Conferences [10/4 - 10/8]

Round one of conferences involved some planning. I made a spreadsheet cataloging absences, online participation and class involvement. Most of my students were good as far as their attendance went. Unfortunately they were rather behind on blogging and discussion forum posts. I ended up spending a lot of time explaining the mechanism of the discussion forum. Finally we looked at the proposal draft. I had deliberately given them an extension on  the final draft of the proposal because I wanted them to observe my grading process. We went over the draft together looking at the use or as was the case in most papers the lack of analysis and explication. I had given the class the seven point debate structure and having had a format to fall back on, most of the drafts fulfilled the requirement of the module and I just had to help them make the connection between their ideas and the thesis and finding a process to link the arguments together. Overall, Most of my students felt that analyzing became easier for them after workshopping during the conference and I can see the results in their subsequent writings. Of course, there was that occasional student who went crazy with his/her solutions. It took some effort dissuading one student from creating a lawn in the Commons and then covering that with a tent --- and in the end you know you can't convince everyone but it made for fun reading.