Government 2306 Internet – Miller – Summer II CIS

Section(s):

N1, N4

Office Hours:

By appointment-

Office Number:

A-228

 

 E-mail in eCampus is best!

Office Phone:

209-7330

 

 

E-mail:

 emiller@blinn.edu

Website:

 http://www.blinn.edu/brazos/socialscience/Govt/emiller/

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

Government 2306 consists of a study of the organization, functions, and administration of state and local government including a study of the state constitution. The primary factors considered relate to the three branches of government (Judicial, Executive, Legislative), historical documents (Constitution), events that shaped our state and current events. Three credit hours.

CORE CURRICULUM COURSE:

This is a Core Course in the 42-Hour Core of Blinn College. As such, students will develop proficiency in the appropriate Intellectual Competencies, Exemplary Educational Objectives, and Perspectives. The URL for the Blinn College Core Curriculum web site is: http://www.blinn.edu/corecurriculum.htm.

COURSE OBJECTIVES and STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES:

After successfully completing Government 2306, students should have a working knowledge of the following:

TEXTBOOKS, SUPPLIES, MATERIALS:

ADA STATEMENT:

Information regarding procedures for documenting disabilities can be obtained from the Counseling Office. Reasonable accommodations will be made for documented disabilities. Students must present documentation as soon as possible for the instructor to arrange accommodations.

CIVILITY STATEMENT:

Members of the Blinn College community, which includes faculty, staff and students, are expected to act honestly and responsibly in all aspects of campus life. Blinn College holds all members accountable for their actions and words. Therefore, all members should commit themselves to behave in a manner that recognizes personal respect, and demonstrates concern for the personal dignity, rights, and freedoms of every member of the College community, including respect for College property and the physical and intellectual property of others. If a student is asked to leave the classroom because of uncivil behavior, the student may not return to that class until he or she arranges a conference with the instructor: it is the student's responsibility to arrange for this conference.

ATTENDANCE:

The College District believes that class attendance is essential for student success; therefore, students are required to promptly and regularly attend all their classes. Each class meeting builds the foundation for subsequent class meetings. Without full participation and regular class attendance, students shall find themselves at a severe disadvantage for achieving success in college. Class participation shall constitute at least ten percent of the final course grade. It is the responsibility of each faculty member, in consultation with the division chair, to determine how participation is achieved in his or her class. Faculty will require students to regularly attend class and will keep a record of attendance from the first day of class and/or the first day the student's name appears on the roster through final examinations. If a student has one week's worth of unexcused absences during the semester, he/she will be sent an e-mail by the College requiring the student to contact his/her instructor and schedule a conference immediately to discuss his/her attendance issues. Should the student accumulate two weeks worth of unexcused absences, he/she will be administratively withdrawn from class.

It is understood that the compressed Summer schedule will result in immediate withdrawal upon the first absence.

Absences in this class are counted as follows:

You must complete at least one item per section. This can be a quiz, a test, submitting an essay, or doing the discussion post. You do not have to earn points that week, you must only complete an item in that section. A week in this class is the period a section is open. So, failure to do anything in a section will result in an absence and you will be dropped from the class.

Please note, it is NOT enough to just log in to class, substantive work must be completed or submitted for you to be counted as attending class. Reading the lectures does not count. E-mail does not count. Discussion postings other than the assigned News Posts do not count.

You have a Blinn student e-mail account that will be used for these notices. Information is at: http://www.blinn.edu/acadtech/studentemail/. Be sure to regularly check this account, as I may also send you notices to your Blinn e-mail account.

OTHER POLICIES:

Additional information to be aware of:

Procedures for dealing with these acts are outlined in the Scholastic Dishonesty Policy.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

There are no excuses to miss class. This is an Internet class and is available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If a situation arises that you feel will cause you to miss several deadlines and generally put you behind in class, PLEASE consider withdrawing from class as I do not grant extensions or exceptions to the classwork for any reason. Yes, the class is available on weekends and holidays.

-Tests:

There will be 3 tests and a final exam. Each regular test is composed of 70 Multiple Choice and True-False questions. Not 70 of each, 70 total. The questions will come from the textbook (mainly) and from the course content on the website. Each test is worth 100 points. The first three tests will cover the material for only that section. These first three tests will be taken in the eCampus course- and once you take the test for that section, you are DONE with that section. These are worth 300 points total.

Again, once you take the test for a section, you are finished with that section. If you did not do any quizzes or written work in that section, you will not get to. They will be recorded as zeros.

The final exam will cover the material since the third test AND material from the previous three tests- it will be comprehensive in other words. It will be 100 questions and worth 200 points. All classwork MUST be completed before the final is taken. The exception to this is at the end of the semester when the final will be made available to everyone, regardless of what you have or have not done in class. The final is also taken in eCampus and may be taken after all previous tests and quizzes are completed. However, once the final exam has been taken (whenever that is), access to the class WILL BE DENIED! Be sure you are done with the class BEFORE you take the final! This includes submitting all essay assignments and Discussion Posts! When you take the Final, you are telling me you are FINISHED with the class.

Here are the Chapters the Tests cover:

-Quizzes:

There are two types of quizzes in class- each type has MC & TF questions. The first type is over the textbook. Some chapters cover more than one topic, so there may be multiple quizzes out of the same chapter. The second type is a lecture quiz. This quiz covers the "lecture" parts of the class. There are a total of 5 quizzes for each section and all quizzes count. Each quiz is worth 5 points, so you can earn 100 points for the quizzes.

Note that all quizzes are grouped by test- you will find the quizzes for Chapter 3 in "Section 1" of the class, for example. Remember to take all the quizzes before you take the test for that section!

Your computer problems are NOT an excuse to miss class.

-Essays:

You will be assigned 2 short essays to do. You will have about 2 weeks to do each essay. There is a separate folder for the essay assignments, and each assignment has its own directions. Each essay is worth 60 points, making the total for these 120 points. Late essays are not accepted. You may, however, turn in an essay assignment any time before it is due. Essays that are deemed too similar to one another will receive 0 points.

While this is *not* an English class, I expect you to follow all the directions for writing and formatting these essays. There are substantial penalties for not following the basic directions.

-Discussion Posts:

There are four weekly discussion posts- one for each section. Each topic is geared to the chapters in your book, as shown below. Each posting is worth 20 points, so all four posts are worth 80 points.

You will have the week the section is open (see the calendar) to post and respond to the discussion topic. Each topic has the full directions of what is required, but basically you will take a position and post your answer. This posting is worth up to 75% of the total points (15 in this case) and to earn the remaining 25% (5 points) you will need to revisit the discussion topic and reply to another student's post. Your reply must be to a different chapter than the one you used.

While spelling is not strictly enforced, it will lower your grade if there are several spelling errors.

Again, once you take the test for a section, you will not be allowed to do any more work in that section. So be sure you have done your posting and reply before you take the test.

-Term Project:

There is a separate file containing the instructions for the term project, and is considered an extension of this document. It is a small group group project and is worth 200 points. These 200 points are spread out through two reports due during the semester. Groups will be formed after the 12th class day. This project uses the wiki function in eCampus.

NOTE: There is no project done during the summer.

CALENDAR FOR MAJOR ASSIGNMENTS AND EXAMS:

The calendar section in the class has the dates for major events listed. Be sure to check the calendar in eCampus often. These are some of the most important days:

July 6: First day of classes
July 12: End of Section 1
July 19: End of Section 2, Essay "A" due @ 11:55 PM

July 26:

End of Section 3

July 28:

Last day for "W" grade.

August 2:

End of Section 4, Essay "B" due @ 11:55 PM
August 2-3: Final Exam in eCampus

As this is an Internet class, there are no holidays. The class is available as long as the Blinn eCampus server is running. If the server goes down or there are significant connectivity problems, I will make the necessary adjustments.

Reminder: There are NO extensions or exceptions for any of the work identified by this Course Information Sheet. Students with documented disabilities will be accommodated, but the deadlines will remain.

CRITERIA FOR GRADING:

Your grade will be calculated as follows: I will total the points earned on all the assignments and compare them to the table below- there is a maximum of 800 points available (excluding bonuses):

720 points and over- grade of "A" and four (4) grade points.
640-719 points- grade of "B" and three (3) grade points
560-639 points- grade of "C" and two (2) grade points.
480-559 points- grade of "D" and one (1) grade point.
479 and below- grade of "F" and zero (0) grade points.

If there are extenuating, documented circumstances, a grade of "I" may be assigned, following current Blinn policies. If a student withdraws (drops) from class a grade of "W", "WP", or "WF" will be given, depending on the date of the student's withdrawal and their current grade. Note: There may be occasions when points will be added to a student's grade to reward actions above expectations. Points will never be taken away.

Other Items:

There may be some extra credit that can be attempted during the semester. More information about these opportunities will be in eCampus.

If I need to revise this document, I'll alert you that it has changed.

Final note, your decisions have consequences. Make positive decisions that have positive results.


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