Coursework

When learning in person, professors and students meet in class for lectures and to discuss readings, debate etc. Thus, some learning happens together at the same time, and some other learning happens on the student's own time (e.g. writing papers, doing readings etc.). When a course is online, this is also the case. We will have some time together (on MS Teams), and sometimes learning happens "asynchronously" (i.e. on our own time).

Usually when I teach this course, I divide work into oral and written work. Oral work usually consists of "participation" i.e. being in class, asking questions, showing you've learned from doing the readings, etc (an abbreviation of et cetera, Latin for "and other things"). But participation, since we're taking this online, will be based on "conversations"/ discussions in the Teams platform – it might be oral or it might be written. Over the course of the first term, you will complete the following work – designed so that you build on skills you will have acquired earlier in the year.

The orientation scavenger hunt, the weekly writing pieces and exercises are necessary and required. That is to say, they all must be complete for the student to pass the course. Other coursework (such as the individual quests) are optional.

Participation

So, let's get this out in the open. Participation is always difficult to assess. Even in face-to-face classes, I can measure what I see, but I don't know the work that has been done behind the scenes (especially if you are a quiet or shy student). So typically, I have had students assign themselves a mark for participation each class – based on a rubric assigning points for attendence and for degree of participation.

For online lectures, I will take attendence through the polling mechanism (Polls Everywhere) and, at the end of the class, will request that you assign yourself a mark of 5 for the quality of your participation. At the end of the term, you will write up a process letter explaining the quality of your participation, part of which will be to assess your contributions to class discussion.

Profile

The first thing you'll need to do will be creating a profile of yourself on cuLearn to introduce yourself to your fellow classmates. This first profile can be a barebones "Who am I". You will also be asked to create a second profile later on - a description of your avatar, who is attending "The Academy".

Writing

The key to academic success is practice – especially practicing writing. Writing is hard for everyone, especially when a genre is unfamiliar or the expectations are unclear. I'll try to make the expectations clear and over time the expected norms of writing will become familiar to you.

Above all I just want you to get used to writing without worrying to much about being perfect at it. Most weeks you will need to write a "reflection". This is a catch-all term I'm giving to a weekly writing assignments that asks you to "reflect" on (or think about or meditate on) the learning you accomplished that week. At the beginning of the year, I will distribute a list of topics intended to help you focus your writing (which you get to choose from).

I am asking you to write these reflections not as yourself (IRL) but as your character at "The Academy". They can be as creative as you choose: a letter home, an entry from your diary, a page of notes from your Academy classes, a photo of your recreated "dorm room" bulletin board...

Exercises

Each week (usually during the Wednesday class), we will complete short exercises to introduce you to different tools in the Medievalist toolkit. This might be me demonstating how to use cuPortfolio or Hypothes.is or getting you to complete a multi-stage library search on your own.

Feedback

You will be asked to provide comments and constructive criticism to written work completed by your peers (expectations set out here). We'll use the annotation tool hypothes.is to make comments on each other's work.

Quests

During the first term, the game Quest for the Middle Ages, will provide you with a list of activities that can earn you points. You will work together in a group in an online scavenger hunt and you can work alone to develop skills - which unlock game secrets and add to your point totals.

The first quests will be worked on together as a group in the orientation "Seeking" in the first few weeks of class.

Process Letter

A "proces letter" is a term we use to describe an end-of-term self-evaluation of your own work. You will write this up as a way to justify the grade you will assign to yourself for first term, based on guided questions I will provide. Some of your work will be done in groups, so part of your letter will be the pleasant job of acknowledging those who did an exceptional job and the more difficult one of calling out those who were less atisfactory.

In the second term, the class will work on a group project that we will work on each week in order to develop a new historically- inspired game.

Each week you will:

• prepare for class by completing the assigned readings and making annotations on the texts (primary sources, secondary sources, images, websites) mostly posted on Perusall.

• attend a synchronous online seminars via Teams, where I will lead a discussion about weekly topics, answer questions

• complete weekly exercises intended to practice foundational skills of History/ Medieval Studies

• write a weekly reflection in your cuPortfolio to practice writing

• go on optional "Quests" to discover helpful study skills or resources at Carleton

• work to decipher the mysterious happenings at "The Academy" in groups