• Are you putting the time into this course --  at least 5 hours per week (16-week course) or 8 hours (10-week course)?

 
• When reading the book are you stopping to write down your questions to be shared during class discussion and/or sent to the instructor by e-mail?

 
• Are you following the schedule and making at least two posts in the Laulima class discussion forums?

 
• Are you doing the exercises in a timely manner as indicated in the Overview/Schedule page?  Are you looking at the answers only after you have attempted them all yourself?

 
• Are you taking each practice quiz and testing if you can finish the quiz in the suggested allotted time?

I will be saying this again and again throughout the semester because I sincerely want you to be successful.  Students who “jump in” and fully participate in the Laulima discussion posting do best.  Students who don’t, usually do not pass the course and have to take it over again.  Some students take this class three times before they can get their schedules controlled enough to put in the time and fully participate.  I have had online classes where 80% of the students have received A and B grades.  These classes have students in them that literally beat me up all week asking lots of questions (more than the minimum).  If you do that I will attempt to answer them all in a timely manner – almost always within hours.  I have had classes in which only about 20% of the students passed.  Yikes!  The students in these classes could not keep up and did not fully participate.

Also, the students who do best do not wait until the due date to make their posts.  They ask questions as they proceed through the reading little by little.  They generally budget their time so that they start on a section early in the week and then ask questions related to the main topic throughout the week.  On the other hand, students who struggle make the mistake of trying to do all the work for a week in one day (generally the due date day) and then just go through the motions and make posts a few minutes before the deadline.

The learning in logic and math classes is sequential (step by step).  Hence it is very important to stay on schedule.  If you miss one whole week for whatever reason, generally you have twice the amount of work the next week, because you cannot get step 2 if you did not yet get step 1.  Also, if you try to do all the work on one day, you are trying to cram a number of steps that should be spread out into a short amount of understanding time.  You will be making life much harder than it needs to be.  It takes time, discipline, and thinking to connect the dots in life.

Because of the step by step nature of logic, no late posts are counted.  Our Laulima discussions are locked at 12 midnight on the due dates.  I used to allow late posts.  Chaos was the result.  As soon as students know that a deadline is not a real deadline, you know what happens.  It is also unethical to allow for late posts because a summary is usually posted the next day on the Main Page with the answers to the posting questions.  In the past, many good students would complain to me, "What's up with this?!  I busted my butt to do the work on time and you let xxx get credit for the posts even after the answers were posted?!"  These students were right.  So, I stopped accepting late posts for credit.

BUT, you can of course ask questions about previous material in which you may be behind on, either in the next Laulima forum or by direct e-mail to me. (Don't use the Private Message option if you want a timely response.  I am not notified and will often miss the message.  I am notified right away via e-mail for a regular Laulima forum post and I check my e-mail all day.)

Bottom line: Starting with the very first week, budget your time and try to participate a little at a time throughout each week.  Feel free to ask as many questions as you want.