The only thing I would change is maybe decreasing the amount of reading for some of the units, or saying how long each story is. When I was reading the Native American unit, I really liked how you informed us about how long each story was. It allowed me to visualize the end and made reading the story much easier. It's kind of like reading a book; sometimes you want to know how many pages you have left until you get to the end.
Honestly I think that his class is perfect. I could not praise this class more than I already do. There was a fairly reasonable amount of readings and if you missed something for the week there was plenty of extra credit opportunities to help you catch up. I know that I leaned on those extra credit options a few times when I got a little lost in the class and such.
One thing I would suggest is maybe push the start date of the storybooks back a little bit. Also, I would send an email to students with the link to the portfolio information and storybook stuff the week before the first one needs to be turned in. I know that I was very confused about the whole thing in the beginning and emailing you with questions was incredibly helpful, especially after you sent me a direct link.
I really liked how each week you had our assignments that were due for each day grouped together and then had all extra credit opportunities in yellow below our assignments. It helped me visualize what I had to get done for the week, what I had already accomplished, and see what extra credit I was able to do as well as how many extra points I needed or could have for that week. Have I said enough about how much I love extra credit? It really bothers me that some professors don't understand that students have other classes and sometimes we just need that extra boost to help us out. I know that I have test anxiety so extra credit would really be helpful sometimes. Thank you for giving us a fighting chance!
I also want to say thank you so much for being so encouraging. I know that not every piece is the most perfect piece of writing, but thank you for all of your wonderful words of encouragement! If there was a teacher of the year award I would give it to you. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you so much for all your comments here, Jessica! And esp. with the Storybook/Portfolio options, you are so right about needing to find a better way to help people keep up with the different schedules and not be confused by all of that. That is something I really want to work on over the winter break to see if I can find a better way to do that next semester! So, thank you so much for your kind words and all your good work this semester. I am really glad you had time to include the Week 15 feedback at the end of the semester... much appreciated!!! And I hope you have a great end of semester in all your other classes!
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