Your final project for our course asks you to synthesize all of the various things that we’ve talked and read about over the course of the semester into a set of course materials that, the hope is, will be useful to you in the near future.
These materials should be for a class at WCU (101 or 202) or a class that you have yet to teach at your institution. If you are not likely to teach a new class any time soon, I ask that you completely (and I do mean completely) re-invent a course that you already teach, with significant variations in the texts you deploy and a completely new set of assignments. If you are designing a WCU 101 or 102 section, email me in order to receive the governing documents for the course, the documents that set the institutional bounds for the courses. If you do not know when you will be teaching, I recommend simply designing a 101 or 202 section.
A complete list of required materials is below. These materials should be presented electronically, in one unified document (MS Word), with a table of contents, and numbered pages. This requirement is primarily intended to facilitate the easy reading of the materials as a coherent unit. It is up to you how to organize the document. If you prefer to present these materials on a website, that would be great.
The major and minor assignments could be revised versions of assignments that you have already generated for our course. But they don’t have to be. I do ask that you generate new assignments, rather than assignments that you have relied upon in the past, if you have prior teaching experience.
Obviously, I will have no way of knowing whether the materials you turn in are entirely new or are rehashes of what you have done for years. I am trusting you to comply with the spirit of this assignment though, which is to re-invent and re-imagine a course, and perhaps even yourself as an instructor. I welcome you to venture beyond your comfort zone, but most especially if you have come to this class with prior teaching experience.
In practice good teachers do and should “steal” assignments from each other shamelessly. Why reinvent the wheel? However, for our purposes, there is value in attempting to come up with original material here. So, even if you would actually crib materials from other teachers and resources for use in your class (and I hope that you would crib them), for this assignment I am asking you to generate entirely original materials.
In addition to the practically oriented materials, I would like for you to provide a metacognitive/reflective/rationalizing document explaining why you have chosen the course that you have, the texts, the assignments, all of its major elements. Basically, justify your decisions and your course design, but don’t be defensive. Within this document you should be explaining your decisions and priorities, not “defending” them.
This assignment is intended to have you begin the process of putting your teaching philosophy into action. And it will have the added benefit of helping you to enter into a semester of teaching with an unusual level of preparation.
These are due on our final class day (12/9), unless an alternate date is negotiated with the instructor in advance.
The Materials Should Include:
- A course description
- A day-by-day syllabus appropriate to the standards of your teaching institution, to include readings, major assignments and their due dates (see below), minor assignments and their due dates (see below), and possibly several “placeholders” to allow for uncertainties
- A policy statement, either with the syllabus or as a separate document, with all the disclaimers required by your teaching institution (disability statement, plagiarism statement, etc) and your own policies for the class
- At least three (3) major writing assignments, fully articulated, with a schedule for completion, and any relevant rubrics. These assignments must incorporate some form of peer review, and require (as opposed to allowing) students to revise substantially after receiving feedback from the instructor.
- Any necessary supplemental prompts, such as specific prompts you intend to use for peer review, revision, etc
- At least four (4) minor assignments (in-class or homework), fully articulated
- A list of texts to be read by students (could be incorporated into another document)
- If you are designing a course for a school other than WCU, please include (preferably digitally) any documentation outlining the policies you must conform to in designing your class (could pertain to policies, curricular requirements, state standards, etc)
- Your metacognitive/reflective document/rationalization
