MOdule Reflections
Activities and reflection help students connect with the material and become engaged in the topics covered. These interactive assignments will help build your critical thinking and informed opinions on often controversial issues. These assignments will also encourage you to reflect on your own learning experience.
Part 1: Complete the Interactivities
Each module, you will have three interactivities to complete. Each interactivity will include watching videos, completing activities, and/or finding information from websites/news articles. Some interactivities will take longer to complete than others, they are not all equal.
Videos: There is a link to the YouTube Playlist at the top and the playlist is embedded into Blackboard. Please watch the videos in order in the Playlist.
Some interactivities contain Mini-Lectures with me. These are short videos (3-10 minutes) about specific concepts. Then, you may have supplemental videos to help enhance your learning to real-world contexts.
Some documentaries may not be on YouTube, so there will also be links to external videos that you may need to log into through the SHSU library. The total length of the video(s) is listed at the top.
Websites/brief articles: For some interactivities, you will need to visit external websites to track down information about the topic. This is intended to help you practice finding information from reputable sources.
Quizizz, Kahoot, or Other Activities: In a few interactivities, you will have activities through apps external to SHSU. These are intended to be fun short exercises. I will not record a grade for them. As long as you complete them, you will earn full credit. Choose a username that you will use throughout the semester for all the apps. It does not need to be your actual name.
Discord Prompts: Each module, you'll also be given a prompt to answer in the Discord discussions. The prompt will be located within one of the interactivities.
There will also be optional readings/resources. These really are optional! I provide them if you'd like to dive deeper into the material, but you're not required to read them.
Part 2: complete And submit the Module Reflection
Reflection Prompts
Be sure you answer each of the prompts located on Blackboard in each Module. I provide recommended lengths, but as long as you fully answer the prompts, it is fine if your responses are over or under the recommended length.
Although I grade these reflections, they are really for you! They are intended to help you remember the content and apply it to long-term memory. By thinking about the content and your experiences learning, you are more likely to recall the information later in life. Also, you'll now have something you can always access and look back on outside of Blackboard!
Each reflection entry is worth 50 points!
Criteria for Success
You must complete all the tasks in the interactivities and then complete your module reflection using the prompts provided on Blackboard.
Imagine you are writing these reflections like a blog post: a discussion or informational web post consisting of discrete, often diary-style text entries. Imagine you are explaining the material to someone outside the class who may have little-to-no backboard in Victim Studies or Criminal Justice. Then, you are reflecting and describing your experience in the course, which research indicates helps you connect with and remember the material long-term.
I help guide you through this process by giving you specific questions to answer. You can go beyond these questions. I will never mark you down for providing more information. At the minimum, in order to explain/summarize what you learned, you must have responses to the questions.
In this class, I also ask you to make informed opinions related to the content. Thus, I may ask what you think or what is your opinion. For those questions, you should use the course content to inform your opinion, but you can also use personal experiences or other content. Your answers will be personal and meaningful to you.
You will be graded on whether you fully answered all questions in the prompt as grounded in the information from the interactivites. You can and should use content summarized in this class to formulate your responses. You can also use outside sources, but please link or cite them. You can also talk about your personal experiences, but please remember that I am a mandatory reporter, which includes course assignments. To avoid triggering a report, leave out specific dates, names, and locations (unless you want me to report, which I will!).
I will also ask you to reflect on your learning. Research shows that when we actively reflect on our learning experiences, it helps us better connect and remember the material. There are no right or wrong answers here. Just be sure to provide some detail on your experience learning that module. I provide you with specific questions to respond to.
The best reflections will fully answer the prompts, use specific examples, definitions, and statistics/figures from the course, and represent logical coherent thoughts written with full sentences.
Module reflections are best completed by each Monday 11:59pm
Submitting your reflections
You will need to fill in your responses to the prompts in your e-portfolio that you created in Module 1 then share the link in the Blackboard submission. Be sure to click publish each time you make a change in your e-portfolio! Otherwise, your changes will not show up in the shared link. Also, in your submission, please include any private feedback or questions you have for Dr. B.
Under each Module in Blackboard, you'll see an assignment (#.4) with the corresponding module number. Please submit the link to your e-portfolio/module reflections page there. You might be thinking, "Dr. B. has the link, why do I need to submit each time?" There are a few reasons. 1) Submitting for each module notifies me when you're finished with that specific reflection and it is ready for us to grade. 2) Submitting through Blackboard allows us to use the rubric to grade and give you specific detailed feedback. 3) Having everything on Blackboard makes it much easier for us to track submissions and ensure your grade is accurate.
I welcome resubmissions! If you missed part of the prompt and would like to resubmit based on the feedback provided in Blackboard, simply submit the link to your e-portfolio again as a second attempt.
For more guidance on submitting in Blackboard, visit the "navigating the course page." For more guidance on the e-portfolio, visit the e-portfolio page.