The following paragraphs are intended to clarify what is assumed and expected of students enrolled in this workshop. Often individual student expectations vary substantially from those of fellow students and from those of the course instructor. These guidelines are meant to provide a common ground upon which to build and to avoid misunderstandings that might otherwise arise.

Please read through the guidelines carefully and then indicate at your earliest convenience (via email to the instructor AND NO LATER THAN THURSDAY, JULY 7, 2005) your understanding and acceptance of these standards. 
  
This course has been designed with the following set of assumptions and expectations in mind:

• This is not the only resposibility with which you are encumbered. In fact it is assumed each student is typically taking additional coursework, is employed twenty hours per week, and / or has significant social and family obligations beyond the university and academic community.
   
• Regular and consistent course attendance and participation is a basic core requirement. Students whose usual personal schedules preclude consistent attendance or on-time arrivals and/or for whom regular departures must occur prior to the scheduled conclusion of class time are encouraged to find a more appropriately scheduled course.
   
• As a four credit course, each classroom hour is expected to be combined with an hour or two of preparatory reading, writing and reflection, requiring a commitment of several additional hours daily (as part of an assumed total of thirty-six hours of weekly academic involvement during the classroom portion of the workshop experience). 

• Unlike other courses you might have taken in the past, this course of study is not oriented towards the more-or-less passive acquisition and mastery of a set body of information as outlined by a specific text or in instructor-delivered lecture materials.
    
  Instead the course of study opens a subject matter area -- the nature of "world history" as instructional subject matter in the K - 12 classroom environment -- within the context of a "learning community".  
    
  In this setting students are expected to work actively to define personally-defined interests and to explore them adequately using the ways and means established by the course structure -- assigned reading, independent research, written and oral discussion, formal lectures, Internet presentations, in-class exercises. 

  Students will not be expected nor required to march as part of a single group in lock step towards a predefined set of goals. Instead each will be asked to define personal learning objectives, to chart an independent course towards their achievement and to demonstrate mastery of the general subject matter of the course in a variety of ways to the satisfaction of the instructor. If you are unwilling -- or unable -- to undertake this self-motivated, independently-directed, individually-monitored, active approach to learning, you might be better off in an alternative course offering utilizing a more compatible and comfortable educational setting.

• As an upper division History Department offering, this course assumes students have taken advantage of their earlier fourteen years of schooling to acquire the essential academic skills needed to assure success
  
  Specifically these skills include an ability to read a variety of materials with comprehension and understanding, to write clear and accurate prose, to structure written and oral communication in an appropriately organized and documented fashion and to participate willingly and profitably in oral and written discussion. The course provides an opportunity to hone these skills but not to acquire them.

• Access to email and the world wide web -- as well as a basic level of computer literacy -- also is assumed.
  
  Most students already possess word processing skills (or know someone who does). Furthermore every enrolled student at CSU has an assigned email address (usually [given name initial].[family name] @ popmail.csuohio.edu); the restricted course materials portion of the web site also features an internal email system making possible direct contact with the instructor and fellow students enrolled in this course.
  
  On-campus labs, available laptop computers (both for individual and classroom use), the university library and many other Cleveland area libraries have public access computers available with Internet connections. If you own (or have access to) a personal computer with a modem, you can gain free access to CSU computers by contacting the Office for Computer Facilities on the eleventh floor of Rhodes Tower.
    
  If, however, these facilities are inconvenient or inadequate to meet your own personal needs and/or schedule, please consider the impact these circumstances might have on your ability to meet course expectations and requirements and take steps accordingly.

If any of these essential skills are particularly weak, you must be prepared to devote extra time and effort to their remediation in order to accomplish fully what the course requires of you.

• This specific workshop furthermore assumes an ability to undertake independent research on a subject of personal interest related to the specific content of the course.
  
  As a result you should be prepared (with the support and aid of the instructor as needed and required) to identify an appropriate subject matter, demonstrate the existence of sufficient specifically-applicable materials (books, articles, internet web sites) to justify your investigation, and prepare an appropriately annotated instructional unit demonstrating the application of themes developed in the course itself.

As this set of assumptions and standards indicates, while this course of study does not demand or expect any prior knowledge of world history, civilizations or cultures, it has been built on the premise that the student undertaking it is equipped adequately with the skills necessary both to acquire this knowledge base and to put it to the test of analysis and evaluation. If you meet this profile and are willing to commit yourself actively to the achievement of the stated course objectives, welcome aboard! If not, you might more profitably look elsewhere for the educational challenge you seek.