POS. 204l U.S. Government Online Professor: Tom Byrnes
Theory, organization, principles, and functions of national government, stressing relationships of individual to all levels of government in the political system. This course includes a learning activity designed to ensure competence in the basic use of computers.
General description:
This course has been carefully constructed for student success. If you do the work you almost certainly will do well. There will be no ambiguities about what you need to do in order to learn and get a good grade. The intent is for you to succeed—meaning learning quite a bit and obtaining a grade that reflects that learning.
The course will be of practical use to you. It is my belief that the most important virtue of an educated citizen is the ability to think critically. Details tend to slide out of our minds quickly. Skills and concepts do not. You will gain a substantial understanding of the United States political system in this course, but there will also be a significant emphasis on skill mastery, in particular, that of critical thinking. When you finish this class you should think better.
We will begin working on the skill of critical thinking at the start of class and it will be carried through till the end of the course. We will start with readings and discussions and progress rapidly to activities that will enable you to practice critical thinking and receive feedback on your work. The targets of our study will be political issues affecting you and other citizens of this country.
This course will improve your ability to make informed decisions as a citizen and help you to understand the general workings of our national government. When you finish this class you will have a much better idea of how the current U.S. national government works, and how it was originally designed to work by those who wrote the Constitution. You will have a better grasp of the rights you possess by virtue of living in this country and you will be better informed of the challenges and controversies facing the USA at this time.
U.S. Government is part of the general education curriculum and as such is carefully designed to improve the four Valencia Student Core Competencies (Think, Value, Communicate, and Act) that have been identified as basic to preparing students for successful futures. Above we discussed critical thinking. This course will address the other competencies as well.
Communication skills are important if one wishes to be effective politically or personally. In this class you will study communication skills that apply to political issues and we will use and evaluate those skills in class discussions and in your critical thinking evaluation. By the end of this class I want you to be able to discuss sensitive political topics in such a way that the people listening to you understand your thoughts clearly and are not unnecessarily offended by how you have expressed them.
We will also work on your writing skills. You will be writing a critical thinking evaluation that will be about five pages long.
There will be values studied during the semester in an academic sense, including those used by the writers of the U.S. Constitution. We will also examine the beliefs and values of political liberals and conservatives. There are other values, however, that I teach and hope that you will follow. I will not test you on them, but I will do my best to promote them and see that they are practiced in the classroom. Let me be explicit. I value (stress) civility in all of our dealings. By civility I mean toleration of opposing viewpoints, a willingness to listen to ideas we find distasteful or uninformed and avoiding words and expressions of disrespect. Civility, in essence, means we treat each other with respect. There are other common values that almost all of us in academia stress. Theories, values, and beliefs are treated with a questioning eye. Supporting one’s opinions with evidence, research or sound reasoning is a must. Giving credit to those who first stated viewpoints or theories, rather than claiming them as our own, is a basic value. Finally, there is the simple, universal academic value – a respect for knowledge.
In this class you will not only read about critical thinking, effective communication skills and academic values, you and I will practice them. In terms of Valencia’s Core Competencies, we will act on them. For a more complete description of the Valencia Student Core Competencies look at this website.
Online Procedures:
The most important part of this class will be the discussions that we have. This is where most learning should occur. For each chapter of the text we will have a discussion thread. You should read the chapter before you enter the discussion thread. You will be expected to ask questions and respond to the comments and questions of other students. You are expected to post a minimum of one question or make one comment for each chapter. Ideally you will have many questions and comments. You can expect me to comment on what you write. I pay close attention to how you come to conclusions, how you state your thoughts. In other words I will pay close attention to how you think.
You will be expected to read the newspaper, watch, or listen to the news on a daily basis for the duration of this class. If your family does not receive the Orlando Sentinel now is a good time to order it. It is a good source of news at the state and local level and has decent coverage of national news. I also highly recommend National Public Radio (90.7 FM) for excellent coverage of state, national and international news. There will be a current events thread where you will be expected to post comments and questions on a regular basis--you should post a minimum of one comment or question in this thread weekly. This is an exciting time because of the new Congress. There will be a lot to discuss.
A simple truth: educated people read. You may get a college education, but if you haven’t developed a habit of reading regularly you will soon be left behind by those who do. There is more to know each day: don’t get left behind. Read. The best source of information about politics is now found on the World Wide Web. Make your opening page a news page. I recommend CNN, but there are many other excellent places for news on the Internet.
In order to receive a decent grade in this course you will need to set aside about 3 to 8 hours per week. This is a demanding college class. Studies have shown that students who pass this class graduate from Valencia. I have carefully designed this class so that a student who participates and studies will do well even though he or she had little knowledge of U.S. Government to begin with. Students who don’t participate and don’t study will not pass the course. To do well in this class you should set up a schedule that includes times and places when you will be studying and working on this class. Most of the students who fail this class have not set up a schedule; they think they will study whenever. This is a recipe for failure. Set yourself up for success--create a schedule and put it into your electronic calendar.
Readings: You must read U.S. Government: A Look Inside by Thomas Byrnes (me). This textbook will provide you with the basic knowledge of our government. You will find the textbook in RTF and PDF format attached in Blackboard. If you want a printed copy of this book I suggest that you take the PDF copy to Kinkos, or Office Depot or a similar store and have them print out a copy and put it in a binder. Total cost should be less than $15. If you wish to read the text on your computer I suggest that you download the RTF format. Using this format you can read, underline or mark the text in any way that you wish. Please note that I have verbal summaries of each chapter in Blackboard. Each summary is about 20 minutes long. I suggest you use the verbal summaries to help, but they should not be considered substitutes for reading the chapters carefully.
This course will involve research, and therefore, substantial reading outside of the text. You will do a critical thinking evaluation that will require substantial research. You will have a choice between three editorials. They will be posted in Blackboard.
Grading Policies: There will be four exams. Each will count for 15% of your grade— 60% of the final grade. The final will not be comprehensive; it will cover only the last fourth of the class. The exams will be true or false and multiple choice. They must be taken at one of Valencia’s testing centers. (Remember to bring your student ID.) If you take the test late you will lose five points. If you are more than a week late for the exam you will lose ten points.
You can find the locations and hours of the testing centers by visiting this site: http://valenciacollege.edu/testing-center/
You will do a critical thinking evaluation--including a complete formal draft which I will comment on and make suggestions for improvement and a final draft. It constitute 25% of your final grade. The evaluation will require research using the World Wide Web. You will use three or four data bases that Valencia sponsors and others of your choice. You must have a current student ID number to access these databases. Please check now to see if your ID is accepted by linccweb.
I will grade your evaluation holistically based on a rubric that I have posted. Your evaluation should be generally free of language errors. You will find specific information about the structure of the critical thinking evaluations in another handout.
There will be a formal, preliminary draft for the evaluation and then a final draft. I will read the preliminary draft carefully and give you specific information about how to improve it. If you do not have the complete preliminary draft in on time you will lose points on your final draft--five points for each part missing, with a maximum of 15pts lost. I will also read your final draft, make comments and give you a grade.
Participation will count as 15 percent of your final grade. Blackboard keeps tab of everything you do and reports it back to me. It will tell me, for example, how many times you have visited the website and how long you were online. It will tell me how many messages or threads you have read and how many comments you made and questions you have asked. It will tell me even more than this.
By the time the class is ending I will know exactly how much you have participated and I will have a good idea about the quality of your participation. Your participation grade will be a combination of quantity and quality. (You should make at least three postings every week.) The quality of your participation will be graded partially on the thought and research you have put into your statements and questions and the care that you have demonstrated in responding to other students. It will also be graded on the care, respect and critical thinking expressed in your writing. You will study critical thinking and communication skills in this class. In the discussions you will demonstrate to what extent you have learned these skills.
Again, you should post a minimum of three questions or comments each week.
Final grades will be 90-100% = A, 80-89% = B, 70-79% = C, 60-69% = D, below 60 = F.
Academic Dishonesty: Please note that I use the College policy on Academic Dishonesty (6Hx28:10-16) which states, in part:
"All forms of academic dishonesty are prohibited at Valencia College. Academic dishonesty includes . . . plagiarism . . . alteration or misuse of documents. . . .
"All work submitted by students is expected to be the result of the students’ original thoughts, research and self-expression. Whenever a student uses ideas, wording, or organization from another source, the source shall be appropriately acknowledged. . . .
"Any student determined by the professor to have been guilty of engaging in an act of academic dishonesty shall be liable to a range of academic penalties as determined by the professor which may include, but not be limited to, one or more of the following: loss of credit for an assignment, . . .; a reduction in course grade; or a grade of ‘F’ in the course. . . ."
If someone is found to be cheating on an exam or an evaluation the normal grade will be a zero. Plagiarism will usually mean a zero on the work that is turned in. As with all policies, I reserve the right to change these policies, but only to benefit a particular student.
Attendance: Students are expected to participate each week in WebCT. Students who do little posting or who miss two weeks or more of participation in WebCT may be withdrawn. If you do not post in the first week of classes Valencia requires us to withdraw you. Again, make sure that you set up a time and place where you are going to work on this class each week. Don't make the mistake of thinking that you will access this course and do the work whenever it is convenient. Students who do this usually do not participate enough and are forced to withdraw because they get behind.
Extra Credit: Please note that extra credit can be used towards an A, B, C
or D, but students must have at least an 85% average on the three
examinations to receive a final grade of A.
There are several ways to earn extra credit.
A.) Do extra critical thinking evaluations of editorials that you select. Please make sure the editorials treat a current topic and are related to political issues.
B.) Do volunteer work in an organization involved with a political or social issue and show me evidence of what you have done. Points will range from 1 to 15 points added to a test score.
C.) Do thought papers on current events. You can do research on a current event and give send me a paper with your research and thoughts. Normally points range from 1 to five points added to a test score for each thought paper.
All extra credit must be handed in before the last two weeks of class—that is, two weeks before the final exam. Again, no student is eligible for an A in this class unless he or she has at least an 85% average on the three exams.
Office: You can reach me at home at 352-394-0220. I will be online almost every day, so perhaps the best way to reach me will be through email in Blackboard or in a chat room.
For research please access my Profs Pics at: http://valencia.cc.fl.us/lrcwest/byrnes.html
Students with Disabilities: If you have a disability which requires accommodations in this course, please provide me with the proper documentation from Valencia's Office For Students With Disabilities as soon as possible. I am happy to make appropriate adjustments to suit your needs.
Office hours: You can reach me at home (352-394-0220) Mondays from noon till 2 PM, Wednesdays from 11 AM till 1PM and Fridays from noon till 2PM. If for some reason you can't get me leave a message and I will get back to you soon. I am on the West Campus Friday mornings if you wish to meet with me in person. Don't be afraid to speak with me or to set up a time for us to meet.
I reserve the right to change any of the above policies due to extraordinary circumstances, but only to assist a student.