New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT)
Computer and Information Science Department (CIS)
CIS677: Information System Principles, Spring 2001
Professor: Michael F. Smith

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Class Mentoring Assignment - On Campus Sections

Goal

To give you experience in researching and presenting a topic, as well as getting everyone more involved in the class and discussion.

Assignment

Everyone will be part of a mentoring team one time this semester. The teams will be posted on the class Web site.

Your mentoring team will have the following duties for your assigned class.

Teams may wish to set up their own private WebBoard conferences. Please feel free to ask your professor to create a conference for you.

Before Class

1. Monitor WebBoard Chunking Conferences

The mentoring team will monitor the chunking conferences in the following ways:

• Create entries in each of the chunking conferences for your week's articles, if they do not already exist. (Do this as early as possible.)
• Ensure that people are adding chunks in the proper manner and proper place. They should add chunks to the proper conference and reply within their own conference; they should have two chunks and include questions in each chunking comment; their explanations should be substantial - not just 1-2 sentences. (These all especially a concern towards the beginning of the semester as people are getting used to the system.) Please email anyone not adhering to these rules.
• Make a list of the most interesting chunks as well as any requiring replies or commenting by a professor. We all cannot physically read every chunk, so we need your help in this. Email this list weekly to both professors (Bieber and Smith) with the subject line "CIS677 Weekly Chunking Summary."

2. Citation Analysis

Your mentoring team should generate a citation analysis of each of the assigned articles. (See the Citation Analysis Guidelines (.doc) and Handout (.pdf) posted on the course Web site.)

3. Preliminary Article Review

Do a preliminary article review, following the Article Review Guidelines posted on the class Web site. This should only be a rough cut, so you are prepared for the class discussion. Complete the review only after your mentoring class.

4. Prepare Class Handouts

Make one copy of each of the following handouts for everyone in your section (about 60 per class).

1. Definitions
   As a handout, please make a list of definitions for all terms or concepts you encountered in the week's articles that someone might not find entirely clear. Be mindful of the different backgrounds each individual brings to CIS677 - what is obvious to you might be a new concept for someone else.
2. Questions
   List of the 20 most interesting questions from the chunking conferences and the distance section's "DL: Discussion" conferences for this week's topic. Group your questions by categories. Do not include questions posted by mentoring team members, only those from other class members. Do *not* list more than 20!

The top of each handout must include:

• the mentoring group team's names
• a title

You do not need to hand out your citation analysis. Do not hand out an article summary or a draft of your mentoring article review.

In Class

1. Introduce Yourselves

Please start by introducing each member of your team.

Then, whenever anyone speaks, he or she should reintroduce him- or herself again individually to the class.

2. Review Definitions

We will have 3 minutes or so of silence for the class to read over your definitions. Then anybody can ask about any of these.

3. Analyze the 2 Assigned Articles

Lead a brainstorming session on each of the assigned articles, during which the class collaboratively performs a partial article review. The goal is both to train the entire class in what to look for in a critique, as well as to help you gather input for your own set of reviews.

Assign one of your team members to take notes during the class discussion, so you can keep track of the ideas generated.

Spending about 15 minutes on each article, cover the following categories from the Article Review Guidelines posted on the class Web site:

• whether the article is conceptual or empirical
• the article's foundation (if any)
• the article's research contributions
• synthesis with other class materials (this is the most important thing)
• citation analysis (how do you interpret your findings?)
• issues: the author's and yours

Do *not* do any "presentation" as an introduction. Do *not* summarize the article. (We can assume that everyone has read it.) Just launch straight into this exercise.

Remember that this is a brainstorming session. The purpose is not to present your ideas, but rather to get the rest of the class to generate their own. Your job is to *ask* questions and foster discussion, not to *answer* questions. If someone from the audience asks a question it is *not your job* to answer it, but rather to get others from the class to respond.

4. Review Chunking Questions

We will have 5 minutes or so of silence for the class to read over your list of selected chunking and discussion questions, in preparation for the class discussion.

5. Moderate a Class Discussion

Moderate a discussion on the week's theme. Ask people in the class to pick a question from your list, or comment on your verbal chunks, or ask any other relevant question. If things are slow, then suggest a question from your list, or have someone on the mentoring team reply to one of the verbal chunks.

After Class: Mentoring Article Reviews

Follow the instructions posted in the Mentoring Article Review assignment posted on the class Web site.

This page: http://www.cis.njit.edu/~bieber/CIS677S01/mentoring.html