Assignments and Grading & Due Dates
 
Ongoing Desire2Learn Discussions:
You are expected to participate weekly in the discussions posted on Desire2Learn.  Part of your responsibility for this course will be to develop and practice the skills required to use Desire2Learn effectively in your weekly discussions, and for your team project.    The instructor will pose a question (or series of questions), weekly, on the Desire2Learn Group Discussion format.  From these questions, students should interact with each other, and in response to the questions.  To provide the best feedback, you should engage in internet research or refer to other published works, occasionally, in reference to the question or issues that have been posed.  Other times, you will simply state your opinions or refer to general knowledge and experiences that you have had.  Each student should engage in at least 10 group discussion formats in a substantive manner, through the semester. Your ideas and responses should be contributed shortly after the questions are posed, in order to stay with the pace of the virtual class discussions.
 
Formal Written Assignments:
 
Paper #1:  Essay on personal approach to “helping”:
Theories often emerge from an examination of fundamental questions, like:  “What is the essence of helping? What do I actually do when I help someone on a personal level?”  “What am I trying to accomplish as a helping professional in human services or work settings?  Does ‘helping’ have intrinsic value?”  Based on the readings for this course and your own personal experience, write 3+ pages (typewritten, double-spaced) describing and critiquing how you help other persons.   Pay particular attention to intervention strategies, personal values and ethical issues when conducting your self-assessment.  Basically, this should be a preliminary statement of your own theoretical orientation to human relations and may be stated from the point of view of the counselor, manager or other helping professional.  Have a minimum of three (3) references, using APA style.
 
Paper #2:  Structured cross-cultural interview:
After reading Don Locke, Increasing Multicultural Understanding:  A Comprehensive Model, select one of the eleven minority populations discussed in the text for further study, preferably someone from a different racial and ethnic background than you.  Prepare a structured interview stemming from the author’s model (outline, specific issues raised) and then interview someone from your selected, non-dominant population, asking questions to capture that person’s ideas on individual, family and cultural issues.  You may gear your interview toward general matters of interest, or toward workplace concerns, or toward counseling issues (or a combination of these three foci).  Then write a 5+ page paper summarizing your findings.  Attach two appendices to you paper:  the first appendix should be your structured interview questions, and the second appendix should be documentation of your own thoughts and feelings about the assignment, analyzing what you learned about yourself in setting up, conducting and processing the interview.  Be prepared to discuss you interview in class once the assignment is due.  Cite Locke’s text in APA style, and any other references you use; Locke is the only required resource.
 
Paper #3:  Final essay (either a psychological or an organizational focus):
Choose one of the following topics:       
            
Either, select a major theoretical orientation from the text by Corey, Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy.   Then, choose a real or imaginary situation to present as a written case study in which you are applying the theory you have chosen.  The situation may be in a clinical setting, or in a personal setting, or in a variety of professional settings (e.g. as a human resource manager, a civil rights advocate, an agency administrator, etc.).
 
The study may be focused on individual, family, group, organization or community interventions.  The way in which you present your case study and theoretical application is up to you.  One acceptable way is:
1. to present a short vignette describing the situation;
2. to write actual dialogue between the helper and helpee(s), illustrating the theory being used; and
3. to draw conclusions which highlight what theoretical premises and strategies were being applied, and why.
 
The text of this case study should be 5+ pages in length (typewritten, double-spaced).   Include two (2) other references in addition to Corey’s text, following APA style.
 
Or, write a 5+ page paper (typewritten, double spaced) detailing your own theoretical approach to leadership and/or management.  You should make 10 major points in which you specify and prioritize your top principles in leading and/or managing effectively and humanely.  Enough discussion should accompany each of the ten points you make to present a strong thesis.  In addition to other resources you select, you should reflect on the ideas of at least two (2) major theorists.  Six (6) references are required for this essay, following APA style.
 
II. Informal Written Assignments
There are case studies and personal reflection and problem solving exercises in Module 1 through Module 4.  These case studies and exercises require no formal research or citing of references and are primarily based on the material in the PowerPoint slides (and to some extent, your reading assignments).  In addition, you will be required to do extra internet research to stimulate your critical thinking and/or to provide a historical context for the slide presentation.  There are seven (7) informal written assignments within the four (4) modules.  Each of the seven (7) essays should be approximately one (1) page in length.   All seven (7) informal written assignments and the results of your internet research (when applicable) should be turned in at one time, at the due date.
 
III. Team Projects
 
Team projects will be assigned on issues relating to contemporary
social and workplace concerns in human relations.  The topics
include:
A. Stress and burnout
B. Violence in society and work environments
C. Chemical dependency
D. A feminist perspective on gender issues in society
E. Gay and lesbian concerns as human rights issues
 
Students group presentations will be posted on Desire2Learn for  the entire class to see on the due date.  The team projects are meant to be didactic.  But also, as a group, you should experiment with creative ways to teach your fellow classmates about your assigned topic.  Research on these topics should be conducted from outside sources, in addition to the assigned texts for this course.  Approximately two weeks after being assigned to a group, an outline of the group presentation should be presented to the instructor detailing the division of labor and topics among the various members within a group.
 
IV. Exam
There is an objective, multiple-choice exam based upon the text by Gerald Corey, Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy.  This exam will be posted on Desire2Learn and can be taken as an open-book exam.

Grading:

Grading will be determined as follows:

Ongoing Desire2Learn Discussions	100 points
Paper #1:  Essay on personal approach to “helping”	100 points
Paper #2:  Structured cross-cultural interview	100 points
Paper #3:  Final essay (either a psychological or an organizational focus)	100 points
Informal Written Assignments (case studies/ exercises in modules 1-4)	100 points
Team Project	100 points
Exam	100 points

Final grades will be assigned as:

A = 90% -100 %

B = 80% -  89 %

C = 70% -  79 %

D = 60% -  69%

F = below 60%

The grading of written papers is gauged according to the quality of content (approximately 75% of grade), the writing style including clarity of expression, grammar, sentence and paragraph construction (approximately 15% of grade) and the timeliness of submission of the paper and adherence to the assignment (approximately 10% of grade).  The grading of group presentations is gauged according to the overall production of the group with room for slight variations--positive or negative--depending on obvious individual excellence, or the lack thereof.  In all of the course work, (a) creativity, (b) a graduate level of academic performance, and (c) compliance with APA standards (when applicable to the assignment) are expected and valued.

Due Dates:

You are expected to proceed sequentially with modules 1 through 4.  These modules consist of PowerPoint slides, exercises and internet searches.  Each one of these modules has informal written assignments within it.  You should complete the specific informal written assignment at the time of working through the respective module but wait to submit all seven (7) of your informal essays at the due date designated below.

Your team project should be worked on throughout the semester.  You should regularly collaborate with your assigned team members concerning the finished product.  Within the first two (2) weeks of the class, your team should submit a rough draft of your division of labor for the project.  For example, if your topic is “chemical dependency” your team might divide the topic into several parts, with student A responsible for the section on “theoretical orientations to treatment”, student B responsible for “policies and procedures in the workplace” and so on.  The final product may have variations on your original in-group designation detailing who is responsible for what.  But your team should submit your original proposal on which parts of the assignment are the primary responsibility of what particular student shortly after the class begins

WEEKS 1-14	Ongoing Desire2Learn Group Discussions
WEEK 3, September 10	Paper #1:  Essay on personal approach to “helping”
WEEK 6, October 1	Paper #2:  Structured cross-cultural interview
WEEK 10, October 29	Paper #3:  Final essay
WEEK 12, November 12	Informal Written Assignments (from modules 1-4)
WEEK 14, December 3	Team Project
WEEK 15, December 10	Exam