The central feature of this online course is collaborative work. You will work collaboratively in an online learning community throughout the course, and both students and the teacher will interact through computer-mediated asynchronous comunication.

All learning activities will be done in learning teams, or work groups. Also, all learning activities are organized as units on which you will be working over a period of a week. There are five units in the course, thus five weeks of studies. A collective written output of your team work will be required every week, and it will be part of the assessment of your performance as a student.

The collaborative nature of this course will be made possible by the adoption of two distinct types of comunication technology: an e-mail discussion group and web forums. Each type has a specific function, as is described below.

The e-mail discussion group is an electronic metaphor of the classroom. It simulates a space for the whole class to interact, one where whatever one says is heard by everyone in class. The email discussion group is the medium by which the specific instructions for each of the five weekly units of this course will be given by the teacher. It is also a space for the teacher to provide feedback and information which is relevant for everyone, and for students who have questions and/or comments which may be important for everyone to make them. However, just like you would not expect chitchat about personal matters to be spoken out loud for everyone to hear in a classroom, there is no expectation that personal and non-course related messages be sent to the course discussion group. Please, be thoughtful before using (or abusing!) our e-mail discussion group.

The group web forums are electronic metaphors of the small group arrangement typical of large classes where collaborative work is encouraged. It permits the members of the small group to be focus on learning tasks on a more individualized basis, rehearsing and preparing their contributions to the whole class before speaking in front of the whole class. There will be a web forum for each of the work groups that will be formed for the course activities. The individual postings and contributions to the work group forum will be evidence of individual participation and engagement with the weekly units. Participation and engagement is yet another element of assessment of your performance as a student in this course.

Finally, there will also be a whole-class web forum. It will be the place for postings of the collective written output of the weekly units. So, the whole-class web forum is an electronic metaphor of both the front of the classroom -- where groups are viewed by all -- and of the classroom bulletin board, where students post their written work so that everyone can take a good look at what their classmates have been writing. As the electronic "front of the classroom" space, the whole-class web forum is also the space where the teacher will provide students with feedback on their work in the collaborative teams.

HOME