W ELCOME TO EDL/531 Facilitator: Dr. Sara Renae Mattson, PhD Course Start Date: April 8, 2014 Course End Date: May 19, 2014

Welcome to our course: Coaching and Mentoring, EDL 531. My name is Dr. Sara Renae Mattson; I will be your course facilitator for the next six weeks. Over the course of this class, we will be exploring the theoretical foundations and practical applications of coaching and mentoring in education. Before we get started, I would like to direct your attention to some “housekeeping” items for this class:

T IME MANAGEMENT Time management and attention to detail will be your best friends!

T IMELINESS Turn your assignments in on time. You lose 10% of your overall grade for each day late (this equates to an entire letter grade). I will only accept assignments three days beyond their original due date, as long as you contact me for prior permission.

DETAILED Make sure you are covering all the details of the assignment. Many of these assignments have several parts, so read the full assignment description to ensure you have a complete puzzle. A side note, all Word documents must include properly formatted title and reference pages. In most cases, what you turn in will be compiled into one Word document, unless otherwise specified.

I NSTRUCTOR F EEDBACK Be open and receptive to my feedback. When I return your work, I will provide comments within the body of the work and also in the grading rubric. Please read and apply any suggestions you find helpful. This will ensure you do not continue to lose points over issues such as grammar and structure. Read all my posts. Please read each announcement I post. I will be posting reminders and helpful suggestions to our Class Home page or via your Individual Messages. In a virtual classroom setting, this is my main means of communicating important information to you.

C OLLEGIATE -L EVEL W ORK Turn in collegiate-level work. At the very least, before you submit an assignment or post a message, conduct a spell check. Beyond that, your work should be free of grammatical and mechanical errors as well as properly formatted to APA standards. This applies to your Discussion Question Responses and Participation posts. Take APA seriously. You are required to master APA formatting for this class. You can go to the university online library and familiarize yourself with APA guidelines. The school offers many resources to help you master APA formatting.

S AVING AND U PLOADING Save your documents with your first name and then the title of the assignment. When uploading your assignments, please make sure all components are compiled into one Word document (unless otherwise specified) and saved with your name first, followed by the title of the assignment. For example, your first Individual assignment is a research essay, Code of Ethics Graphic Organizer, so your file should be saved as “ SaraCodeofEthics.doc ”.

Q UESTIONS If you have any questions, ask. You can post questions of a general nature, that the rest of the class could benefit from, as a Class Message, or you can pose questions of a more personal nature, such as grades or feedback, as a Private Message.

I N C LOSING … I also want to encourage you to print or save a copy of our Course Syllabus to use throughout this course. Assignment due dates and points are clearly outlined in our Course Syllabus. While discussions are not a requirement for this course, you must still meet the attendance requirement by posting a message somewhere in our classroom at least once each week, but anything beyond that is optional. I look forward to learning with you as we explore the fine art of coaching and mentoring together. Sincerest regards, Dr. Sara Mattson, PhD