Class Participation (25%)
The course is designed to be highly participatory and to provide a number of opportunities for each student’s strengths to be utilized while at the same time challenging students to exercise new skills and ways of learning. Being an active participant in class not only requires contributing to the class discussions, but also respecting your classmates, being open to new ideas and approaches, challenging your own assumptions, and actively supporting the group agreements developed by the class.

Community Blogging (25%)
Blogging provides each student with the opportunity to research and share peace education resources with the rest of the class and others who visit the class website. Each student will be responsible for submitting three blog posts for the class website throughout the semester.  The post should highlight a specific resource (book, video, web content, lesson plan, event, field trip location, etc.) that they feel could be effectively used in the service of building peace in an educational setting. Students will sign up for which weeks they will be posting their blog.  The blog should address the following questions:

1. Content – what is the resource and where did you find it?
2. Context – in what type of educational setting do you feel this resource is best placed (subject matter, age level, community, formal, nonformal, or informal) and why?
3. Objective – how would you incorporate this resource into a peace education activity or exercise and what knowledge, skills, or attitudes would students develop having engaged with this resource?
4. Goal – which two pillars of peace education do you think are most supported by this resource and why?

Lesson Plan Design (25%)
Designing a lesson plan provides each student with the opportunity to transform the skills, techniques, and methods of peace pedagogy into a learning process for a specific audience. Students who are currently teaching can use the lesson plan template preferred by their school. For those who are not teaching formally will be provided with a specific template which will ask for: educational context, goal, objectives, materials needed, step by step process, timing, identification of multiple intelligences activated, and reference to which pillars of peace education the plan is designed to support and how.  The student will then facilitate this lesson plan in class, share their reflections on the process with the group, and facilitate a feedback session. Only the lesson plan design will be graded, however. With the student’s permission, the final product will be posted on peacelearner.org so they can be shared with others in the field.

Online Participation (25%)
Online participation provides students with an opportunity to shape the direction of the class discussions and exercises and reflecting on their own participation and learning throughout the semester.  Students should reply to each of the reflection questions posted on the various pages in the course’s online learning modules.

See Course Overview