Assignment

If you were to be diagnosed with a disorder such as Parkinson's or multiple sclerosis would you consider paying for an untested treatment? If so, would you be willing to sacrifice your life savings (or your parents') to pay for it? Thinking about what you learned in chapter 1 (scientific research and reliability) what information about the treatment would you want to have to help you make your decision? Explain your reasoning.

To ensure that the discussion forums are a valuable learning experience (instead of a task to check off your "To Do" list) here are some tips:

• Post thoughtful and supported statements (including links to information is always nice)

• Try to move the discussion forward in your replies by asking questions. You should make every effort to answer any question that a classmate asks you.

• Don't be afraid to consider the other side even if you don't necessarily agree with it. You can always start your statements with:

• To consider the other side...
• To play devil's advocate, what about...
• While I don't agree, let's consider...

• Build a rapport with your classmates by responding when they replied to you

• Avoid "drive-by posting". Just like you would not walk into a class, make a comment and then walk out, don't post and run. Revisit your posts and replies to keep the conversation moving forward.

• Engage your classmates - find someone that has not received a reply and respond to them. On the flip side, if there is a lot of activity on a particular post, you might want to take a look.

• Keep in mind, you will be evaluated on the quality of your participation not completion. In other words: Excellent posts earn excellent scores, average posts earn average grades.

• Relevance to topic

• Evidence of thought/reflection, or seeking of information from other sources

• Evidence of critical thinking (i.e. these discussion topics ought to elicit some analysis on your part: ask questions, and more questions; posit some explanations, hypotheses, original ideas. What do you think?)

• Temporal placement (i.e. do your posts all come in the last 20 minutes before the deadline or on a single day)

• Collegiality - adherence to the norms of courtesy appropriate in academic (but informal) discussion.