Reflection, self-analysis, and goal-setting are all key parts of how you succeed here.
Each assignment will be graded with points and have a clear rubric for grading.
We have four major assignments, which are all part of the same research project. The topic is up to you, but we all do these written assignments as we pursue our independent ideas:
a Bias Analysis (a personal essay analyzing your connection to your research topic and analyzing your potential cognitive biases around it)
a Prospectus (formal research proposal)
Annotated Bibliography (write ups on the research we've done, how they help us answer our research questions, and the reliability of sources)
A final presentation of our choice -- students have done literature reviews, podcasts, informative pamphlets, Farmer's Almanac entries, blog posts, IMRAD journal articles, and social media post series.
Not every week, but almost every week will feature a discussion with classmates. These are highlights of our class. Half of us post; the other half reply (we switch off) which leads to rich conversations about what we're studying and confusions we're encountering. We help each other figure out what the ideas mean, apply those ideas to our own projects, and bounce brainstorms off each other.
Each week you fill out a form with about 5 questions. You write around 250 words reflecting on your efforts that week. Did you get frustrated? Get help? How did you unstick yourself? Did you spend adequate time on assignments or get bogged down in non-school work? Did you procrastinate or use a PCC academic resource to help you get on track? These kinds of questions help us metacognitively reflect on how things are going and get help if we need it. Occasionally, I will ask you to quantitatively count up the hours you spent on this class over a week, to get a sense of how your labor is being spent.
There's only one! After we've studied for a few weeks, we'll take a quiz on our knowledge of attribution.
We'll annotate five articles as a class using a technology called Hypothesis. That tech allows you to see others' comments, to reply to them, and to create a conversation around the text. It's a really fun way to annotate as a group!