1.7 Other Requirements

Learning Objective: Faculty can name the elements of the syllabus language and first week assignment to meet federal guidelines and Highline College RSI review criteria.

Introduction

In addition to the interaction guidelines, Highline's RSI guidelines require syllabus language that clearly indicates to students when they can expect to receive feedback on their assignments. Another requirement in the financial aid regulations requires us to have students complete a content-related assignment by the third day of the quarter.

Syllabus Language

Your syllabus should include a statement about how quickly students will receive feedback on assignments. This sets expectations for the students about when they can expect feedback. (Remember the 'timely' part of the providing feedback category? This is how you establish what 'timely' means.) There's an entry in the college's Inclusive Syllabus Template Links to an external site. under "Assignment Deadlines and Policy on Missed Deadlines and Exams" for this information.

You have some latitude in setting that timeline. You could do one blanket statement: "I will return all assignments back no later than ten days after they have been turned in." Or, you can give feedback deadlines based on types of assignments. "Papers will be returned with feedback within ten days. Quizzes will be graded within 48 hours."

Be clear with students when to expect to hear back from you. If you're going to miss the deadline, make sure to let students know.

Requiring a First Week Assignment

Online asynchronous courses are required to have a first week assignment that is substantive in nature. The best first-week assignments serve multiple purposes. They establish that the student has engaged with the course, they verify attendance, they give you a chance to learn more about the student's prior knowledge or connection to the subject, and they show you some of the assets students bring to the class. While some of these types of questions will not meet the RSI substantive definition, it is a really good pedagogical practice in an online course to learn more about your students.

For online classes, students must complete a substantive activity that is turned into you within the first three days of the quarter. There are two reasons for this:

Financial aid reporting requires students to participate in the class in a substantive way in order to count as having "attended" the class.
Student add/drop, and the ability to add wait-listed students, are based on whether someone has "attended".

The substantive activity serves as the way of taking attendance in an online class.

What does "substantive" mean for this first week assignment?

For online classes, the assignment needs to be "academically substantive." Broadly, that means it is relevant to the content of the course. Here are a some characteristics that can help guide you in creating an activity.

The activity can be an assignment or quiz, as long as some activity is submitted by students to you for a grade.
The activity should focus on the course content. In other words, the student should be responding to something or demonstrating knowledge of something on the course outline.
Diagnostics or pre-assessments that are content focused provide you with great data about the students coming into the course and meet the substantive requirement.
It cannot be administrative ("I got into my email!") or even geared primarily to community building (e.g. "post your bio to the class discussion"). However, these can be an element of the assignment, as long as the assignment has other content focused parts.
You can have this assignment have multiple parts - some are more introduction / getting to know you and others are content based. There just needs to be some content focus in the assignment.

What's a good measure of whether something is content focused? If you can draw a direct link to the course outcomes, you're on the right track.

When should it be due?

Aim for third day of the quarter. It may take students a few days to sort out their online access, and online students may have selected the class for schedule flexibility. We need to allow a few days for them to work on the assignments, but we also want to figure out who is or is not actually taking the course as quickly as possible. The first day that students can be withdrawn by the instructor is the fourth day of the quarter, so a third-day deadline works well.

Examples

Example

Diagnostic quiz related to three topics that will be covered in the course.

Writing assignment that asks students to look at the syllabus and online learner expectations and explain how those expectations align or do not align with your idea for your own success in this course. Asked another way "which of these expectations will help you and which might challenge you in this course?" As this is a writing class, this assignment is aligned with the SLO 4: Adapt writing, voice, tone, and structure based on academic audience analysis, and will allow me to see how you are already doing with the learning outcome.

Discussion post where students introduce themselves (name, program of study, some other getting to know you question) and then answer a prompt such as "Why did you sign up for this class? Look at the SLOs for this course. Which of these seems most aligned to the goals you have in taking this course? Which are surprising for you to see? Make sure you explain your thinking in at least three sentences."

For this assignment, I want you to practice writing a high quality email to me, your teacher. You will use the professional email format described above and practice using that format when communicating. As this is a communications course, this is a great chance to practice one of our learning outcomes "students will accurately apply basic communication concepts to real-world and hypothetical personal, academic, and professional situations." In the body of the email, I want you to answer the following questions:

What do you already know about how people communicate with one another?
What is one way that environment (being at school, at home, at work, with friends, with strangers ....) changes how we communicate?"

We will be exploring these questions all quarter, so your answers help me know more about what you already know on these topics. If you don't know much, that is ok. Remember to focus on writing a quality email to me and use the email checklist to edit before you submit this quiz.

Non-Example

Syllabus quiz that only asks about office hours, Zoom link, grading policies, and other logistical items in the syllabus.

This is not substantive because it does not ask about the course content. While you can have some of these questions in your first week assignment, you must have at least one question about the course content in your first week assignment for it to be substantive. Adding a question about the SLOs, course content, course goals, and student connections to the course topic would make this substantive.

This is not substantive because it does not ask about the course content. You can have students practice practical skills (posting to a discussion board, sending an email) but to count for RSI guidelines, there must also be a substantive portion that asks students to about the course content. Adding a question about the SLOs, course content, course goals, and student connections to the course topic would make this substantive.

Discussion posts that are only about introductions or connections or getting to know you surveys.

This is not substantive because it does not ask about the course content. Community building assignments are really powerful and you learn a lot about students, their strengths, and ways you can connect with them. However, there must also be a substantive portion that asks students to about the course content. Adding a question about the SLOs, course content, course goals, and student interests in the topic would make this substantive.

Practice

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