Hello and welcome to Christian Cultural
Heritage online. My name is Todd
Brenneman. I'm a professor in the V. P.
Black College of Biblical Studies, and
I'll be your instructor for this course.
In many respects this course is very
similar to the face-to-face course-the
on-ground course, but what I wanted to do
in this session was give a basic
overview of the course, what we're going
to be doing in this semester, and then
also talk about some of the assignments:
some of the requirements for the course,
and highlight some things that are in
the syllabus. I would encourage you to
take the time to investigate the
syllabus. We are not covering everything
in this session on this video that is in
the syllabus, and we're going to
highlight some things but for for
information I would encourage you to
take a look at the syllabus. It's
available on Blackboard under the
syllabus. There are other policies there
as well related to Faulkner University
as well as Faulkner, uh, taking course
through Faulkner online. So let's talk a
little bit about this course. One of the
later videos in this course-in this
session-will focus more heavily on
Christian cultural heritage, what we mean
by that phrase, some of the things that
are important to recognize related to
that phrase and that topic, but as we
begin this session I wanted to highlight
some things because I get the impression,
having taught the course on ground several times, spoken with other instructors who
have taught the course, that a lot of
students come into Christian Cultural
Heritage not having a full understanding-sometimes not even having any sort of
understanding-about the course and what
it entails and the subject material. Now
you may have heard about some of the
assignments
some of the requirements of the course
but often a lot of students just really
don't have an idea about what this
course is, because it's not like some of
the other Bible courses that you've
taken in that you know if you're taking
a course on the life of Christ or the
book of Acts, if you're taking a course
even on something like marriage and
family, you have a general idea of what
that course is going to cover in the the
name or in the topic. Even if you take
for example a textual course
let's say the Epistle to the Romans
you know what the subject material is
going to be, but a lot of students don't
really have a grasp or an understanding
of what Christian cultural heritage
refers to, and even when you take a look
at the course description that too might
not provide a lot of information
regarding what subject material we're going to be
covering. But as I said we'll be talking
about that in more detail in a later
video, so here I just want to highlight
some things. It's important to see that
this course is meant to be kind of the
capstone course in many respects to a
variety of the different requirements
that you've had to take here at Faulkner
University. It is meant for someone who
has already gone through all of their
Bible courses as well as the Western
Cultural Heritage series at Faulkner.
And so this course is kind of a capstone
course to all of that in that it's going
to be tying together a variety of things
that you have discussed and looked
at that have served as the foundation for
what we're looking at in this course.
So it's meant to be kind of a
continuation of those things as well as
building on the foundation of those
elements specifically tying together a
lot of the ways in which Christianity
has been influenced as well as has
influenced the development of Western
culture. Certainly, Christianity has had a
larger impact than just Western culture,
and certainly if you are an
international student you may be coming
from a country or a region that wouldn't
necessarily be considered Western in its
development, but the focus of this course
is on the relationship between these two
elements: Christianity and Western
culture which again is why it serves as
the capstone towards a lot of what we
have been looking at and talking about
as you've looked at or as you've taken
the other courses in those two series.
Thirdly it's also meant to incorporate a
lot of what you have been doing in your
major classes as you have been looking
at a variety of the courses that you
have taken in your major and are
beginning to think about what it is you
want to do with that major, what
vocational goals you have. And so really
what we're doing in this course is tying
all of those things together to allow
you the opportunity to do some spiritual,
some philosophical integration of those
things as you think about now here you
are completing or being close to
completing your degree plan at Faulkner
and thinking about okay where am I going
from here? And so you know, tying together
the spiritual component, the historical
component in the Western Cultural
Heritage series and the American
Cultural Heritage course, as well as your
major, your professional literacy and
thinking about you know how are how am i
tying all of these things together and
as I think about where is it that I want
to be in five years and ten years both
in a career idea but then also from the
standpoint of being a Christian in that
career? And so in many respects we're
tying together a lot of things to help
you see these elements as being not
distinct different elements but being
closely intertwined and integrated with
each other, and in thinking about,
especially, you know, your life after
graduation. In many respects the goal
here is for you to spend some time over
the content, over the weeks of this
course, to think about, okay, I'm going
into a business field or I'm going into a
science field or I'm going into
education. What does it mean, then, for me
to be a Christian business person, a
Christian Scientist, a Christian educator?
Now, certainly, you may be coming to this
course without any sort of religious
background as a Christian, maybe from a
different religion or non-religious
background, but mostly, students at Faulkner are going to be coming at this from
a Christian standpoint. So even if you
are coming from a non-Christian or even
a non-religious standpoint, hopefully
there will be something useful here for
you to think about maybe making your own
goals and thinking about how your
particular worldview lines up with those
things. Maybe taking the opportunity to
investigate the Christian worldview more
fully
and think about that in a broader way
perhaps than what you've done in some of
your other courses.
So in thinking about that, there are a couple 
objectives that we're going to be trying
to achieve in this course. At the end of
the course the successful student should
be able to think through their strengths,
their weaknesses, their opportunities,
their challenges with respect to a lot
of those goals that we've just talked
about and what is it that I want to be
spiritually? Who is it I want to be
spiritually? Where do I want to be
professionally? What kind of impact do I
want to make on society? You know
thinking through how Faulkner and an
education at Faulkner in those elements
the the Christian literacy, the cultural
heritage literacy, professional literacy-
how have those things prepared me? How have
those things shaped me? What kind of
guidance have they given me as I think
about moving forward here past
graduation? And so that is a very deeply
personal, reflective type of approach in
this goal, uh in this course. And so part
of this course is giving you the space
to think about some of those things, to
reflect on some of those things through an essay, through some of the
readings, through some of the discussion
boards. You know thinking about: Who am I?
Where am I going? Who is it that I want
to be? Another component of this course
is also that at the end the course you
should be able to talk about the
intertwining between the Christian
worldview, American culture, Western
cultural, in general.
I'm thinking about how that has an
impact on your field of study.
Again, a lot of this is to encourage you
to think and provide you some resources
to think about what does it mean to be a
Christian educator, Christian business
person, a Christian Scientist, you
know, that's something more than
just saying something I'm going to be
ethical. And that ties into that third
point about, you know, thinking about a
particular discipline and how it is, you
know, applying in respect to Christian
service. To get back to the point about
ethics-an element we'll be looking at in
this course. In many respects probably a
lot of people, when they think about "what
does it mean to be a Christian in
business, education, science, and the arts"-
whatever your particular field-often
the ethical is probably one of the first
things they think about. Well I'm going
to be ethical in my dealings with people
or my dealings with subjects or whatever
it is I'm particularly involved in. And
that certainly should be true. Christians
should be ethical people but there are
important ways that there are some
important things to think about, in that,
a non-Christian religious person and
even an atheist can also be ethical as a
business person, as a scientist, as an
educator. And so ethics can't be the
sole way in which a Christian shapes her or
his, you know, what that
means to be a business person, or an
educator, or a scientist, because as I
said non-Christian people, non-religious
people can be ethical as well.
So certainly Christians should be
ethical, but it's got to be more than
that.
You know, there should be in many
respects something distinctive. Now that
might be the reasons for wanting to go
into particular field, the way in which
we see how a particular field fits in
with the larger Christian worldview. It
could be the end-you know, what's
my goal, what's my purpose in being an
educator? What am i hoping to achieve out
of this? What do I hope to achieve
out of being a scientist? So there are
variety of ways that we can think about
what it means to be a Christian in a
particular field, and you know that
I think ties into a lot of what the
other of the other components that we
will be talking about in this course. So
this is kind of a overview of, you know,
what we're hoping to achieve. Now
certainly, it would be nice if at the end
of the course I could say can you do
these things? And you say yes, and I trust
you, and say okay here's an A. But that's
not necessarily the way things work. So
there will be a variety of assignments,
assessments, that will be used for you,
to give you the opportunity to
demonstrate your ability to do those
things.
There will be one exam in this course a
final exam given in week six, that will
cover the material in this course. There
will be study guide. We'll say more about
that. There will be discussion posts each
week completed on blackboard that will
be related to the material. Critical
engagement essays asking you to think
critically about a variety of topics, and
then, a reflective essay that is a kind
of a summary of a variety of those
personal and individual types of goals.
Let's say more about each of those here
in a couple minutes. There are three
textbooks for this course, and you should
try to get those as soon as possible if
you do not have them already because
especially for that last one _How
Christianity Changed the World_ you will
be by the end of the first week
submitting or you are required submit a
reflective essay off of something out of
that book. So if you do not have it
already you need to get a copy of it. It
is available electronically so if it's
kind of this, this is the last minute
kind of thing, you know, then I would say
you know try to get it as soon as
possible.
But you will need all three of these
textbooks. The Bible, of course, you
probably already have a copy of the
Bible. It does not matter which
particular version of the Bible you use.
You can use an electronic Bible, physical
book, that's not going to matter. All that
matters is you having access to the
Bible, being able to read some of the
passages for the specific weeks.
So make sure you can have a have access
to a Bible. The second book, the second
textbook is OS Guinness's _The Call: Finding
and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of
Your Life.
_The Call_ is more devotional in its
organization. It is not necessarily an
academic book. Hopefully, though, it will
encourage you, that you will be encouraged
to reflect on some of the things there.
So it should make you think even though
it's not strictly an academic book.
There will be discussion
questions from _The Call_ each week
getting you to think about some of the
material in there. But mainly, I want you
to use this, to help you focus some ideas
for that reflective essay. And so that's
kind of the main purpose of that book,
even though you'll be using it for
discussion posts each week as well.
And then that third book, as I mentioned,
very important that you get that as soon
as possible.
Alvin Schmidt's  _How Christianity Changed the
World_.
So Schmidt examines a variety of aspects
of Western culture and traces out the
ways in which Christianity influenced
those particular aspects, whether that is
thinking about something like freedom,
the concept of freedom, if it's something
like sexuality or gender roles, even
down to things like hospitals and
charities. And so that book, the focus
will be on, you know, Schmidt trying to
demonstrate the ways in which these
elements of Western culture have been
shaped by Christianity, the influence of
Christianity has had, and so that will be
a very important book to help shape our
thinking. And it is predominantly the
Schmidt book that you'll be writing your
critical engagement essays on, thinking
about, you know, does he have a
convincing argument if we accept what he
says about how Christianity shaped, for
example, charitable organizations or
education? What does that mean for
contemporary society? What does that mean
for the Christian today? With respect to
especially Schmidt but in
many respects, you know, reading for this
class is, especially in the Schmidt book,
there are some important things to pay
attention to. One of the things is that
you should come to these works ready
to engage it in a very critical way, in a
very significant way, that is more than
just a surface reading of the text. While
I would certainly hope that you would
have some sort of enjoyment or
benefit upon reading these books,
especially the Schmidt book, in many
cases I recognize this isn't necessarily
going to be something that you pick up
for pleasure reading. So this is going to
be different than how you would read a
fiction book. So I would encourage you to
be prepared to take notes.
Now how you take notes is completely up
to you. That could be, you know, if you
have a physical copy of the book that
you plan on keeping, you know, writing
things in the margins, underlining or
doing something similar in an electronic
copy, or actually physically writing
something out on notebook paper or
keeping notes on an iPad or laptop,
however you do that, I want you to make
sure that you are coming to these
texts ready to make notes. Same thing
would be true even with the the biblical
readings. The goal of our biblical
readings is not necessarily for you to
know the narrative of a variety of these
texts. You know, for example, early on
the first week you'll be reading the
first three chapters of Genesis. Well
those chapters it's not meant for you to
necessarily know like the order of
creation, what was created on which day,
or the
particular events of that narrative,
maybe something you would have had it
done in in Pentateuch. Instead what we're
looking for out of the biblical reading
is for a greater understanding of
certain principles, and so thinking about
principles what does this tell us, you
know, what does this show us about how
God thinks about or how God created the
world in these kind of principle types
of life? So be prepared to take notes;
again, however you do that is up to you
whatever is going to work best for you.
But I would encourage you to not just
kind of read through and go okay I've done
that reading and you check that box. If
you're really going to get something out
of this class, you have to be ready to
take some sort of notes so that you have
that material, you can refer to that
material, you can use that material for,
you know, whatever particular purposes
were using it for that week. For
especially the Schmidt book, maybe more
so than _The Call_ or biblical reading, you
don't necessarily want to approach it in
the sense of, you know, alright I'm
going to start at the beginning, I'm
going to read straight through and then
I'm going to be done. Instead for the
Schmidt book, especially, I would
encourage you to take time to read some
introductory paragraphs, read the
conclusion paragraphs, pay attention to
the headings, get a general sense first
of what's going on in this
particular let's say, for Schmidt, this
particular chapter. What is it that he's
trying to communicate? And having done
that,
then, I would say, focus on,
you know, trying to get the point of
specific chunks of text. You know, the
goal isn't here at the end of your
reading homework time to say, okay I've
read every word. I start at the beginning.
I got to the end. I'm done. No, instead
it's to, you know, really learn something
out of this, really engage the text that
this will be very very helpful as you
certainly prepare for those critical
engagement essays, so that you can find
something that you can say, okay I
completely understand what's going on
here. Now I've got this chunk I'm going
to, you know, talk about it in
and analyze it. So, you know, it's not
necessarily, you know, begin at the end,
go through, uh,
begin at the beginning, go through
the end, and be done one read.
But instead really engage the text,
really get something out it. And, of course,
you know, taking those notes is very
important part of this.
Paying attention to definitions, lists,
you know, certain words are highlighted
in italics, or in bold text,
those are the kind of things that are
meant to kind of draw your attention to.
Okay there's something important going
on, something significant going on.
But then also think about asking
questions of the text. Thinking about
what it is that this author is saying,
again particularly is for the Schmidt
book. You know, when  you read a section
lesson, let's say, you know, you're reading
 
you're reading the chapter on hospitals
for example. So you read the first
section on hospitals, and you say, is this
convincing me? You know, has he proven his
case? Is there something missing here? Is
there, you know, maybe you have some
knowledge about this history or
something and say, well, you didn't really
talk about this aspect so why might not he,
why might he not have brought this up?
Right? So engage the text. Don't look,
don't just kind of
here, you know, engage in kind of a
passive relationship with the text, but
really engage it actively. Because that's
going to give you more significant
understanding. It's going to help you in
writing those critical engagement essays
to think through some of these things
instead of just kind of as passive
reading of the text where you start at
the beginning and ended up at the end. So
reading for this class is probably going
to be different than some other classes.
You know, probably more along the lines
of what you have you know hopefully done
in some of your major classes as you've
been learning the particular material of
whatever class you've been taking.
Let's turn now to going back to the
assignments, the requirements, the
assessment of the objectives, some of the
things that you're going to be doing in
this course.
With it being an online course there
will be a variety of videos that you
will be required to watch / listen to
each week. And there are several hours
each week that you will be expected to
watch.
A lot of that content will come from me:
a variety of lectures or overviews of
subjects, much like this type of
presentation where I'm providing you
information, and you're expected to kind
of absorb that. Sometimes it will be
material I've used for other courses
that I've edited down and presented for
this course, you know, just kind of saved
me some time. It's the material that I
wanted you to know. Especially for those
for those videos-there might
be a discussion of a particular
assignment in some of those videos.
Outside of this video I would not
concern yourself with any of the
assignments talked about in videos.
Because it might have been something for
a different class. So just pay attention
to certain elements within our course.
On Blackboard there's a section
called course content that is broken up
into each week. And as you open the
folder for each week, it will give you
the list of assignments for that week:
the videos to watch, discussion posts to
make, essay to write, maybe a study guide
as we get closer to the final. So just
pay attention to that list of
assignments. Do not worry yourself with
assignments that might be talked about
in some of the videos.
So you'll have video content for me, some
of which is specific for Christian
Cultural Heritage, some of which I've
brought in from like a world religions
course or something like that.
Additionally there'll be content
produced by others. We will be watching
some videos from Michael Sandel, a
professor of philosophy at Harvard. He
taught a course-the entire course is
available through YouTube. He's taught a
course on justice, and there are some
very important things that-some ideas
and some things that he raises that I
want you to engage with and so that's
why, you know, I could communicate that
material through video I produce, but you
know they're just they're just done so
well and he's such an engaging presenter
that I really wanted to give you the
opportunity to experience that material
through you know watching his videos as
opposed to you know repackaging some of
the points that he makes. And then there
will be other videos by other people.
Some videos, for example, from N. T. Wright
a New Testament scholar from England.
And so each week there will be several
hours of video that you will need to
watch, some of it for me, some of it from
others that you will be expected to
engage with.
Now I want to say certainly that in the
material that comes from other
instructors, other professors, I am NOT
presenting that material as things that
I 100% agree with. So don't please
don't necessarily take it as everything
within a certain video you can accept.
Instead, there's some larger
points that are coming out of those videos
that I want you to get, but certainly
I would expect I would expect you to
even to match up some of the
things that I say with you know other
information, with what the Bible teaches,
certainly, you know in a variety of ways,
but I don't want to say I completely
100% endorse every position that will be
presented in all of these videos.
Certainly the material I produce is one
thing, but as far as any outside material
that is produced, you know, I want you to
understand that, you know, I agree with a
lot of what is being presented, or I
support a lot of what is being presented,
or
I think that those videos raise some
important questions that we need to
think about. So there are a variety of
ways in which we're going to interact
with that material, and so I kind of want
to preface that a little bit by saying
you know I don't just blanketly accept
something just because it's included in
this course. There might be some material
in the books or in the videos that you
know that maybe wouldn't necessarily be
100% scripturally accurate or or you
know
reflective of my particular position.
Alright, so having said that. What is the
one of the things that I want to make
sure of is that you're engaging with
that material. And so one of the things
that you will need to do each week is
provide a set of notes for the videos
that you've watched for that week. Now
you can either submit you know your
notes that covers everything or you can
submit a 500 word summary for each
lecture or each particular video. Now
some of my material I will break up into
15 to 25 minute chunks. That way you can
engage some of it in a smaller setting
like, you know, "I only have like 20
minutes to watch a material right now so
here's this this little bit of a chunk."
Certainly I can't do that with some of
the material that's been produced by
other other content producers-the
Michael Sandel lectures, for example. Some
of those are you know about an hour long.
I can't set it up to break that down
right so that's how that material has
been produced. So, you know,
you don't have to do one for each
particular video, but
often they're arranged in particular
lectures. So for example when you get to
week three there will be several videos
on Islam. So in talking about Islam,
you know, I want you to kind of organize
that material and present you know a set
of notes related to that and so set of
notes related to the Michael Sandel lecutre,
the N. T.  Wright lecture, you know, and
whatever else. If you have a particular
question about this, you know, how many
sets of notes you need to submit, etc.,
feel free to contact me, feel free to
communicate with me about that. I want to
make sure that you know that's
completely understood. But in doing that
you need to demonstrate that you
actually watched that material. So I
don't want you to just copy the
PowerPoint slides, for example. Because
this material is going to be useful for
you in studying for the final exam. So if
you just copy the PowerPoint bullet
points, that's not going to give you
enough material to study and succeed on
the final exam. So make sure you're doing
more than just copying down the
PowerPoint slides. Certainly this first
week, you know, I'll look over the notes
try to provide you some guidelines say,
you're on the right track or maybe you
need to include some more detail, to help
you figure out what it is that you
should be doing in this respect to
demonstrate that you know that you are
engaging the material and the way that I
think you should be. So you will want to
submit those notes each week. You know,
this is not something that you should
get behind on. This is something you need
to do each week, and the links for
submitting those notes are available on
Blackboard under week 1, week 2, week 3,
etc. There is a space that says submit,
you know, "Student Note
Submission."
The format that you submit it in is up
to you. Some people would prefer to watch
the video, take notes by hand.
Perfectly fine. If you want to just take a
picture of your notes and send me the
picture, that's perfectly fine. That
works; that works fine. If you are
watching the video and say like
on a desktop computer and you want to
take notes on an iPad or a laptop or
something like that, that's fine too. You
know, so the format is up to you,
whatever's going to work best for you to,
you know, get the material down and that's
going to be in a format that is useful
to you.
So the particular format doesn't matter.
What I'm looking for is has a student
been, you know, watching these videos,
engaging with this material, getting down
the information that they need to get
down, so that they are prepared for the
final exam, some of the other assignments
that will be due. So that's largely what
I'm looking for there, something more
than just the powerpoints,
that's going to be useful for the
final exam.
There will be one exam in this textbook
or excuse me, there'll be one exam in this course
that will take place at the end of the
course, the last week of the course. It
will include multiple choice questions,
short answer questions, essay questions,
will cover material from the textbooks,
the lecture material, the videos, will be,
you know, maybe even draw something from
the discussions or reflect things that
we've talked about in discussions. There
will be a study guide provided at least
two weeks prior to the exam that will
help you get the material and help you
focus on what to prepare for
for that exam. So there would just be the
one exam of the course at the end of the
session.
Each week you will need to submit an
engagement essay, critical engagement
essay. This is for weeks one through
five.
And these will be based on readings from
the Schmidt book _How Christianity
Changed the World. Essentially what I'm
looking for you to do is to find a
particular idea in one of those chapters.
Each week you'll be reading several
chapters. You need to pick something from
one particular chapter and just one
particular idea
and briefly summarize the idea. Let's say
something to do with hospitals. Alright?
You are reading the chapter on the hospitals. And
summarize what Schmidt says about how
Christianity influenced hospitals, and
then in the second half of the paper
kind of engage that particular
idea. So what should that tell us about,
you know, Christianity in the modern
world?
What does that tell us about, you know,
what is it that is significant about
this?
What are consequences of accepting it?
What does this tell us about
contemporary culture or why is this an
important point to know? Any of those
questions. And these are
highlighted in the assignment as you
read through the assignment of what I'm
looking for on blackboard. You know, you
don't have to answer all of those
questions, but finding one particular
question. Alright? So here's what
Schmitt says about hospitals. What does
that tell us about Christianity today? Or
what ways do Christians today
continue this aspect that led to the
creation of hospitals or what ways have
Christians kind of abandoned that
concern? And really kind of engaging the
idea. Not just summarizing what Schmidt
says, but really thinking about, you know,
what are some of the things and what are
some of the ideas that are connected
with this? So each week a 500
word essay, you know, picking that one
idea, describing that idea, answering
those questions. Again, you know, you don't
have to answer all of those questions
but, you know, really trying to engage
what Schmidt is saying. Again it's only 500
words which is about two to three pages
double-spaced.
So it shouldn't take you a very long
time to write the paper. I would
encourage you to, you know, as you kind of
get it
you know reword it and revise it and
some of those things, but the actual
kind of the paper itself is not a very
long paper, but that 500 words is a
minimum. You can certainly go more than
500 words, but it has to be at least 500
words so about 2 to 3 pages
double-spaced, every week, for the first 5
weeks. So there won't be anything, there
won't be a critical engagement essay due
in week 6. There will be other material
due in week 6, and so that's why you're
not having to do the the critical
engagement essay.
 
The last major assignment in the
course is the reflective essay due
towards the end of the semester, or at the
end of the session I guess might be a
better way to put it since we're only
doing six weeks. It will be due in week
six. It is 1500 words minimum and
essentially the [cough]-excuse me-the idea
behind the reflective essay is to engage
and get you to think about, you know, your
past, what are some elements that have
influenced you from your past, kind of
reflecting on where you are now and then
also thinking about your spiritual goals,
your academic goals, perhaps your
vocational goals, emotional, psychological
goals, you know, there are variety of
things that you can kind of,
directions you can go.  But specifically,
this essay is meant to try and provide
you the opportunity to reflect on your
worldview.
We'll talk about what a worldview is and you know,
thinking about, you know, what your world
view is, as well as thinking about, you
know, your career, you know, where are you
going in your career
and, you know, some of the things that you
will want to incorporate in
your day-to-day life and, you know,
what kind spiritual goals you have,
etc It's an integration worldview
and career. The guidelines for that as
well as the grading rubric are available
on Blackboard, and so you know I would
encourage you to spend some time looking
that over, a very important assignment in
this course. I just realized that I did
not include a slide about the
discussion posts, so I would encourage you
to spend some time on the syllabus
looking through that information. But
basically, there are-beginning in week two
you are going to be required to comment
or respond to a variety of questions
that I have developed related to the
material that we're looking at that week.
And, you know, well, week one you will only
needed to do two discussion posts. Week
six you will only need to do two discussion
posts. Weeks two through five you will
need to do four. The first post must be
completed by Wednesday before midnight,
and then the rest of the material needs
to be completed before the end of the
week.
Each of your first four posts have to be
substantial post-at least a hundred
words, engaging the questions that I've
presented for a particular week's topic.
After posting responses to the questions
that I've asked, then, you must also
respond to at least four other posts,
whether from classmates or maybe I'll
maybe you'll respond to one of my
questions, and they'll have another
question, and you can respond to that. But
you need to do four other posts related
to that that are responding to, you know,
your classmates' discussion. So most weeks
you're going to be posting eight times.
Again we're doing a six week course, so
it's going to be a lot of material in a
very short amount of time. Again I would
encourage you to spend more time with
the syllabus on this. So the for first
four posts in response to my questions
will be graded out of ten points.
The responses to other students or to
additional material that I put up,
they don't count for any points, but
if you do not do them you will lose
points. So the first four get points the
second four if you do not do them you
lose points. Alright? So they don't gain
you any points, but if you don't do them
then you lose points. So you know make
sure to be doing those, reading the
material that is in the syllabus about
that. Those posts have to be more than "I
agree," "me too," "great thought." They have to
be something significant. The grading
breakdown. Each of the major assignments
[cough]
excuse me, every week will count for a
certain number of points. The engagement-
that refers to the notes that you're
submitting on the lectures, the other
videos you're watching-that's 200 points. The discussion posts are 200 points. The
final exam is going to be out of 200
points. Each of the essays-the total
of all the essays will be 200 points, and
then the final the reflective essay is out
of 200 points. And so it's out of a total
of a thousand points. Doing it this way
of course makes it easy to kind of
figure out where you are. You're kind of
adding up the points that you have at
any particular point, thinking about, "Okay,
so I want to get an A in this course so
I need at least 900 points. So where am I
now? What do I need to get to?" Right?
Addition and subtraction. You don't have to
figure out percentages, those kind of
things.
 
So each of the major assignments out of
200 points, a total of a thousand points
for the semester. That means, you know,
certain things like individual
discussion posts, if, you know, let's
say there's four lectures you have to
watch in particular week and you only do
notes on three. Well that's not going to
destroy your grade. If you forget to do a
discussion post, that's not going to
destroy your grade. Even if you do poorly
on one of the critical engagement essays,
that's not going to destroy your grade.
Now, obviously, if these things add up,
it's going to have a significant impact
on your grade. But each individual little
piece isn't necessarily going to
entirely destroy your grade. But make
sure that you keep up with this material.
This course will go very, very, very, very
quickly, and there's a lot of material to
cover in a very short amount of time.
So I would encourage you to make sure to
keep up each week with the different
assignments, and as I mentioned, under
Course Content each week, I've broken out
for you the videos that you need to
watch, right, a link to the playlist the
discussion post link, the maybe the
critical exam link, or the week that we
have the reflective essay, the submission
for your notes, or all of that, is under
those folders under Course Content. So
the Course Content is going to be one of
the places that will be the most useful
for you in thinking about each week, what
is needed.
Talked about the grading scale a little
bit. That gives you an idea of the
breakdown where you need to get to for
the course, for the grade that you would
like to receive in the course. Each week, of
course, there are a variety of assignments and
I'll try to keep up as much as I can
with the grading. My policy is to get
graded material back to you within a
week after it being due. Often it's a lot
more quickly than that, but once I have
turned an assignment back to you, let's
say turn a critical engagement essay
back to you, you will have-this is
University policy-you have three days if
you have a concern about how something
is graded and you would like it regraded,
believing, you know, that I've made some
sort of mistake. So I submit the essay
back to you, and say, okay, you got a C
on this essay. Here are the reasons that
you got the C, alright? You didn't include
this material or you didn't develop
this idea, and you say, no, I really did
that. I think you misunderstood, right?
Well, get in contact with me. Send me an
email, saying, you know, after looking at
my grade, I noticed that you did not
understand-I believe you didn't
understand what I was saying in this
particular paragraph. I'll take a look at
it,
re-examine it, grade it fairly, and say
okay, you're right, and so I've
adjusted the grade, or no, I see what
you're saying, but you still did not
include XYZ. And this is why you've got
the grade you got.
There are certainly other opportunities
for appeal after that, but the university
policy is three days after a graded
assignment has been returned. So keep up
with those assignments. Keep up with
those grades. I'll provide information
for the critical engagement essays, about
how to improve if it's necessary. I mean
if you do a fantastic job then it might
just be me saying great job, right? You
keep doing what you're doing.
But if, you know, if there's some things
that I say, well you
a really good job summarizing but you
don't really engage the issue, right? So
ask yourself these questions. So
I'll try to provide you that kind of
feedback, so that you know the next time
something is due, you can, you know, you
can be better prepared. So like I said
my policy is within a week, but I know
we go very fast and so once that first
essay is done, you only have a couple
days before the next one's due, and so I'll
try to turn around pretty quickly so
that you know if that first essay
you just summarized and you don't engage,
I can tell you that so you can say, oh, okay I
need to do more of that in this second
essay. So I'll try to, you know, do that as
quickly as possible, but you know I am a
human being, so you know if I make a
mistake where you think that I need to
grade something, or if I didn't-if you
think that I didn't grade something
fairly, by all means get in touch with me
about that so I can make sure to grade
it fairly and graded it fully.
With respect to that,
if something comes up where you will
need an extension, please get in contact
with me about that. In most cases I will
not accept late discussion posts, late
notes, other things like that. Essays can
be turned in up to two days late. You
will receive a letter reduction, uh, a
letter grade reduction for each day it's
late. And after few days I will not grade
it. It'll be an F, a zero.
If something comes up, get in contact
with me, you know,
a variety of family issues can come up, all
sorts of things, and so if you get in
contact with me before something is due
or you know as soon as possible when
something comes up, there will there
probably opportunities for us to make
some arrangements. So if situation comes
up, please get in contact with me about
that, but in general, my policy is, you
know, once the due date passes, then you
know, that's it, except for essays
which can be turned on up to two days
late with a grade reduction. And so if
something does come up, please get in
contact with me about it
as it's coming up and don't wait until
the end of the semester to say, well, you
know, work got too bad or this
happened or that happened. Well, you know,
had you talked to me about it three or
four weeks ago we could have made
arrangements, right? So it's better to get
in contact with me earlier, when there's
an opportunity to make some adjustments,
especially in the timeframe that we're
talking about-[cough] excuse me. I want to
highlight, of course, academic honesty.
There are discussion posts in this
course, there are essays in this course-some of those critical engagement
essays, some of those are, you know,
reflective essays.
There are a couple of things to keep in
mind. Of course, it's very important that
you are academic--academically honest
in presenting any of the assignments
that you submit. So do not use someone
else's work as your own. What I'm looking
for-all you need in this course is
the material I provide, the textbooks and
your brain.
There are no research assignments.
There are no assignments that are going
to require you to engage any other
material other than what I provide
through lectures or links or through the
textbooks. So please do not use someone
else's work as your own. If you're
having a problem understanding something,
instead of googling it, instead of doing
some sort of search to try and find ways
to talk about something, get in contact
with me. Let's work together to help you
understand what it is you're having
difficulty with, to help you think
through what you want to write about. Please do not take someone else's work
and present it to me as your own, alright? So I don't want you to pull up a
review of Schmidt's book and submit that
as an essay. I don't want you to have cut
and pasted something from somebody else-a website or someone else's paper. Don't
submit someone else's work and, you know,
claim that you're the one that wrote it.
As I said, you do not need any outside
sources, but if for some reason you use
some sort of outside source-
whether that's in a discussion post, whether that's in a critical engagement essay,
make sure that you give them credit. Make
sure that you cite that work properly. To
do anything less would be plagiarism and
that is an academic offense and we'd
have to involve the Dean of Students. So
if you use someone else's work, make sure
that you give them credit for that work,
saying I got this material from, you know,
this particular website or this
particular book. If you are unsure how to
cite something,
get in contact with me. Please let me
know what I can do to help you in these
assignments. I want to see you succeed,
but I want to see you do your work. I
want to see what you can do, not what
someone else can do. Don't use someone
else to complete assignments if you
haven't cleared it with me. Most cases
collaboration will occur through
discussion posts, but I'm looking for you
to do your own work in what you have to
say in the discussion post, your
engagement of the works, your reflection
on your goals. Alright? So the focus here is on what you
can do not what someone else can help
you do.
So do your best work, do your best work.
That's going to be the thing that I'm
looking for. I want to see what you can
do. If you are using someone else's work,
make sure to cite it appropriately. At
the very, very least, you know, if you
don't know how to cite something, give me
some sort of indication: I got this from
a website. Alright? Here's the address for
the website. If you're not sure how to
cite something, please let me know. I'd be
more than willing to help you figure
that out, talk about whether you need to
cite it, etc. Above all, do whatever it
takes to keep your integrity.
I want you to be able to say by the time you
finish this course, really by the time
you've finished, you know, your work at
Faulkner then no matter what you receive,
no matter what grade you receive, that you
can honestly say, I did my best work. No
one else did this for me
I did not lie. I did not misrepresent. I
did not hedge.
And that this is the work that I did, and
and I feel comfortable because I did my
best and didn't steal, take, plagiarize,
cheat.
At the end of the day, that is vitally
more important than the letter grade you
receive, is that you can feel confident
that you did your work, that you were a
person of integrity in how you presented
your work.
If you need academic accommodations even
in an online environment, please make
sure that should say Dr. Rachele
Schaefer, I apologize, I forgot to edit
this. But get in contact with Project Key.
You probably already know that if this
applies to you. The information for
project key is available on the syllabus.
Contact them as soon as possible to make
sure we start you on the road to success
early. So we can make sure that you get
the appropriate accommodations for this
course. And so, you know, contact a
Project Key as soon as possible either
Dr. Rachelle Schaefer or Heidi Guy,
either one of them will be able to help
you with that. Again, you probably are
already aware of that if that applies to
you, but certainly want to make sure that
that is a reminder.
I hope that you're prepared for a great
course that will encourage you to think
about some things maybe that you haven't
thought about before, provide you some
opportunity to think in depth about some
things. You know it's going to be a very
busy course. We're doing a summer
course. Six weeks, and it's going to be a
lot of material and so I, you know, I mean
I would encourage you to you know really
set out a schedule if need be to get
through all this material. There's a lot
to cover. We're taking a 16 week course
and compacting it into six weeks. So you
know please get in contact with me as
soon as possible if something happens,
you're starting to fall behind in
the first week, the second week, you know
whatever I can do to help you with that.
But do you want to kind of say up front,
you know, this is a very intense course. It's
meant to be, right? It's a 4000 level course.
You should be a senior and taking it. You
should have taken several Bible courses
already. If that's not the situation,
please get in contact with me so we can
see. Maybe this isn't the time for
you to take this course. Because you know
it is a lot of material and it is going
to be flying by very quickly. So while I
don't want to see anybody leave, you know,
I do want to encourage you to really
consider the amount of work that's going
to be required of you throughout this
semester. So please take the time to look
over the syllabus get a little bit more
detail about some of those those
assignments.
You know, scout through the Blackboard
site. If you have any questions after
reviewing all that material, feel free to
get in contact with me about that. My
instructor contact information is
available both the syllabus and on the
Blackboard site under instructor contact.
I will do my best to respond to any
emails within 24 hours. So if you don't
hear back from me
within 24 hours, feel free to email me
again so that I can make sure to respond
to you as quickly as possible. Looking
forward to a great course, looking
forward to what all you have to say.
Please take the time as your beginning
this week to introduce yourself on the
student discussion board, so that, you
know, not only I get to know you a little
bit and your fellow students get to know
you a little bit so that we can try to
build some sort of community here even
though we're doing this online. I will
close by saying looking forward to a
great semester looking forward to a
great class. I pray that God blesses
each and every one of you with the
ability to focus and to be disciplined
and get through all of the things that
you're wanting to accomplish this summer
and would encourage you that if you have
any questions please feel free to get in
contact with me. Let me know what I can
do to clarify anything or provide
further information.
you
