CAREER LIFE PLANNING (CRDV 1100-99)
SYLLABUS – Spring 2008

 INSTRUCTOR:                Rob Harris, (R.harris@inverhills.edu)
                                                Counseling Office, College Center Building 2nd Floor, (CC252)
                                                Office:    651-450-8391
                                                Appointments:    651-450-8508
TEXT:                               Whistle While You Work: Heeding Your Life’s Calling
                                                by Richard Leider & David Shapiro
                                            MnCareers 2008
                                                Note: Available for only $.01 in IHCC bookstore!
CLASS:                             Delivered online utilizing Desire to Learn (D2L)
OFFICE HOURS:            Mondays 2-3p.m., or by appointment

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

This course will run from Jan 14, 2008 - March 5, 2008
Friday January 18th, 11:59pm, CST - last chance to withdraw without financial or academic obligation
    (won't appear on transcript and you won't be charged for the credit)
Tuesday February 19th 4:30pm, CST - last chance to withdraw with a final grade of "W"
    Note: Submit form directly to Enrollment Services Office

    For further details visit the College's Academic Calendar & Refund Page

COURSE OBJECTIVES
To provide a systematic approach and supportive environment for you to:

      Develop a framework for lifelong career decision-making.
      Understand and utilize various occupational information resources.
      Identify and evaluate educational and career options.
      Develop an awareness of labor market trends.
    Develop a greater understanding of yourself through identification of your
      interests, values, skills, personality and personal strengths.

EXPECTATIONS

Weekly Schedule
In order to benefit most from this course, you will need to invest time and effort!  This is a participatory course so you can’t wait to do all the assignments just before the last day of the course.  Each week you will have a new learning module and new assignments with strict deadlines.  If you are planning on going on vacation for a week and not log into the course, then you will miss all of the material and discussions for the week and I can not give you credit for any work. 

Exercises and assignments are also organized sequentially and must be completed on time.  Typically, assignments will be due by 6:00a.m. Central Standard Time (CST) on Monday following the module start date.  For example, I will release a new module every Monday morning and your assignments for that module will be due the following Monday by 6:00am.  I would suggest that you try to impose a Friday deadline on yourself so that you can enjoy the weekend without having to worry about this course. 

Deadlines
I have a strict policy on accepting late assignments.  I will only accept late assignments up to 24 hours past the due date.  Any late assignments will be reduced by 25% of the point value.  Any assignments submitted over 24 hours past the deadline will NOT be accepted and you will receive 0 points for that assignment/lesson.  If you have unusual circumstances that prohibit you from meeting deadlines please notify me to see if there is something we can work out.

Time Commitment
If you paid attention during new student orientation then you realize that a one credit class would typically meet for one hour per week for the entire semester.  In addition to the hour of class time, you should expect to spend around 2 hours completing assignments, reading the text etc.  Obviously you will not have class time each week, but you should anticipate spending just as much time completing your work in this class as you would if we met in a classroom setting.  Since this one credit course only meets for half the semester we are accelerating our learning time.  That means that you should expect to devote between 4-6 hours per week on this class. 

Writing
The nature of this class and online learning requires that you will be doing quite a bit of writing.  I will be grading you based on the content of your work.  I am not an English instructor so my job is not to correct your improper grammar structure etc.  Nevertheless, I will expect that you do carefully approach your assignments thoughtfully and that you provide me with quality content in your papers.  If you struggle with writing or would simply like to improve the quality of your work I would suggest that you utilize the tutors available in the learning center.  You can also utilize the online tutoring service called Smarthinking, which is a free service with 24/7 availability in some subjects.  Access this service through the IHCC homepage by selecting "Online Inver Hills." 

Emailing
You are always welcome to email me with your questions.  On some days I get close to 100 email messages and I’d like to make it a priority to respond to those of you in my class as quickly as possible.  To help me out you can start the subject line with “CRDV 1100” followed by your topic.  As an example you may want to write me a message with the following subject line: “CRDV 1100 Question about this week’s journaling assignment.” 

D2L automatically uses your Inver Hills issued metnet account.  For this reason I will be sending all email to your Metnet account.  You should be sure to check your email at least two times per week for any important class announcements.

Classroom Behavior
As you are writing emails and/or posting your opinions through the class discussion it is important that you are respectful of others.  The tone of your writing can often be misunderstood because we don’t have the luxury of your non-verbal cues.  Harassment will not be tolerated in this course and I reserve the right to remove you from this class for behavior that is detrimental to the learning environment of others.

Getting Help
If you are having problems with the D2L program there are several resources for you to use.  First I would suggest going to Online Learning Page: http://www.inverhills.edu/Online/current/index.html  and select “Desire 2 Learn Tutorials" where you can view short short video demos of the most common D2L topics such as:

Logging into D2L
Discussion Postings
Navigating the course
Class list and email

Also the D2L Login page includes information about getting technical help - see the bottom left side of the page!

Accessibility:
I would like to make sure that all the materials, discussions and activities that are part of the course are accessible to you.  If you would like to request accommodations or other services, please contact me as soon as possible.  It is also possible to contact the Disability Services Office, L-224; phone, 651/450-8628; TTY, 651/450-8369.

Podcasts
I've introduced a new optional component of the course - a weekly podcast.  A podcast is a weekly audio file that I will post and you can listen to a brief topic or two that enhances each week's topic.  I've also subscribed to i-Tunes for those of you who may even want to download it to your MP3 player.  I'm still waiting for final approval from the Apple i-Tunes store so we may have to wait a little bit and in the meantime you can simply download the file to your own PC.  I'm trying to keep these weekly sessions brief (about 20 minutes or less) and remember this will be optional so don't sweat it if you don't have the technology or interest.