CLASS POLICIES—Keith Drury courses

1. WHAT IS A “LEARNING COACH?” 

Keith Drury uses the “coaching model” of teaching in classes thus students call him “Coach D.”  What is a  Learning Coach?  This model of teaching adopts many of the values and much of the methodology of athletic coaching applying them to teaching.  You should expect a “coaching atmosphere” in his classes as described by past students as follows: 

1) High expectations (Don’t ask “What is the minimum required?” any more than a cross country athlete would ask “How fast should I try to run today?”  Do your best.

2) Team thinking (Expect to do things for others—collaborative assignments—you are not in this class all alone shooting free throws for your very own personal ‘A’—this class is a team thing.

3) Competition. Though we use teamwork sometimes you compete with each other and the course is “graded on a curve.” When you are looking for jobs in the real world your resume will sit on a table with a dozen other resumes and they’ll pick 2 or 3 to invite in for an interview—they’ll never even meet you and they will have made a choice against you purely on comparing your paper resume with others.  Sometimes in this class your paper will simply be laid out on the floor and compared with all the other papers in the class—the best ones will get the As.

 4) Player mentality This course is based on the belief that students are the players not the coach.  Don’t think you can come to class and watch the coach stand up in front of you playing ball for you to watch and take notes. YOU will do lots of practicing before class (homework) and lots of playing in class(group work etc.)  A coach is mostly on the sidelines—correcting, suggesting, helping you play a better game.

2. Absences & Attendance 

IWU official policy:  CLASS ATTENDANCE

“Students are expected to attend all sessions of classes for which they are registered. Official excuses may be given by the university for absences due to university-sponsored activities, for illness, or other emergencies. Faculty may not take a penalty for a university-approved absence. A student is responsible directly to the instructor for all classes missed and to see that all work is made up. A student failing to attend classes and not withdrawing officially will receive a grade of "F." Students are not allowed to attend classes for which they are not registered. “

There are two ways to be absent and keep from losing points on the day’s assignments, day’s quiz, or the final participation grade:

1.è UNIVERSITY EXCUSE:  Show the excuse to coach D and you lose no points—fix your grade card for the day.  The health center excuse must cover the actual date of the missed class.

2. è SEND A SUBSTITUE.  In your future ministry you can’t skip a service when you are expected to preach or lead.  Yet you’ll still get sick or have to be away (for vacations, etc.)  What do you do in the church?  You arrange for a substitue.  So, if you know you are going to be away from class you are permitted to send a substitue to class.  The substitute brings your assignments, gathers notes, and (more so) contributes to the collaborative learning enviroment in the class.  Your substitute grades for you, turns in papers and participates in the small group activites.  (If there is a daily quiz that day your substitute will record the grade form your last quiz as your grade).

3. Missed tests.

The only way to make up a missed test is to get a written excuse from one of two sources:  (1) the Academic affairs office if it is a personal crisis or death in the family, or (2) the health center (dated the same day you missed class)  Nobody else works -- your sister, your boyfriend, your roommate, your mother, or your personal trainer.  Only these three can write a valid excuse that will get you a chance to take a test late.  Otherwise you lose the points.

4. Late papers or assignments.

In life you can't say, "Gee, I was going to prepare my message this morning but I slept in.  You can’t say "I realize I should preach at this funeral, but my printer broke down and I have nothing to say -- would you all come back in a few hours and I'll peach then—here we’ll just store the body in the side room for a while."   The deadline for a paper and assignments are just that a dead-line. Miss it and you are dead.  Getting sick or having a broken printer won't cut it for the paper – and handing in assignments the next morning won’t cut it either.  You have plenty of time to prepare ahead of time. If you wait until the night before to print out your paper and the printer breaks—tough luck.  Do your work early—provide some cushions for things to go wrong—they usually do.  All projects and papers are due at the beginning of class on the due date.  Is there some grace because you are still a student and not pa pastor yet?  Yes.  The grace is this:

·         LATE DURING CLASS LOSE 1 point per minute in class up to 10% of the value of the paper

·         LATE PAPERS AFTER CLASS SAME DAY lose 10% per hour down to half credit until 5 PM

·         LATE PAPERS THE NEXT DAY are worth up to 50% of the full vale of the paper

·         LATE PAPERS TWO DAYS AFTER DUE DATE are worth nothing.

5. Self grading.

THE PROCESS: As part of most upper level classes taught by coach D, you will be asked periodically to do self-grading.  That is, judge how well you prepared, read the assignment, or participated.  In such personalized grading one person may have a higher standard than another.  Ultimately in life most everything is "self-graded."  That is, you will have to decide yourself how well you did in preaching, teaching, or leading a conference.   Others may do less and be better satisfied -- but those who "grade themselves hard" often will see more achievement in life than "soft self-graders."  The coach will sometimes ask you to hand in papers you have self-graded (after grading) and will sometimes adjust the grade, but more likely let it stand and make the adjustment later in his own grading in the course.

INTEGRITY: When you self-grade, by the way, you are really taking a second test--- an integrity test, along with the grading of your own test or homework.  If you are willing to cheat on self-grading, why would you not cheat on your income taxes in the future too?  Or cheat on your wife or husband?  What makes you think you can have variable integrity, and that you can cheat on little things and not on big ones.  Did not Jesus Himself say that the means of testing us for use in big things was to test our integrity in little things?  More is at risk than your grade here -- your entire ministry, even your own soul -- is at risk.  Be honest. 

 

6. Plagiarism.

The technical definition is "The act of using another person's ideas or expressions in writing without acknowledging the source…"  (MLA Handbook, quoted in the 1999-2000 IWU Catalog). The practical definition is "Using another's words or ideas without credit."  The IWU penalties: 1st  incident -- Automatic "F" in paper/project.   2nd  incident --  an "F" in the course. 3rd incident -- dismissal.

Some tips in writing papers to avoid plagiarism:

1. Use your own words when you write -- don't borrow words from others.. 

2. When using another's words put them in quotation marks. 

3. When using your words, but another's ideas, simply cite the source. 

4. Don't even paraphrase another's work and pass it off as your own -- this is plagiarism. Simply cite the source.

Original Version  (from Os Guinness, Dining with the Devil)

The two most easily recognizable hallmarks of secularization in America are the exaltation of numbers and technique.  Both are prominent in the megachurch movement at a popular level.  In its fascination with statistics and data at the expense of truth, this movement is characteristically modern.

Plagiarized version (unacceptable without citing)

The overemphasis on numbers and the orientation to perfecting technique are characteristic of a secularized America.   Ironically these are two hallmarks of the super church movement as well.  But what happens to truth when we are totally taken up with statistics?  I suspect truth suffers.  The super church movement is modern at its core.

2. SOLUTION:cite-Cite-Cite.  When using another's words or ideas simply cite the source -- e.g. "1. From a history class lecture, 2001 by Bud Bence, IWU.  Or, these lists are based on my notes from student reports in the Fall 2001 worship class at IWU."  Or, "The outline here is paraphrased and adapted from John Maxwell's book, Developing the Leaders above you. " Though the development of these ideas is my own, I have used two discipleship manuals here as background helps: Disciple Now by Chuck Robb and Spiritual Development Guide, by Keith Drury -- see Bibliography for publisher information.

 

7. Collaborative work

This course may permit some collaborative work.  It may even encourage it at times, particularly research individual students share with each other making charts for each other, or finding and sharing graphics or pictures.  When collaborating on work, always make a full disclosure – that is, what others did in contributing to your work.  This full disclosure will avoid the charge of cheating on assignments.  This is not addressing the notion of handing in collaborative work done when the assignment was personal and individual.  If you intend to “write this chapter together” cooperating on a chapter that both of you hand in as your own be sure to get permission from the professor.  Such “full disclosure” allows some professors (like Coach D) to grade in a “value added” method—that is, if there are two people doing a single assignment and sharing all the work between them, the work should be twice as good/twice as mush/twice as deep etc.  So, remember:  When assignments are personal, do them yourself—even if they seem to be “grunt work” Or provide full disclosure if you hired someone, or someone volunteered to do the grunt work for you.  To hand in work done in part or full by another person falls under the uniform definition of cheating in all educational institutions, religious or secular. (As for the lower level collaboration mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph –charts, graphics, research, pictures—I this course credit this collaboration in your acknowledgements page.)

 

8. Extra Credit work.

Every assignment in this course is an opportunity for extra credit.  If a paper carries a value of 100 points, it is possible, if you do extraordinary work on the project to earn extra credit on any assignment or exam.  There are scores of opportunities to earn points in this course, every one is an opportunity to gain extra credit if you are able to “break the curve” by doing superb work.  Other extra credit provisions—such as doing extra work to make up for absences or sloppy work on earlier tests or papers is of course not provided for.  Do your work well the first time—“doing extra hard work” doesn’t count for extra credit.  Doing excellent work could!

 

9. DISABILITY STATEMENT: If you have a disability it is the intention of this course to accommodate you in learning, note-taking and testing.  Please see the Student Support Services as soon as possible to make specific arrangements.