Course Syllabus

9th Grade Online Biology – The Study of Life!
2010 – 2011 School Year


Welcome to 9th grade Biology!

My name is Clarissa Crisp and I will be your instructor for this course. I am sure we will have a lot of fun, learn a bunch and leave this course with new friends and new knowledge about living organisms. As an online course, we will be using many different online tools to help guide our journey and ensure maximum student success. Since I am not physically present in the classroom, we need to communicate through email, phone, blogs! Communication is important, if you have any questions, please contact me or post a blog, other students might have the answer to your questions.

Teacher:
Ms. Clarissa Crisp
Email: crisp1ca@cmich.edu
Work Phone: 248-497-8600
Email is always best and usually fastest. I will try to reply to your emails ASAP or you can post a question on our class blog and other students might have the answer that you are seeking. Feel free to call as well if you have questions regarding this class.

Course Description:
The study of the biology of living organisms. Students completing this course will also be equipped with knowledge of the patterns of heredity. We will also look into how fundamental principles of biology are integrated with local and global issues of current interest.

Course Weekly Instructions
• Monday – Go to our class blog to obtain your weekly readings
• Tuesday – Continue with weekly readings and start posting your answers to the weekly reading questions, I ask, through our class blog and on your on blog.
• Wednesday – Please post your answers to the weekly readings if you haven’t already and start reading your classmates answers as well. Please give feedback to at least three other classmates answers.
• Thursday - Review class materials and/or start dissection
• Friday - Review class materials and take or finish dissection
• Saturday – Make sure all of the above weekly activities are done and you understand the weekly course concept, if not, go back and finish your work or ask questions, if you don’t understand, if you are done with the week’s work – have a great weekend and I look forward to you logging bake into our class site on Monday.

Resource Requirement:
All students taking an online course will be expected to have access to a computer connected to the Internet and loaded with appropriate Internet access software as well as MS-Office or a compatible package. Laptops, PC’s, computer at the school or local library will work just fine.
http://dissect.froguts.com/ For dissections
Additional course information, including class work, articles and discussions will be connected to our class blog.

Student Learner Responsibilities:
As a student that is taking an online course, I expect no less if not more effort out of each one of you as if you were sitting in a face to face classroom that I was teaching. I expect you to log onto our class blog daily, participate in class discussions, turn in all assignments by the posted due dates and have academic integrity which includes, respecting other classmates ideas and submissions as well as citing all work that you have borrowed from the internet.

Feel free to read ahead if you are all caught up and want to explore future lessons.

Grading Policy and Scale:
Quizzes @ 60 points each x8 = 480 points
Final @ 250 points = 150 points
Froguts Online Dissections @ 20 points each x 6 = 120 points
Blog Participation= 250 points
Total Possible class point = 1000

All quizzes and assignments are open book and notes, questions through our blog will be open ended, higher learning thinking questions.

Any assignments turned in after the posted due date will receive a deduction of 5 points per each day that it is late.