Summer2 2013 Ethics Chat Instructions

Return to Ethics -- Benin

For your online course, you will be asked to engage in an online discussion through small chat groups.

Chat Schedule

Week 1: 7/8-7/15:

• 1A 7/9 Tues 11am
• 1B 7/9 Tues 8pm : Lacey, Katie, Piper
• 2A 7/11 Thurs 11am: Lacey
• 2B 7/11 Thurs 8pm: Katie, Piper

Week 2: 7/14-7/21

• Sunday 7/14, 11am: lacey, and rosie
• Sunday 7/14, 8pm: lauryn and katie, piper
• Thursday 7/18, 11am: piper, lacey, lauryn
• Thursday 7/ 18, 10pm: rosie and katie

Chat Session Transcripts

Based on your availability data, I will schedule chats sessions at times that most people can attend. You may also schedule smaller chat sessions with individual members of the class if the times I post do not work for you. You should attend about 4 chat sessions during the online portion of the course.

The goal of the chat sessions is to eventually to model philosophical discussion, but in the early sessions, you should stick to answering study questions. After introducing yourselves, you might start a discussion on a question and agree about some of the elements of a good answer. At some point, your group should agree to take several minutes to write up answers. Sharing and comparing answers to study questions is a good initial or "default" activity for a chat session.

After a few chat sessions, you might find that a question or issue gives rise to a discussion or someone may want to introduce a topic or make a criticism of a reading or argument. Try to take on the discussion as a group and demonstrate philosophical methods and goals. If things break down, you can also go back to study questions.

The main two things you should want to do in each chat session are: be a helpful contributor to answers to study questions or any discussion going on and make sure you facilitate the involvement of everyone in your chat group. I will try to drop in on chats in progress.

Rubric and Scoring for Chat Sessions

I will review your participation in a chat session through the chat session transcript according to the following rubric:

1 point for being in the session from start to end and participating regularly. 1-2 points for a pattern of helpful participation that kept the group moving forward. 1-2 points for clarity in expression, accuracy of information, use of argumentation.

I will provide an audio file with feedback on the chat session, which I will email directly to the chat participants. You will see your points from that session in the notes field in your grading scheme ("My Work" in the course website).

As with the DB scoring, we'll have to see how the distribution goes, but my expectation would be that a 4.5 is about an A-.