REL 200 ‑ Religious Perspectives on the Human Situation
Group Final Exam
The Group Final Exam will consist of two parts: an individual 25 question objective portion to be completed on Blackboard (Graded Activities) and an essay exam that the group will prepare together. For the essay portion of the exam, you will meet with your home group to discuss the content of the course, including readings, lectures, and class discussions. The group will meet during final exam time (Section 03--Friday, December 17 from 9-11:30am; Section 04—Monday, December 13 from 12-2:30pm) or some time prior only if all members are able to participate). The group can meet in the classroom or find another comfortable spot. The purpose of the essay portion of the exam is to have a thorough, intellectually stimulating, creative, fun, and useful discussion of the course materials. More specifically, the task is to demonstrate mastery and deeper‑level understanding of the ideas and concepts presented in the course. This task is to be accomplished cooperatively. You are to generate one set of answers for the group and all members must agree with and be able to explain the answers.
To structure this process, I will provide a number of essay questions. These questions are aimed at being integrative in the sense that material from many parts of the course are relevant to answering them. The responsibilities of each group member are to:
1. Choose one of the essay questions to prepare and answer. Think carefully about your answer. Make sure that your answer is thorough and complete. Learn the answer to the question fully as you will be the group expert on what the course materials have to say about the issue highlighted in the question.
2. Plan how to lead a group discussion on your question that will help group members to think critically about the materials. To do this you need to prepare for each group member a typed answer (or outline of an answer) to your question with relevant page numbers or other materials to facilitate discussion.
3. Come to the exam prepared to contribute to the discussion of each question and to learn and think critically about the answers to each.
The group essay exam should last the 2-2 1/2 hours slated for your final exam. Cover each question on the exam. Guidelines to follow are:
1. Stick to the questions. It is easy to go off on tangents.
2. Cite specific ideas and concepts discussed in class and in the texts. Refer to specific pages or class notes. It is easy to make overly broad generalizations.
3. Set time limits for each questions and stick to these limits rigidly.
4. Encourage all members to contribute to the discussion, even if there is some disagreement.
5. Take responsibility for both task and maintenance actions. Your group has a definite task to accomplish (i.e., demonstrate understanding of materials in REL 200), but the discussion should be enjoyable as well as a productive learning experience.
6. All members must participate actively to (a) contribute to the learning of others and (b) demonstrate overtly to the other members of the group that he or she has mastered the content of the course.
To document that the group essay exam did take place and that the criteria for passing were met by all group members, the person who emails the completed exam to me will document that each member participated equally in the exam. Make sure that there are no "free‑loaders." Do not sign off for a group member unless he or she arrived at the exam fully prepared and participated actively in the discussion of each question. If any group member was absent or unprepared, the group should make sure that this is reflected in the email sent to me.
The group will be expected to send via the same email the answers to the questions generated by the group discussion. Make sure that each expert puts his/her name on the essay question he/she wrote. This will enable me to get in touch with that student in case of a computer or printer glitch.
Have fun!