Discussions–How Many Other Students to Review?

Question

If we posted first in our thread, do you still want us to reference other students' posts?

Response

I’ve revised the discussion page to address this question explicitly.  Here’s what it now says.

Each week you are to prepare for the week by reading two professional-level sources that give material related to the topic for the week.

You are to answer some standard questions about it and give some opinions.

You will enter that into one of the discussion "topics" for that week in BbLearn. You are also to read the entries of other students who have read the same primary source material and react to those entries in an appropriate way by editing what you've written to react to what those before you in your topic have entered.

We expect you to comment in some way in your discussion post on the work of at least two other students.

• If you're the first to post in your thread you do not need to comment on other student's work - but you do need to state that you were the first to post.
• If you're the second to post you comment on only one.
• We'll check and deduct points if we find suspicious claims.

Discussion Posts–Addressing Other Student’s Work

Question:

I would like some clarification about how you and/or the graders would like us to respond to other students posts. Should we use the "Reply" button underneath another students post, or should we include our responses in the body of our own post?

Response:

You want to make sure the grader knows that you have read and considered other people’s work.  The best way to do so is incorporate references to other people’s posts in your own post.

• e.g…… I agree with Jonathan Doe’s opinion about the importance of Geotextiles in Geotech, but am concerned that we don’t have good data on how they will deteriorate over time…………