This was a tricky learning outcome. I did engage in collaborative and social aspects during the writing process. I made critical commentary on Blackboard as was always engaged in peer/group discussions in class. I would engage in the discussions during lectures and I offered my services as coordinator when there was group homework to be done.

Unfortunately, there were many occasions where other people in the group did not engage. They would be working on something that was of a personal nature, cell phone engagement, etc. Even the sheets that were to be filled out by peers during peer review work don’t really say anything, most just have a few check marks.

I don’t see any of that as true engagement. Where I can see the real effort is where we students were not transparent and not able to “slack off” as Blackboard commentary is visible to all and a tool for the professor to see who is really participating, really understanding the assignment and making a real effort to collaborate.

I’m sorry to say that on more then one occasion, even in a group of four people, I was often the one who made the greatest contribution to the assignment and this left me feeling that if others don’t hold the same standards of participation as I do, I will either be taken advantage of and do all the work so as to keep my grades up, or, I can just let my work stand on its own and sink with the ship.

One example of my participation on Blackboard that fulfills this CLO is my response to two examples annotated bibliographies. It may not be 100% correct, but the example is here to show my effort.

“2 months agoPatricia Reider Annotated BibliographyC

Sample #1:  The title should be at the left margin.  The body of the initial text should not be double-spaced and actually conveys two different ideas and so should be divided into separate paragraphs.  The introductory sentence describes what is to come in that we need to understand two definitions.  Each definition should have its own paragraph.

Following those, the actual (annotated) bibliography should not be double-spaced.  The order is not alphabetically by author, so that needs to be addressed.  After the first line of each citation, the information that follows should be indented (just highlight and hit tab).   There are other grammatical errors.

Sample #2:  The title should not be italicized and should be underlined.

The body of the text seems acceptable, but there are issues with the bibliography itself.  The MLS style has not been followed, in fact, there is no consistent style other then each citation is in order by author.  

Just as in Sample #1, the information contained in #2’s bibliography should be indented after the initial/first line.

In both cases, there could be a fair bit of editing for simplification and clarity.”