EXPECTATIONS:

GENERAL COURTESY:

Whether we meet in person or remotely (as will be the case for some speakers and for exams), 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 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 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 you. Please let me know if my communication is ever not clear or you have any suggestions for improvements in this area, I 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 own benefit in understanding the material. I expect you to attend every class (ie. MWF 11:00-11:50am), and keep up with anything you miss when absent. Your attendance, whether in person or for remote sessions (for some speakers), will be factored into your class participation grade (which will be self-assessed by the student several times a semester). 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 needed, just let me know you will be absent. After 4 absences, you will not be able to make up participation points but 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.

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 prior to 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 you complete them. The InQuizitive activities 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.
Poll Everywhere- Instead of clickers, we will use PollEverywhere as an interactive tool during lectures. You can access PollEverywhere through any mobile device, laptop
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.

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:

In the event that in person classes are canceled due to weather, we will probably still 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.

CLASS ENGAGEMENT (14% of your grade)

Class Engagement is made up of Poll Everywhere and "Other" participation components. Your Class Engagement grade will be updated 4 times during the semester, one 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. This is a formative type of assessment that allows for improvement until success is reached, everyone should be able to obtain the full 14% if the effort is put in.

POLL EVERYWHERE (10%)

The PollEverywhere portion is essentially linked to your attendance (you get points for answering the polls when in class). You can get an idea of how you are doing on PollEverywhere by logging into the App online (PolEv.com) or on your phone and looking up your "Response History" for our class.

"OTHER" PARTICIPATION (4%)

The "Other" component is self-graded and includes 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).

INQUIZITIVES (14% of your grade)

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 10 Inquisitive activities in total throughout the semester, generally due every Wednesday. 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. You can answer as many questions as you want to get up to 100% score. Check out the video for more details, or go to the InQuizitive help page.

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 online but will take place during our regular class time at 9:00am. The dates of the exams and chapters they cover are listed below.

Exams will be multiple choice and open notebook/ textbook. This does not mean they will be easier, so make sure you are keeping up with the material and taking good notes. You will only have 55 minutes to complete each exam, except for the last one for which you will have 60 minutes. Exams must be taken individually, without the help of anyone else, and must not be discussed with anyone else in the class until the exam window has closed.

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.13th

Ch. 3, 4 and 7

Oct. 11th

Ch. 8, 9, 10 & 11

Nov. 8th

Ch. 12, 13, 14 & 5

Dec. 6th

MAKE UP POLICIES:

If, for some reason, you are unable to take an exam at the appropriate 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 for in a medical emergency, then just contact me as soon as possible). Decisions about whether you are allowed to do a make-up exam will be made on a case to case basis. All make-up exams taken after the originally scheduled time, will be done in person (except for medical exemptions). For more details about exam policies for the class, check the Exam Guidelines document on ASULearn.

GRADING

GRADING RUBRIC:

You can check your grades any time on ASULearn. Grades will be calculated based on the following grade components

Online Exams…………….72% (18% each)
Class Engagement.…….14 %
InQuizitives....................14%

GRADING SCALE:

Letter grades will be apportioned as follow:

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 above).

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