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The Study Process

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THE STUDY PROCESS

Last modified: 6 April 2010

General Information

a. Courses take place over a 10-week term. Each term has eight weekly learning units, one week for preparation and taking the final exam and one week of test processing, final assessment and grading by the Instructors.

b. All reference to time in the study process and schedule is according to University of the People Time - GMT-5.

c. The Learning Week starts on midnight between Wednesday and Thursday (more precisely, on Thursday 00:05) and ends on the following Wednesday (at 23:55). The weekly study units will be made available one week at a time at the start of the new learning week. You will always have access to the completed units.

d. You will study in small groups or Classrooms of up to 20 students. The majority of the peer learning will occur on this level. There is a Classroom Forum, that you can access from the General Information and Forums section, available throughout the course for you to discuss the course material with your classmates. This forum is exclusively between you and your classmates.

e. In addition to the Classroom Forum there is a larger, open Course Forum where all students in all groups of the Course, as well as the Instructors will participate in discussion and questions of issues related to the course.

f. Your study should start with the Learning Guide, which provides a framework to direct you through the study material and tasks for the week.

Steps

1. Login to the University of the People Online Campus http://my.uopeople.org/).

2. Select from “My Courses” (courses to which you are enrolled) the course you wish to study.

3. Review all material in the General Information and Forums section; including Syllabus and Announcements.

4. Follow the Learning Guide for each weekly unit in the order suggested

5. Record your study process in your Learning Journal, as directed

6. Participate in the Classroom and Course Forums - Voluntary

7. Participate in the Discussion Forum - Mandatory

8. Submit the Assignment (generally weekly)

9. Peer Assess your classmates assignments

10. Take the Self-Quiz

11. Repeat 4-10 for each of the 8 weekly units

12. Prepare for the Final Exam

13. Take the Final Exam

Additional Information

1) Learning Guide

The Learning Guide includes instructions regarding how to approach the weekly tasks. The guide might consist of a lecture to enrich and update the existing reference material or a list of references to the required reading and activity sources or a combination of both.

The reading assignments will be text-based, freely available electronic resources such as open textbooks, articles, tutorials and links to open courseware all with the proper licensing agreements allowing us use of these materials. In some cases, there will also be optional links to animations, simulations and audio and video lectures that we suggest you access should your network connection be sufficient to do so.

After reading and absorbing the material, you should begin the learning tasks. There are four types of activities and in most cases; each weekly unit will contain one of each.

2) Discussion Forum

Using the Discussion Forum, you should post your first answer to the discussion question you see after selecting the link to this activity. This should be done early in the learning week as you are also expected to read the postings of your classmates and respond to them (minimum additional 3 postings) - an activity that will last until the end of the learning week. Your initial posting and response should be well thought out and researched. Your contributions to the forum will be assessed by your fellow students according to a peer review process whereby they will rate your responses according to a set of guidelines (as you will rate the contributions of others) and the quality of your response will be reflected in the grade that you receive.

3) Assignment

The Assignment functionally allows your work to be evaluated by your peers (we actually use the Moodle Workshop feature to do this). Generally each assignment is due by the end of the relevant learning week. Each assignment you submit should be assessed by at least three of your classmates who will respond to a specific set of instructions explaining how and according to what criteria to perform the assessment. You will also receive the assignments of at least three students to assess in the same manner. This is an anonymous process so you do not know whose assignments you are assessing or who has assessed yours. The system automatically checks that the assessments are being done fairly. Peer assessors that perform outside of the average (consistently assess too high or too low) will be alerted and requested to adjust their behavior. A component of each student’s overall grade for the Assignment component of the course will be based on his/her performance as an assessor. To emphasize the importance of submitting the assignment by the end of the submission period, you must realize that this is the trigger for the peer assessment process that must be completed by the end of the following Learning Week. Solutions to the Assignment, where relevant, are posted after the submission period has ended and before the assessment period begins. Not all courses have Assignments each week so be sure to check your Learning Guide.

4) Learning Journal

You should maintain a learning journal (we use the Moodle on-line assignment feature) in which you record what you have accomplished during the Learning Week. The journal is to help you organize, consolidate and record your thoughts, activities and accomplishments. It is also for your Instructor to get a sense of how you learn and what you did in addition to the defined activities. In some cases, the Learning Guide will instruct you to do certain tasks in your Learning Journal.

Using short, easy to read sentences you should record the date when you have reached the major tasks and milestones found in the Learning Guide (such as when you have completed the reading, the weekly assignment etc.). In addition, you should record here your search for additional material in the internet or in libraries and write down problems and issues that might have occurred during the week. It is highly recommended that you make entries to the journal each day. Your instructor will periodically read through your learning journal and make comments to your on your entries (only you and your instructor can view this interaction). The Learning Journal will be evaluated at the end of the class by your Instructor and it contributes to your final grade.

5) Self-Quiz

This is an automated quiz composed of Multiple Choice and True/False questions. The objective of the quiz is to allow you to test yourself. You will get immediate feedback with the correct answers. This quiz is not graded and it does not influence your final grade in any way but your performance in answering these questions will allow you to evaluate your knowledge. Only you and your instructor will see your quiz results. You may receive additional instructions regarding when to take and how to use the quiz activity in specific courses. You will generally have several, but not unlimited, attempts at the self-quiz.

6) Final Exam

The 9th week is dedicated to the Final Exam. You will review the course material during the beginning of the week and have two options of taking the exam, generally on day 4 and day 6 of the Learning Week. The questions on the final exam are of the same type as the self-quiz. The final exam will limited in time, generally to 1 hour, and number of questions. You may only make one attempt at the final exam.