If you need a hw extension for whatever reason, please communicate with your instructor BEFORE the deadline to have it considered. To offer you some grace because things happen, will be able to drop your lowest InQuizitive grade.

EXAMS (72% of your grade)

GENERAL INFORMATION:

There will be four exams during the semester, the fourth one taking place during our Final Exam assigned time. Exams will make up 72% of your grade (each exam being 18%). The exams will be in-person and during our regular class time at 11:00am. They are scheduled on the following dates, and will cover the chapters listed:

Friday September 12th: EXAM 1 (Chapters 1, 2 and 17)

Friday October 10th: EXAM 2 (Chapters 3, 4 and 7)

Friday November 5th: EXAM 3 (Chapters 8, 9, 10 and 11)

Friday December 5th (11:00am Exam Period): EXAM 4 (Chapters 5, 12, 13, and 14)

Exams will be multiple-choice on paper. You will be allowed a double-sided, letter-sized “cheat sheet,” but no technology. You will have 55 minutes to complete each exam, except for the last one, for which you will have 60 minutes. Exams must be taken individually in class and must not be discussed with anyone else in the class until the exam window has closed for everyone.

For more detailed exam guidelines, see the GES1010 Exam Guidelines document.

Click on each of the boxes below to obtain the Chapter Review sheets for each Exam (or here for all of them):

Ch. 1, 2 and 17

Sept.12th

Ch. 3, 4 and 7

Oct. 10th

Ch. 8, 9, 10 & 11

Nov. 5th

Ch. 12, 13, 14 & 5

Dec. 5th

EXAM MAKE-UP POLICIES:

If, for some reason, you are unable to take an exam at the scheduled time, please let me know ASAP so we can arrange for you to take it at an alternate time. If you miss an exam without telling me prior to the exam, you must contact me within 48 hours (except in a medical emergency). Decisions about whether you are allowed to do a make-up exam (with a 25% penalty) will be made on a case-by-case basis. All make-up exams taken after the originally scheduled time will be done in person at an agreed-upon time between the instructor and student. For more details about exam policies for the class, check the Exam Guidelines document on ASULearn.

GRADING

GRADING RUBRIC:

Grades will be calculated based on the following grade components

Exams…………………………….72% (18% each)

Class Engagement ………………..14%

Homework Assignments …………14%

GRADING SCALE:

Letter grades will be apportioned as follows:

A 93 and Above, A- 90 – 92; B+ 87 – 89, B 83 – 86, B- 80 – 82; C+ 77 – 79, C 73 – 76, C- 70 – 72;

D+ 67 – 69, D 63 – 66; D- 60 – 62; F Below 60

CHEATING:

Any student copying from another student on exams will receive an automatic F for that exam and will be referred to the Office of Student Conduct (please see the Academic Integrity Code link).

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