How to be successful in completing
this course.
One
of the things that I have learned over the past 10+ years of developing and teaching
Web based courses, is that students take different approaches to completing (or
not completing) Web based courses. I
believe that the key to completing this course during the semester you are
enrolled is to treat it like a regular discussion/lecture class where you meet
2-3 times each week. Do the following:
1. As you attend classes some 3
or more times a week and work on assignments for another 3+ hours a week, take
this Web based course the same way. Get
into a regular schedule of attending “Class”, that is, schedule about 5-6 hours
each week (during a regular semester, 10-12 hours during the summer) for
working for reading and completing the assignments. Make it the same time each week and stick
with this schedule. It is too easy to
put it off until tomorrow (and tomorrow becomes next year). You will have about 3 assignments each week
on average (in a regular semester).
2. I will encourage everyone to
complete the course within the semester that they enroll. If you start early in the semester and do
some work each week you will get it done.
Do not be surprised if I “get on you” if you are not working on the
course and sending, via email, assignments.
I have had students complete the entire course in 3-4 weeks. You can do the same. If you decide that you do like Web based
courses, then by starting early in the semester you have the opportunity to
drop the course if desired. Do not wait
until the end of the semester or the following semester to start the course and
find out that you do not like or want to deal with Web based courses. I will NOT approve and sign a drop course
form after the semester has ended for the semester enrolled.
3. Some students make the
mistake of only doing assignments that are listed in the course syllabus. This course is a lot more than doing
assignments. I provide some excellent
information and resources relating to injury prevention and safety, so read all
required paper and Web based readings.
Some of the assignments are only listed in the course syllabus (these are
provided with great detail in the course syllabus). Some of the assignments are easily viewed in
the list of topics or sub-topics on the course Web page(s). Some of the assignments are located deep within
the topic areas and you will have to go through the content and topic areas to
find these assignments. A list of all
assignments is listed in the course syllabus.
The list of assignments may not be shown in the order that they would appear
in the topic areas. REMEMBER, one of the
purposes of this course is NOT to have students just do assignments, but to
also learn some important information about injury prevention and safety that
will last you a lifetime. I will try to
answer any questions you have about course assignments and send those questions
to me at safety@siu.edu.
4. If you want to start the
course early, please do so, but please contact me first before proceeding (safety@siu.edu).
5. The course is setup in such
a way that assignments have to be completed in a separate format, where the
test answers, paper, etc. are sent to me electronically. I am trying to make this course a paperless
course and handing papers in to me or sending them to me via snailmail defeats this purpose. I am always working on ways to simplify the
process that a student would follow to submit assignments to me. When sending me (safety@siu.edu) assignments, you can do so
either one or more ways:
a. Send the assignment within
or as a part of the email message itself.
Some students find that this is a good way, because it eliminates having
to type the answers or paper in a word processing format and then sending the
paper as an attachment.
b. Send the assignment as an
attachment to an email message. This
provides the “cleanest copy”. However,
you need to know how your email program (either as a stand alone program or
within an Internet program) allows you to attach a file to an email message. Usually there is an “Attach file” item under
the “Message” menu. After highlighting
the “Attach file”, locate the disk drive where you saved the file from your
word processing program and then attach the file to the email message. Send message.
Microsoft Word wordprocessing program works
best for me at this time. I can usually
open up WordPerfect files. I usually can
NOT open up Microsoft Works files, so it is best to not trying them such
attached files to me. It is always best
to save any file sent to me in a .rtf format (rich
text format).
c. Some students will highlight
the assignment (for example a test) on the Web and copy it to a word processing
file, answer the questions in the file format, save the file, and send it as an
attachment.
d. Any method is okay with your
instructor.
6. I will try to give you a
grade on any sent assignment within 2 days.
There are times when I am out of town and unavailable for some
days. I will usually send the students
enrolled in a Web based course an email message indicating my unavailability
from the University. If you do not get a
response from me in one week, then please send me another email message. With the recent placement of spam protection
program both at SIUC and on my own computer at home, some messages may get put
into the spam trash file as they come into my computer. I try to check the spam trash before I
totally eliminate assignments from students.
7. All assignments sent to me
should include in the “subject” area of the message the course number, the
semester and year enrolled, the name of the assignment, and your name (for
example, HED 313s, Spring 2007, Test #1, Jane Doe). I get many assignments from students with
just their email address and nothing else. I also have students enrolled in HED 313s who
have not completed the course from past semesters. If you send an attachment as a part of an
email message, make sure your name, semester enrolled, and assignment title are
also on the attachment file (name on top of a paper). Also, a student will send me assignments from
2-4 different email address. It helps me
keep track of who sends what and when, in order. Including the appropriate information in the
Subject header also helps you keep track of the assignments you sent me and the
scores that you receive on each.
8. Send only ONE assignment per
email message. I will grade the
assignment and send the results back to you via email. If you send more than one assignment per
email message, you will not know what score relates to what assignment you sent
me.
9. If any Web based link is
unavailable to you (it will not show or load-up) when you try to access it,
then please send such information to your instructor (safety@siu.edu). From time to time (with some Web sites it
seems like it is happening every 2-3 months), Web page URLs change and you can
help me by sending information on such.
However, most of the time, when a Web page does not load-up on a
student’s computer, the computer does not have enough RAM (random access
memory). This Web course works best when
you have a computer with Window 95 or newer and have at least 32mb of RAM or
greater (64mb is better). If your
computer is 5 years or older, you may not have enough RAM memory in your
computer.
10. Please keep track on what
assignments you send and the score you receive on each. I keep a copy of everything you send to me
electronically and keep a record of the grade that you earn on each, but you
could help me by keeping track of your own scores. Print out a copy of the course syllabus
(assignment) from the Web and fill in the grade for each assignment when you
receive such information from me. When
you are near completing the course, please email me and I can provide for you
what you have left to do in the course.
It is your responsibility to keep track of the assignments that you have
sent to me and I have scored. If you
have completed a portion of the assignments, do not ask me to tell you what you
still need to do, again that is your responsibility.
11. I would suggest that you
keep a copy of any and all email messages I send to you and you send to me with
your grades and keep file copies of your papers until you receive the final
grade for the course from the University.
Sometimes I do not record a score for a particular assignment (usually because
of receiving many assignments at the same time) and you can help yourself and
me by keeping this information too.
12. From time to time, I may ask
you to redo an assignment, because I feel that you can do better or to have you
provide me with more complete information.
Please redo the assignment. A
better score on the assignment is to your benefit.
13. At about the 1/3 point of
the course, you are asked to request from me videos on farm safety, fire
prevention, lead poisoning, and child safety seats. The
videos that one has to review for HED 313s relating to farm safety, child
safety seats, lead poisoning, fire prevention, and bicycle helmets can be seen
in two different formats (wmv and mpg) at http://www.kittle.siu.edu/ritzel/313/. Also during the course, and for
various topics, the instructor has identified videos that you are to watch at
various online sources, particularly YouTube.
Please watch these videos, because they can only enhance the topics that you
are studying. With some of the videos you can learn bonus points in the
course by providing a review of such.
14. I typically get around 800+
assignments in this course from the students enrolled each semester. As I indicated earlier, it is best that you
send me the assignments as you do them, instead of sending me many, most, or
all at one time. It is the likelihood
that towards the end of a regular semester you may not get scores on
assignments that you have sent me, even though I would have graded them. This happens when many students wake-up and
decide that they need to do assignments in order to complete the course. When I get too many assignments at one time,
I will grade them and record them, but you may not get scores returned to
you. You have to realize that on
average, I spend one hour per week per student in Web based courses, so if I
have 30 students enrolled in various ILP courses, I am spending, on average, 30
hours per week dealing these classes.
15.
Starting 1 January 2003, any
student enrolled in a section of an Individual Learning Program (ILP), Web based course
through the SIUC Division of Continuing Education offered during
Spring semester 2003 and afterward and taught by Dale O. Ritzel will have to
complete the course within the 20 weeks from the date of enrollment. If the coursework is not complete completed
within 20 weeks, the student may request an extension. An extension will only be granted if 20% or
more of the coursework (168 points or more) is completed and an extension fee
of $35 per course is paid to the SIUC Division of Continuing Education at the
time of the request. Since grades have
to be received by the University at the end of the regular semester, the
student will receive a grade of INC (incomplete) if they have not completed ALL
assignments. If an extension has been
approved by Continuing Education, then you have one year from the end of the
semester which you initially enrolled in HED 313s to complete the course. If the work is not completed within one year,
the University automatically turns the grade into an F. I will only complete and process a grade
change card when you finish ALL of the course assignments. If the student does not complete the ILP
course in 20 weeks, the final grade given after completion of all course work
will be dropped by one grade up to the one year time frame. Do not ask me to sign a form allowing you to
drop the course if the semester you were enrolled in the course has been
completed. In
order to receive a grade in any course, you must complete ALL assignments.
Comments: Webmaster - EOE - Privacy Policy – 22 November 2009