Timing

Fall 2020 Adjustment

As announced by the Vice President for Academic Affairs, the undergraduate fall semester will begin and end earlier than planned. (Graduate and professional programs are still under consideration as of this writing.) You will want to take these dates into account as you prepare your course plan:

Monday, August 31: Instruction begins
Wednesday, October 14: Mid-semester Break—no classes
Thursday-Friday, November 26-27: Thanksgiving
Students who choose to travel outside of the Boise Valley over Thanksgiving will be required to complete the semester remotely.
Monday-Thursday, December 7-10: Final exams/projects

Accreditation Requirements

How much time should students spend each week for your class? Generally, credit-hour guidelines at U.S. universities are based on a standard accreditation requirement of 15 hours of instruction plus 30 hours of homework for each credit, as defined by federal regulations. For a 3-credit course, this works out to 135 hours (45 hours x 3 credits).

If a 3-credit course is taught in 15 weeks, the clock hours amount to 9 hours a week (135 hours divided by 15 weeks) to cover everything a student does—coming to class or watching video lectures, reading the text, partaking of learning activities, and completing assignments and exams. To estimate how long students might need for readings, a rule of thumb is about 200 words per minute. Of course, reading proficiency differs for prose, document, and quantitative types of content.

Special Considerations

If your class meets only one evening a week, consider making that your due date and adding a second deadline if you plan to have discussion forums. Otherwise, students have been known to enter their initial post right before the single deadline, which does not afford much time for others to write replies.
Consider leaving Sundays for worship and rest (no deadlines).

Adding Devotions

In the signups for this training course and early introduction posts, some faculty expressed a desire to better incorporate faith into their blended courses. Teaching at Northwest Nazarene loosens the bonds of the public institution, where one typically must exercise some restraint when it comes to sharing faith in the classroom. For some of our students, your Christlike influence may be the most detailed reflection of God that they see. No matter the subject you teach, you could likely find ways to relate your topics to Scripture. At the least, you could use the general devotional developed by Instructional Design & Technology for NNU Online courses, below.

Sample Devotional

Visit the Our Daily Bread website and read or listen to the devotional of your choice. Then, click Reply in this discussion forum to write a reflection. For example, you might answer the questions in the Insight section near the bottom of the devotional page, or describe how a devotional changed your perspective on a topic or affirmed a belief. In your reflection post, be sure to include the actual link to the devotional you chose. Read the reflections of your classmates if desired; response posts are not necessary. Grading will be done on a Complete/Incomplete basis.

If the Our Daily Bread site does not suit you, feel free to select something from one of the following:

Bible Studies for Students - Essays from the New International Version (NIV) Student Bible

Proverbs 31 Ministries Devotionals - Devotions from Proverbs 31 Ministries

Greg Laurie Daily Devotions - Thoughts from the pastor of Harvest Church in southern California

Inspirational Words of Wisdom - Writings for those who may not feel comfortable with Christian devotions

Joy of My Heart - Writings of Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of Billy Graham

Three-Minute Theology - A YouTube channel with short, illustrated explanations of Christian doctrines

Devotionals for Graduate and Professional Students

Dr. Fred Fullerton, NNU's Executive Director for University Mission & Ministry as well as chaplain for graduate students, has developed a collection of online devotionals based on the book 75 Masterpieces Every Christian Should Know: The Fascinating Stories Behind Great Works of Art, Literature, Music, and Film, by Terry Glaspey. The devotionals are available in the Canvas Commons, which is a repository of reusable content posted by faculty all over the world. Fred developed two sets, each with eight devotionals.

Life Worth Living Faith Formation Exercises #1-8

Life Worth Living Faith Formation Exercises #9-16

eBook version of 75 Masterpieces (This resource is provided by the library. You will need to log in with your NNU username and password)

Directions to import and view a Commons resource

75 Masterpieces book cover