Defining Directions in My Syllabus & Plagiarism

Defining Directions in My Syllabus

Collaboration	As promoted by Bruffee, collaboration is where students work together toward a goal. Not to be confused with collaborative learning, learning is still taking place, but students are actively working together to achieve a goal such as completing a proposal or creating an elevator speech which are two collaborative assignments within my FYC syllabus.
Collaborative learning	Active process of students working together in such situations as classroom discussions. A collaborative learning environment is conducive to learning. My FYC syllabus includes classroom discussions, peer reviews that will take place, as well as exercises related to the day’s topic.
Empowerment	Process of gaining control over one’s life. For my FYC syllabus, I felt that by giving students the opportunity to choosde their own topics, I’m empowering them to step up, take control of their assignment and run with it, so to speak.
Peer evaluation	Peer evaluation or peer review is an excellent way to gain feedback from other students (other than the teacher). The goal of evaluation is for students to get some idea of quality work and out to improve. In order for this to be effective, the environment should be such that feedback is honest and constructive, not hurtful. There are two opportunities in my FYC syllabus -- I have an opportunity for students to use time in class to review a peer’s essay. Guidelines are given in the textbook to give some guidance for the peer evaluation. In addition, for the collaboration assignment, the partners have to give each other a peer review.
Peter Elbow	A proponent of freewriting. I took some of what he’s promoted in terms of freewriting – giving students opportunities to freewrite without worry about grammar, punctuation and such. In a way, the blog assignments allow the students to freewrite…they are not graded on grammar, punctuation but rather for the thoughts they share. Blog assignments are more of “focused” freewriting.

Plagiarism

Upon reading Dr. Rice’s SOP, I found it to be clear for students in terms of defining plagiarism. I do not think it’s something that is stressed in the K-12 area enough that when students go to post secondary schools, they are faced with this scary word. It brings about a memory that has made me anxious over the years as I completed my BA, one MA and now am on a second MA. Because of my hearing loss, I am a very visual person and for a time there, had a bit of a photographic memory about what I’ve read. I wrote a paper for my FYC class and was called into the professor’s office and accused of plagiarism. Naturally, I was upset and defensive, but fortunately, was able to demonstrate that it was not intentional and also demonstrate how my ability to retain what I hear/read can blur the sense of what is mine or what is not. After long discussions, my professor and I agreed to allow me to have a zero on the assignment rather than expulsion from the program which was what would have happened. I have since been very cautious about what I retain, making notes of anything that I may have read that would be beneficial in papers, and noting whether it’s directly or indirectly attributed to any text I may read. I even go the extra mile to double check my writings against sources. I feel that the SOP created is critical to use especially with FYC students so that it’s clear up front the expectations and the need to be cautious when writing. I also have to note that the SOP says "At no point should the instructor accuse the student of plagiarizing. Instead, the instructor should consider the meeting a teachable moment, speak in terms of “incorrectly used or referenced writing,” and ask the student about ways to correctly reference sources." - given my experience this is an EXCELLENT way to approach this situation. In my situation, the professor came right out and said "you plagiarized this work." It shocked me and put me on a defensive immediately not knowing what she was talking about and then it took over two hours of going back and forth before she realized she should have approached it differently - her response at the end was that it appeared that I unintentionally failed to reference the writing. I think it wound up being a learning experience for us both.