Assignments

Course assignments were designed and scheduled to meet both the overarching goal of the course as well as the more specific objectives that I have laid out above in the course goals and objectives section of this portfolio.  In addition, assignments – both written and oral – were sequenced so that students could build on the knowledge they had constructed over the course of the semester.

Here below I describe the various assignments and indicate their purpose and connection to course goals and objectives.  In a later section (Reflections), I discuss the assignments in more detail, summarizing their outcomes, evaluating their effectiveness, and suggesting possible changes for the next time I teach the course. 

Written Work

Written work was planned to give students ample opportunity to practice writing in modes that engaged the formal and the informal, the emotive and the analytical, the reflective and the synthetic.  Accordingly, I designed the writing assignments in three groups:  five one-page informal response papers; two 3-4-page formal synthetic essays; and one formal 6-10-page final reflective essay. 

1. One-page responses

Students were given a choice of seven texts from which they were to choose three to write about; two texts were compulsory for the entire class.  In an effort to de-emphasize rules and regulations for these particular students, there were no strict submission deadlines for the response papers.  These papers were designed to help students begin the process of engaging the texts for interpretation by asking them to relate to texts on a personal level.  I asked for five because I wanted students to get into the habit of writing their ideas about material covered in class.

i. “Defining and Critiquing Understandings of Success in America” 

Paper 1 gives students the opportunity to synthesize several texts covered early in the course as a means of laying the foundation for more complex issues covered later in the course.  The ideas we focus on in the early texts help students begin to understand the course inquiry question because they explore American definitions of success and how those definitions inform our work and play, our motives, and our desires.  Students can only begin to understand the extent to which the values of the business world constitute societal values after they have considered these powerful driving forces in American life.  Rhetorically, the paper challenges students to craft an argumentative thesis and to synthesize multiple voices to support that thesis, some of which only imply a stance on American success.  The reflexive structure of the assignment (define American success and how it defines Americans) offers students the latitude to craft complex, nuanced theses.

 ii. Position Paper: “To what extent do the values and goals of the business world form and constitute our values, assumptions, and perceptions?” 

Paper 2, due approximately ¾ the way through the course, offers students a forum where course material can be pulled together to show what students have learned vis-à-vis the course inquiry question.  Although not the final assignment of the semester, this paper is designed to be the culmination of the seminar’s work.  It asks students not only to engage the above question, but also to apply interpretations of some of the various humanistic texts we had explored over the course of the semester in support of the student’s position.  Thus, the assignment not only addresses the overarching goal of the course, but also asks students to invent an argumentative thesis and then synthesize multiple views to support that thesis.  Like the assignment for paper 1, this assignment offers students considerable leeway for developing a wide range of complex answers to the question.

The final reflective paper is designed to give students the opportunity to show what they had learned in L216 by discussing how the course content (texts, class discussions, student work, and personal experience related to the ideas explored in class) led them to invent and develop a business with a social conscience.  Students are given considerable leeway to structure the paper as they wish, with recommendations that they narrate how they arrived at the businesses they proposed and that they draw heavily on the texts from the seminar.  The main goal of the assignment is to encourage students to reflect on both what they have learned during the semester and also on the process of applying their knowledge to a potentially “real” situation.  More theoretically, this final paper constitutes the third part of the learning model characterized by the three stages of absorption, application, and reflection. (note 3)   At the same time, the final project serves as an effective, if ad hoc, assessment instrument: as I read the final papers, it became quite clear to me that every student had been changed by the course material; “deep learning” had, in fact, occurred.  Many students showed a profound suspicion of consumerist, capitalist business practices whereas at the beginning of the course, students were not even aware of such business practices and hence had no means of being critical of them.

Oral Work

Because this course was taught as a seminar, student participation – both as learners and as teachers – was extremely important to the success of the class.  Students were required to plan, prepare, and present at least two individual oral lessons over the course of the semester and one collaborative oral presentation in which they collectively highlighted the main features of their group business proposal.

1. Individual Oral Presentations

The two oral presentations are designed to help students get used to speaking in front of a group of people and to emphasize the seminar format of the course (where students assume responsibility for at least some of the content and its teaching).  Initially I intended student presentations to be 10-to-15-minute reports, contextualizing the texts we planned to discuss each day, but soon into the semester, I realized students needed more latitude in the types of presentations they could give.  Students were allowed to give brief, context-providing presentations about an author, artist, historical period, political movement, and so on, but they could also perform dramatic readings or lead a class discussion.

This 30-minute collaborative group presentation comprises part one of the students’ final project in L216 (Final Project).  After spending several weeks inventing and developing an economically viable business that takes social and environmental concerns into account, students introduce their businesses to a 5-person panel, consisting of a member from each work group (excluding their own) and me.  The panel represents the Community-Business Alliance Grant Committee, which hands out grants of up to $1 million to aid deserving businesses in getting off the ground.  After each presentation, I gather the comments and scores recorded by each member of the panel (see Group Presentation Evaluation Sheet for an example of the score sheet) and summarize them in the form of a memo (see Memo to Athena College (student business) or Memo to Academic Resource Center (student business) for examples of these comments to students), which is then returned to the student presenters.  Students receive these comments in time to incorporate them into their final reflective paper if desired. 

This assignment is designed with several course objectives in mind.  It asks students to work together, both over a sustained period to invent and develop their business and then for the 30-minute oral presentation to present their business.  Because each student assumes a particular role in the group, it challenges students to rely on one another to produce a superior project.  The project also asks students to apply the theories they have constructed over the course of the semester to the projects they create, thus challenging students to apply the course content to ideas of their own.  Finally, the group oral presentation requires students to employ the public speaking skills they worked on during the semester in their individual oral presentations.  And it is fun.

3. This tripartite model emerges from discussions I have had with my colleague, Ross Peterson-Veatch, instructional consultant at the Kelley School of Business.  The three stages of learning have gelled from our collective experience – wisdom of practice – in the classroom, where we have taught and observed learning at both the secondary and post-secondary levels, over a wide range of curricula.  As effective as it seems to be, I’m not sure research has been conducted to generalize these observations to a more theoretical level.  For more on linking the wisdom of practice to scholarly research, see Maryellen Weimer, “Learning More from the Wisdom of Practice,” New Directions for Teaching and Learning 86 (summer 2001): 45-56.