Building and maintaining a vibrant learning community depends on everyone’s commitment to fully engage in all class activities and to support each others’ learning. Attendance, preparation and timeliness is critical for participating and contributing your insights and experiences to the community. You will get full credit for:
Attendance: punctual attendance and thoughtful participation at all class-meetings and retreats is the most critical aspect of the course (see flexibility and accountability)
Nature Connection Practice: regularly engaging in out-of-class nature connection practices
Blogging: reflecting on your practice, all readings in weekly, timely, and thoughtful contributions to our blog
Whole Brain Narrative: written reflection on your own history of nature connection/ disconnection
Community Engagement Project: contributing to a community engagement project
Learning Portfolio: compiling a reflective learning portfolio about your journey in this class
We all come to this course with a variety of experiences, responsibilities, and needs. This means that we are not just students and instructors, but people with lives that will both inform and sometimes interfere with our ability to fully engage. To account for the unexpected situations, you have three “tokens.” Tokens can be used to make up for a late arrival, for a 48 hour extension on an assignment, to redo an assignment or get a pass on a missed home work. You can use one token only for one unexcused absence from class. Your second unexcused absence and each further absence will lower your overall grade by 1/3 (e.g. from an A- to a B+). Please note that you cannot use a token for an unexcused retreat absence. They are too important to miss.
There is no need to tell us why you need to use a token. Just send us a brief email to let us know when and for what you are using it.
Excused absences for which you don't need a token are those that occur because of hospitalization, serious illness, death in a student’s family, important religious holidays, or authorized University activities (University-sponsored athletic events, or the like).
We deeply care about your growth as a person and our goal is to help you live a life of purpose and connection. While we will gauge your work through your contributions to class, you are ultimately accountable to yourself. At the end of the semester, we will therefore ask you to self-assess and give yourself a grade as you reflect on the following questions:
How did you tap into and cultivate your own sense of purpose over the course of the semester? How consistently did you practice being in relationship with nature and otherwise attend to your purpose in taking this class? What supported you or got in the way? What did you learn in the process?
How did you engage with assignments to advance your learning? Did you identify your growth edges and intentionally work to make the work relevant to goals for your life, to connect it to prior knowledge, and to foster curiosity about what you have not yet integrated into your understanding?
How did you tap into and cultivate social support in the class? How consistently did you practice giving and receiving? What helped you or got in the way? What did you learn in the process?
How did you tap into and cultivate joy and playfulness? How consistently did you practice? What supported you or got in the way? What did you learn in the process?
We will compare the grade you give yourself with our observations of your contributions and learning. If there is a big discrepancy between your assessment and ours, we will have a conversation to come to a mutual understanding of what a fair grade may look like.