The final third of your grade in this course will be assessed based on your homework and class participation. This is everything you contribute to the course other than the exams, and may include a number of assignments to be developed as the semester progresses.
Formative Assessment:
An important part of your learning should be assessing how you are doing in the course. This type of assessment works best under two conditions: first, it is done on a regular basis and second, the stakes are low. Note that the exams for this course, which only occur three times during the semester, and which account for two thirds of your final grade do not satisfy these conditions.
For each chapter we study, you should do the Graded Problem sets on the course Aplia site (www.aplia.com).
For each problem set on which you earn 70% or better, I will give you full credit for the assignment. Remember, the primary purpose here is to help you assess how well you are learning the material. It’s not to give you a grade. If you do well on the problem sets, that’s a signal that you should do well on the exams.
Weekly Twitter Messages:
I assume that you will come to class on a regular basis and read the appropriate chapters in the Hall & Lieberman text. At the end of each week, I want you send me a twitter message to tell me how your learning is going in the course. Twitter is a micro-blogging tool that is ideal for sending short messages. For more information, see below.
After coming to class and reading the book, I want you to let me know what course material you still don’t understand in your twitter message. If you understand all the course material, let me know that in your twitter message.
If you tell me what you don’t understand some topic, I won’t call on you in class to explain it. If you say you understand everything, I will assume I can call on you. The purpose is not to trick you or catch you out, but to give you incentives to be accountable. It’s easy. As long as you send me a message at least once a week, I will credit you with the homework points.
Please go to twitter.com to set up a twitter account. Send a friend request to ‘econ201′ which will be the class mailbox on twitter. Once confirmed, your weekly twitter messages will show up there. (You don’t need to send a ‘direct message’. A normal message will work just fine.)
Your Homework Grade for the course will be the average of the grades you get for the Aplia problem sets, and your weekly twitter messages. Your homework grade can be raised or lowered (unlikely) based on your class participation as described below. The grading criteria for class participation are explained here.
If you receive:
- An A in class participation –> Your homework grade will be raised one letter grade
- A B in class participation –> Your homework grade will be raised one half a letter grade
- A C in class participation –> Your homework grade will stay the same
- A D in class participation –> Your homework grade will be lowered one half a letter grade
- An F in class participation –> Your homework grade will be lowered one letter grade
