Pay it Forward Discussion Assignment

Students are divided into discussion groups.  For a group's assigned readings, each member is responsible for: 

1. Developing 3-5 thoughtful and engaging discussion questions based on the assigned readings;
2. Posting these discussion questions to his or her WebLog prior to class
2. Preparing to guide and organize class discussion based on the questions.

Question Posing Guidelines

Questions should attempt to make links between various ideas in the text and course, deepen our understanding, or point out anomalies in the argument or style of the author.  Under no condition should discussions questions be easily answered with “yes” or “no” unequivocally.  The best questions will provoke disagreement around interpretation or challenge the class to think beyond the framework of the text. 

Discussion questions and/or the discussions will be assessed using the View and Appreciation aspects of the FYS holistic assessment rubric.

Please know that the development of our learning community in FYS is enhanced immeasurably by the shared responsibility, expressed through our individual effort, for the development of our learning community.

In other words, the success of your learning is as much dependent on your effort and level of engagement as it is on the synergistic effects of our collective efforts and levels of engagement! 

In short, for every class session, when you are prepared it really helps your classmates that are responsible for leading discussion! The discussions will be better and we will all benefit.

Depending on the day, I may or may not ask your group to lead the discussion.