In this course, one set of your homework assignments is to write 3 blog entries on this course blog — (1) Hello class!, (2) Writing, and (3) Open topic. (You can see them on the menu bar.)
In these blog posts we ask you to reflect on your own learning. The reason I included these assignments for the course is because we have a lot of research results showing that students who monitor their own learning, are aware of how their learning is going, and make connections between class materials and issues outside the class tend to have successful learning experiences, gain deeper understanding of materials, and improve critical thinking skills.
In addition, the reason we selected this medium (i.e., blog) for the assignments is because we believe that sharing these thoughts with other students is helpful. By reading your classmates’ posts, you may learn different ways people connect with class materials and different perspectives people take on questions. You may learn that you share similar thoughts with others or that you have a very unique view on some issues, either of which we hope would be helpful and interesting to know.
I encourage you to include what you think of the blog posts assignments in your entries too!