We will be engaged in active learning throughout the term. By this, I mean that we will be spending large amounts of time during class doing rather than listening. The Flash widget at Iowa State University's Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning helps explain what I mean. Specifically, when I lecture, you are primarily engaged in remembering factual information. However, when we are implementing and designing programming languages, we are analyzing, evaluating, and creating in the conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive domains. Hence why we will be engaging in fundamentally interactive and discursive modes of learning throughout the term.
Put another way: it is by engaging and reflecting that you learn, not by listening and memorizing.
The breakdown of grades is not final, but you can expect that:
① 20-30% of your grade will come from your active participation in the class. The peer leaders will be helping me keep track of the content and quality of your participation. Below is a minified version of our participation rubric; you can click on it to download a PDF of a larger version.
② 30-40% of your course grade will come from your efforts in editing and writing. We will be editing work from last semester (and applying our understanding of Hacker along the way) as well as writing essays of our own. We will read and discuss the rubrics below in due time.
③ 20-30% of your course grade will come from your project. Specifically, the work you do developing, planning, presenting, advertising, and reporting on your Third Thursday workshop. This is, essentially, a leadership grade. Remember that leadership does not mean "you told everyone what to do." It means "I rolled up my sleeves with my team and done good." I'm excited about these projects, and we'll be using a variety of team and individual evaluation tools to determine how things went.
