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Why would we want you to do Extra Credit?

Why Would you want to do Extra Credit?

What Kinds of projects can you participate in?

How much extra credit can you earn?

How do you participate in extra credit projects?

How will your Extra Credit work be evaluated?

How do you create a printed portfolio?

Why would we want you to do EC?

We would like to engage you in some independent study in areas of biology that you find to be of personal interest and reinforce your understanding by sharing your new knowledge with your classmates.

Why Would you want to do EC?

Extra credit projects can provide an interesting way to supplement and reinforce your understanding of the biological concepts you will need to understand to succeed in Biology 100 or 101.

You get to select the specific topics and the means of sharing your newly gained knowledge with your classmates.

You can earn extra course credit that will be added to your course grade at the end of the semester.

What Kinds of projects can you participate in?

You may select a variety of different projects. See the Extra Credit Project List for descriptions and requirements of projects and examples of student work.

How much extra credit can you earn?

You can earn up to 6% extra course credit. Since the grade ranges in the course generally correspond to 10% increments you can easily improve your course grade by more than half a letter grade. See Biology 100 grade policy and Biology 101 grade policy for grading details.

However, you must participate in extra credit projects throughout the semester to earn the full 6% extra credit. Extra Credit portfolios will be turned in for evaluation three times during the semester. You may submit Extra Credit projects worth 2% at the due date before the first exam, 2% at the due date before the second exam, and a final 2% at the due date before the final exam. If you wait until the second third of the course to start your extra credit projects you can still earn 4 of the possible 6%. If you wait to start until the final third of the course you may earn only 2% extra credit. See "Portfolio Due Dates" for specific information concerning due dates.

How do you participate in extra credit projects?

All extra credit projects involve posting information in the Extra Credit folder of our Course Moodle. You will receive a login name, choose a password and learn how to use Moodle at your Biology 100 discussion or IB 101 lab class.

You will post project reports and enter into a dialog with your classmates using Moodle.

How will your Extra Credit work be evaluated?

You will submit a printed portfolio of your work for evaluation at three times during the semester. See Extra Credit Project Evaluation for directions for the construction of your portfolio and the scoring rubric that will be used to evaluate your work.

How do you create a printed portfolio?

Extra Credit portfolios - As you work with your extra credit projects - not just before the due date - highlight and copy your work in Moodle and paste each entry into a word processing document to be printed later. Include anything you write and anything anyone writes to you. Be sure to include the Moodle information line at the top of each entry, for instance, (Talk to Ed -> Take Home Assignment # 2 -> Re: Take Home Assignment # 2 by Ed Dole - Tuesday, 16 February 2010, 08:45 AM).

You may need to do some editing to remove extraneous "returns" to get the text cleaned up, but it will not take a lot of time if you do it as you go rather than leaving it to the last minute. Keep your portfolio file in a safe place and be sure to have one or more back-up copies. If you need to access your work later, use the "Advanced search" function in Moodle to pull up links to all of your forum postings at once. Type your Moodle User name into the Author section of the advance search form.  Or you can click on "Profile" to access your personal profile and then select "Forum posts".