ASSUMPTIONS AND EXPECTATIONS:

Often individual student expectations vary substantially from those of fellow students and from those of the course instructor. The following paragraphs are intended to clarify what is assumed and expected of students enrolled in this course.

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 (via an EMAIL to the instructor) 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 course in which you are enrolled. In fact it is assumed each student is typically taking a twelve semester hour course load, is employed twenty hours per week, and 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 on-time arrivals and 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 session is expected to be combined with four hours of preparatory reading, writing and reflection, requiring a commitment of eight hours weekly (as part of an assumed total of thirty-two hours of weekly academic involvement for a full-time student taking twelve credits per semester).

If you fit the above profile and are willing to make the commitment, you should find the course challenging but manageable.

If not (you may be working more hours per week, have a set of demanding family obligations beyond the ordinary, be enrolled for more than twelve hours this semester or regularly arrive in class after the start of lecture), you should carefully calculate the cost of trying to work this course into your existing schedule—ask yourself, for example, if you are willing to accept a lower (or failing) grade for not having the time available to be in class or to devote to course expectations and requirements

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-defined lecture materials. Instead the course of study opens a subject matter area—the history, civilization and culture of Early Modern Japan—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 journal entries, long and short essays, oral discussion, formal lectures, video and film presentations.

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.

This proposition is tested with a WRITING SKILLS ASSESSMENT PROJECT due early in the semester; the failure to successfully complete this project by the assigned deadline will be grounds for dismissal from the course at the discretion of the instructor.

(You might want to check out the project requirements just to make sure you can handle the assignment.)

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] @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, 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.

EMAIL THE INSTRUCTOR
(at l.makela@csuohio.edu)
NO LATER THAN Thursday, January 17, 2008
TO INDICATE YOUR UNDERSTANDING AND ACCEPTANCE
OF THESE EXPECTATIONS AND ASSUMPTIONS .

PLEASE INCLUDE IN THE MESSAGE YOUR CURRENTLY PREFERRED EMAIL ADDRESS

SYLLABUS: INTRODUCTION | COURSE OBJECTIVES | SYNOPSIS OF COURSE REQUIREMENTS | ASSUMPTIONS AND EXPECTATIONS