Specifics on University of Phoenix Online Graduate Classes
What are The Classes Like? This Article Will Answer That Question
As the University of Phoenix Online is a distance learning, online environment, you can't actually see your fellow students nor contribute in a class for their is no class for you do your work on your own time -- there's no set schedule. All that is required is the accomplishment of the class objectives within the required framework as handed down by the "facilitator" as they're called by the UOPHX.
Classroom Participation
For each class you take, the program is set up like so: class participation, learning team contributions, and individual work. There are no tests per se, no quizes either. Occasionally, you'll have to do a learning simulation, and that will be part of your individual grade, but overall, it will be like so:
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Classroom participation. 300 points. 30% of total grade.
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Team work. 400 points. 40% of total grade.
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Individual papers. 300 points. 30% of total grade.
Of course, every professor or facilitator as it was called at UOPHX, is different, but this is generally what it was. Let's take each of these in turn so you can really see what will be expected. For classroom participation, it always consisted of the following with very little variation:
a. Discussion Questions. Point value: 20 points in 10 point blocks per week. Each week I post two sets of discussion questions along with a due date for posting your response. Each discussion question (DQ) is worth 10 points. Posting your response to the question on/before the due date earns you the full 10 points. I assign reduced value based on my judgment for shallow or incomplete postings. I reduce the points awarded for late answers according to the late assignment policy in the syllabus.
b. Weekly Summary. Point value: 10 points/week. Every Wednesday you are required to post a summary of the prior week. I simply want you to answer the questions—what did we learn/discuss? Do you see any utility with it in your professional life? I grade your summary the same way I do your DQ responses.
c. Discussion Participation. Point value: 20 points/week. Each week I review every message you’ve posted to the main newsgroup (i.e. participated in classroom discussion with both your fellow classmates and me). I then discount those postings where you’ve provided simple (read less than one sentence “I agree” or “good idea” replies) responses. I count the remaining “meaningful” messages and grade them as follows: 0 postings = Never which equates to a point scale of 0. 1-5 postings = Rarely which equates to a point scale of .50. 6-12 postings = Sometimes—scale of .70. 13-19 postings = Often—scale of 80. 20 posts and above = Always—scale of 1.0. I then apply the “scale” to the 20 points for your weekly discussion participation grade. For example: you posted 13 meaningful responses in the classroom in one week. You receive a rating of “Often” which equates to a scale of .80. Your points for the week would be 20 X .80 = 16.0.
(I took this out of some material I had saved from a class.) So you can see, you were required to post discussions or emails to the newsgroups for your particular class. That's how it worked for class participation -- newsgroups were established for posting by students. It actually worked really well although the faceless environment was something that I came to dislike. That is clearly one disadvantage with the online education degree programs.
As long as your emails with your discussion participation and the responses to the DQs were somewhat intelligently based, you would be fine. I found if I scheduled my work throughout the week, I was never rushing and had ample time to do the team assignments and the individual papers.
Team Work
A vital part of the University of Phoenix program online was team assignments. This was interesting and fun but if you got a slacker teammate, which happens but mostly beginning of the program, well then it could be a challenge. When my mother died in Feb. 2003, I got sidetracked and didn't do my share, which I felt bad about. In return, I wrote a whole paper for the team assignment by myself as they carried me for the other two. This seemed to assuage some hurt feelings. So, yes, some are slackers but that was mostly in the first four classes, actually the first three. By the fifth class, the slackers and non-serious students had been weeded out when they realized it was a lot more work than they had thought.
Here's a word-for-word copying of the syllabus information for one class I had for team work assignments
2. LEARNING TEAM WORK. TOTAL POINT VALUE = 400 POINTS. THIS MAKES UP 40% OF YOUR FINAL GRADE. Your team work grade will consist of two factors: Team Participation (60% of each assignment's grade), and Team Products (40%).
a. Team individual participation (60 points/week for the weeks in which team assignments are due): Did the student carry an equal load in completing the assignment? Actions to look for will include the following. Writing—did the student share equally in any of the original writing (did s/he write a portion?). Reviewing—did the student share equally in reviewing/discussing others’ input? Grade scale: MM=Much more than others (scale = 1.2). M=More than others (scale = 1.1). E=Equal to others (scale = 1.0). L=Less than others (scale = 0.8). ML=Much less than others (scale = 0.6). N=No participation (scale = 0.0). I count the total number of postings the group had during the week it worked on an assignment and obtain an average for the group, then count the individual posts and compare each student’s participation to the average. Less, Much Less, More, and Much More are defined as 25% and 50% above or below the group average. I multiply 50 points by performance scale factors (e.g. Student participation equal to others in the group is a scale of 1.0. 50 x 1.0 = 50 points). Please note that if you do not contribute to the group effort (I do monitor the group rooms) then you run the risk of receiving none of the points from the group work!
b. Team papers/presentation (40 points/product): Does the product adequately and thoroughly address the assignment? I award 0-40 points for fully and adequately completing the requirements of the assignment. I deduct 0-10 points for a disconnected or disjointed logic flow. I further deduct 0-10 points for grammatical errors (e.g. spelling, grammar usage, improper/missing source citations and references). There are four products your team will submit during this course.
1. Due Wednesday of Week Two. Dilemma Analysis. Select an ethical dilemma (can be one of the individual dilemmas from week one or another of the team’s choosing) and analyze the dilemma in terms of the critical thinking tools. Identify how the various factors came to play (or could have come to play) in resolving the dilemma. Submit the paper to the main newsgroup.
2. Due Wednesday of Week Three. Debate. Prepare 2-4 PowerPoint slides advocating one of the positions as shown below. Use references as necessary to support your position. Submit your presentation to the main newsgroup.
(a) Teams A & C: It is critical to create and employ a unified set of ethics and values within an organization.
(b) Teams B & D: We must protect the right of individuals to maintain and act upon their own individual/personal ethics and values within their place of work.
3. Due Wednesday of Week Four. Multicultural Organization. Submit a 2-3 page paper (in the main newsgroup) that answers the following question: What are the challenges and opportunities of managing a multicultural organization in your neighborhood/community?
4. Due Wednesday of Week Six. Code of Conduct. Prepare a model code of conduct for an organization of your choosing. Discuss why you included each element of the code and why you think it’s important to include it in your final product. Submit your code to the main newsgroup. Your code should include the following: Mission/values statement; employee code of conduct; implementation plan (how would your team see communicating the code to the members, enforcing the code, and supporting it’s inculcation throughout the organization); evaluation plan (how will you be able to tell it’s being followed).
It was a challenge doing the team assignments. Planning was the key and the equal distribution of the work load. We usually rotated the team leader for the week. And, by the way, each team was either assigned by the facilitator/teacher or you organized the team assignments yourself. In my first few classes, I got in with a really good team and we teamed up for my first four classes. Then, I took the summer off and basically from that point on went class by class until I got done with only one more break.
Each class is, or at least from 2003 to 2005 was, six weeks long.
Individual Work
The final aspect of one's participation in a class was individual work, which mainly consisted of writing papers. Again, here's some information from one class that was fairly indicative of the rest of the classes I took.
3. INDIVIDUAL PAPERS. TOTAL POINT VALUE = 300 POINTS. THIS MAKES UP 30% OF YOUR FINAL GRADE. EACH PAPER IS WORTH 50 POINTS. Does the product adequately and thoroughly address the assignment? I award 0-50 points for fully and adequately completing the requirements of the assignment. I deduct 0-10 points for a disconnected or disjointed logic flow. I further deduct 0-10 points for grammatical errors (e.g. spelling, grammar usage, improper/missing source citations and references). There are six papers you will submit during this course.
a. Due Wednesday of Week One. Prepare a two-three page paper discussing two ethical dilemmas (from your workplace, personal situation, current events). Describe the situation, how you see it as an ethical dilemma, and analyze conflicting positions. Additionally offer alternative solutions. Submit to the main newsgroup.
b. Due Wednesday of Week Two. Prepare a two-three page paper identifying your personal ethics, values, morals, and beliefs (i.e. a personal ethics statement). Include description of how your personal ethics were developed (people, events, etc. that shaped them) and, using the ethics theories from the week one readings, select the one that you feel most closely aligns with your statement.
c. Due Wednesday of Week Three. Prepare a one-three page paper answering one of the following in your own words (using references as appropriate to support/illustrate your paper). Submit your paper to the main newsgroup.
(1) What role do ethics play in managerial decision making?
(2) What are the differences between personal, professional, and organizational ethics?
(3) What are the differences between individual and group ethics in the workplace?
d. Due Wednesday of Week Four. Prepare a 1-2 page paper discussing situations where you believe the law mandates an approach or action that is, in your opinion, unethical. Conversely you may also take the tact to describe an unethical situation that is legal. Use references from the reading as necessary to support your position. Submit to the main newsgroup.
e. Due Wednesday of Week Five. Collect an example of a code of conduct from your workplace, professional organization, a trade group (or anywhere else you can find an example of a code) and post it in the main newsgroup. Discuss how well you feel it is presented, implemented, and enforced.
f. Due Wednesday of Week Six. Prepare a 2-3 page paper on an emerging ethics issue. The following are suggested areas for you to consider however feel free to use an area of your own choosing. Technology, Education, Health care, Public Safety, Intellectual Property, Internet regulation, Advertising, Environmental deregulation.
There you have it. While the content for the classes as defined in this article are from an actual class, there is very little variation as to how things are structured with most facilitators or proctors. I hope this article was useful to you.
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