TEXAS WOMAN’S UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY SCIENCES

FS 5023 / Family Sexuality

3 hours

Fall 2004

Course meetings:

OPTIONAL: Saturday, August 7, 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm, TWU Denton campus (HDB)

This course is conducted on Blackboard:

http://online.twu.edu or

Online course activities begin August 30. The online course space will be “turned on” sometime during the weekend prior to this and students are welcome to enter the space and look around. See last page of this syllabus for instructions on logging in for the first time.

This course is 100% online utilizing the Blackboard interface. For more information about this platform, go to the TWU homepage (www.twu.edu) and read entries on Distance Learning, Blackboard, etc.

For technical assistance, contact the TWU Helpdesk (940-898-3971 or ) or go to the Mega Lab, 2nd floor of MCL. For concerns about distance education registration, contact TWU Distance Learning (). For help from Blagg-Huey Library, contact a distance learning librarian ().

All students need a Pioneer Portal account to enter Blackboard (BB) course space. Your Portal e-mail account is the default e-mail address in Blackboard. (You may forward Portal mail to another account; see the TWU website for instructions.) Please also record a back-up e-mail address and other contact information on your Personal Homepage in the BB course space.

Instructors:

Mary Bold, Ph.D., CFLE

E-mail:

Web site:

Telephone: (940) 898-2677

Office hours in HDB 102F: Tuesday 2pm – 5pm.

Virtual Office hours: most Wednesday and Thursday evenings to 10pm

Karen Petty, Ph.D.

E-mail:

Telephone: (940) 898-2698

Office hours in HDB 104F:Wednesday 3pm – 7pm.

Virtual Office hours: most Tuesday evenings to 10pm.

Resources and Materials:

1 – Textbook:

Davidson, J. K., & Moore, N. B. (Eds.) (2001). Speaking of sexuality (1st ed.). Los Angeles: Roxbury. ISBN: 1-891487-33-7 (paperback).

2 – CD-ROM:

FS 5023: Family sexuality (version 2.0) (2004.) [CD-ROM] Denton, TX: Department of Family Sciences, Texas Woman’s University.

The free course CD will be mailed to registered students during the first week of the semester. Use the “CD Order” link in the first week’s announcement on Blackboard to provide us with your current mailing address.

3 – Journal articles and other readings as assigned in Blackboard (BB).

Catalog description: Concepts of developmental sexuality including sex education within the family. Three lecture hours a week. Three credit hours.

Course objectives:

  1. Understand sexual development across the lifespan and throughout the family life cycle.
  2. Learn about sexuality education suitable for various ages and developmental levels.
  3. Understand the concepts of sex, sexual orientation, sexual identity, sexual behavior, gender, gender role, and gender identity.
  4. Learn about sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and HIV/AIDS, including transmission, symptoms, treatment, and prevention.
  5. Develop a basic knowledge of sexual dysfunction.
  6. Become familiar with the scientific literature in the field of human sexuality.
  7. Develop skills in critically assessing sexuality research.
  8. Develop an appreciation for the systemic relationships between biology, gender, psychology, family, race/ethnicity, community, religion, culture, and sexuality.

Course Requirements:

Use of Blackboard, e-mail, and the Internet in the study of sexuality:

TWU campus computers and the Blackboard course space operate with no filters, censorship, or oversight of any kind. The same may not be true of other computers you use in this course. Be aware of your own language and of language and graphics of websites that may create a record or flag of your computer/Internet use for the purposes of this course. If you have responsibility for a computer that is accessed by other people, especially children, you may want to learn how to clear records of your course work on that computer.

Our frank discussion of sexuality in the FS 5023 classroom extends to our Discussion Boards in BB. Depending on your personal use of explicit language, you may feel reluctant to type some words in your comments. Please do not resort to substituting with abbreviations. Rather, use quotation marks around terms that you would not normally use in your own speech. You can feel free to use any words in Blackboard that we would use in class. (This includes the File Exchange space for your papers.)

Because some e-mail programs monitor the use of certain words in regular e-mail messages, we recommend that explicit language not be used in your e-mails concerning this course. At some institutions, the use of the word “Sexuality” in the subject line is enough to “dis-allow” a transmission. (So, you may want to identify this course simply as “FS 5023.”)

Assignments for all students:

Working e-mail account. Create a TWU Pioneer Portal account for use in online courses. Your Portal e-mail address will be the default account registered in Blackboard. You may forward this account to a home account (see TWU website for instructions) or you can check the TWU website (by entering your Portal) for your messages. A working e-mail account is a requirement for this course. A check on your account will be made on September 6 (Labor Day). This will be a two-part check, noted in your Blackboard gradebook entry with 2 plus marks.

+ +means we sent a message that did not bounce back AND you replied (and we received the reply) by the end of September 9

+ 0means we sent a message that did not bounce back BUT we did not receive a reply by the end of September 9

0means we sent a message and it bounced back

Please wait until AFTER September 9 to ask GAs about your marks in the gradebook. At that point, please post a query to the Tech GA Q&A Board (under Joint Discussions) or e-mail a GA directly.

Self Introduction. Use the Personal Information and Personal Homepage functions of this course’s BB to introduce yourself to the class. Locate them under Grades / Profile. Enter your name with mixed case letters. This means that “Jane Doe” is correct; “jane doe” is not. You may also display a preferred name “Amy (Janice) Doe” where Amy is the preferred name and Janice is the name on TWU records. Due by midnight at the end of Wednesday, Sept. 8.

Back-up Contact Information. On your Personal Homepage, list back-up contact information such as a non-TWU e-mail address, a phone number, etc. We use this data to create an Emergency Contact List for use if BB were to go down for more than 24 hours. (We have not yet ever had to use it!) Due by midnight at the end of Friday, Sept.10.

Break-out Section Introductory Boards. Participate in creation of a report by your Section on introductory topics. Sections will decide on final presentation format for posting for the entire class; grade will be based on visible participation on each Section’s discussion board. APA formatting is required, with the exception of hanging indents on references. Posts must represent original writing; NO work from prior classes and NO copy/paste from sources will be tolerated. 9% of semester grade

A Concise Encyclopedia Toward a Working Vocabulary. Place “Dibs” on a term for definition and explanation on a Joint Discussion Board. Master’s students are responsible for 1 term; doctoral students are responsible for the rest of the list. File of all terms is on the course CD; entries are made on a BB discussion board following instructions posted there. APA formatting is required, with the exception of hanging indents on references. Posts must represent original writing created for this course; NO work from prior classes allowed and NO copy/paste from sources will be tolerated. 15% of semester grade.

Discussion of Readings. Across 9 weeks of scheduled discussions, participate on at least 8 of the Joint Discussion boards. Starting with Readings Board #2, these boards will reflect Discussion Questions created by students in Break-out Sections. Post to the Joint Discussion board for your Section; you are welcome to lurk on other boards. 20% of semester grade.
Workshop/Program/Curriculum Outline Project. Create an original project using one of the following formats: workshop/program/curriculum that addresses sexuality across the family lifespan (children, teens, young/middle/older adults). Each project should include:

  • Description of the program
  • Goals and objectives
  • Developmental or family theory foundation.
  • 1-2 page outline/agenda.

Each project should be posted to the Project Board by November 1. Starting September 13, instructors and GAs will answer questions about projects in the Break-out Sections. 30% of semester grade.
Final Exam. An open-book exam will be scheduled between Thanksgiving and the end of semester. A preview copy of the test will be available; answers should be entered in BB. 21% of semester grade.

Participation. Students are expected to participate in all BB discussions, both joint and in Sections. (Note: your access to Blackboard is through an Internet browser. Thus, you can make your contributions from home, from a hotel, from an airport….) No credit for late postings. Participation points will not be assigned until the end of semester; your reading of the boards is just as important as posting to them. 5% of semester grade.

Policies and Procedures:

  1. The publication manual for the American Psychological Association (APA), 5th ed., should be used for citations, references, and manuscript style. Written work should be turned in according to class schedule. No late work will be accepted. Due dates are firm regardless of server problems. Projects should be posted to your File Exchange space on BB in addition to the Project Board.
  1. Written work, whether in Blackboard or a paper or a test, must display an

understanding of the topic or question. Your responses must “fit” the question. If you invent a new question or take your answer down an alternative path, we must assume that you do not know the answer to the question posed. For grading purposes, this would equate to turning in a blank sheet.

  1. Understand the principles of plagiarism and create your own original work accordingly. The TWU Student Handbook addresses plagiarism and academic dishonesty; be familiar with TWU policy. No assignment in this course calls for replication of another person’s work without credit/citation.

4. All written work must include citation of sources. If a passage does not cite

a source, we assume that you are presenting the passage as your own writing. When composing your assignment posts and papers, take care that you have not used another author’s work. Even paraphrasing another’s work calls for a citation so that the idea is credited to the author. Direct quotes must always be identified with quotation marks and appropriate citation (APA-5th edition).

5. Communication through e-mail should be clearly identified with your name and purpose. For example, in e-mail your Subject line and first sentence in the message should look something like this:

Doe_John_5023_project question

A file uploaded to your File Exchange should have a filename that looks something like this:

Doe_John_5023_November_project

BB (and some e-mail programs) have problems with files that include symbols in the filename. Avoid use of periods, hyphens, ampersands &, slash marks / \, pound sign #, at sign @, etc.

Whenever possible, submit files in universal formats such as .rtf, .pdf, .htm . Microsoft Word (.doc) files are also OK.

6.Participation in Blackboard discussion is encouraged and expected. Students have editing and removal power over their own posts. We rarely have cause to remove a post. If we read a seriously flawed assignment post, we e-mail the student directly. (No news is good news.) If a minor error exists, we tactfully reply to the post with a suggestion.

  1. Utilize the boards in your Break-out Section to ask for help. If you need no help, then share your knowledge with people who do. Instructor and GA boards are located under Joint Discussions and labeled “Q&A”.

8. Incompletes should be rarely needed in my graduate classes. We expect graduate students to complete the requirements of a course in the semester specified or drop the course and re-take it later. (After all, everyone would benefit from adding the semester break to finish a paper or assignment….) Please take note of the last date to drop this course (see TWU Academic Calendar on the web); all paperwork is the responsibility of the student. If you submit drop or withdraw paperwork, keep a photocopy for your own records.

Evaluation Criteria:

A: 90 – 100%B: 80 – 89 C: 70 – 79 D: 60 – 69 F: 59 down

All work must be completed in order to receive a semester grade, including assignments that are not scored.

TWU Disability Services Statement:

Texas Woman’s University seeks to provide reasonable appropriate academic adjustments for all qualified individuals with disabilities. This University will comply with all applicable federal, state, and local laws, regulations and guidelines, specifically Section 504, of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), with respect to providing appropriate academic adjustments to afford equal educational opportunity. It is the responsibility of the student to register with and provide medical verification and academic schedules to Disability Support Services (DSS) at the beginning of each semester and no later than the second week of school unless otherwise determined by the coordinator. The student must also contact the faculty member in a timely manner to arrange for appropriate academic adjustments. For further information regarding Disability Support Services or to register for assistance, please contact the office at 898-3835 (voice), 898-3830 (TDD) or visit CFO 105.

Family Sciences Diversity Policy:

The concept of diversity implies a total commitment to an open context that promotes equality, social tolerance, and the right to express different points of view. The Family Sciences Department practices and celebrates diversity and creates a culture characterized by a climate of inclusion rather than exclusion, where people are involved in working together for a common good. Diversity refers to the inclusion of all persons regardless of their differences. These differences include but are not limited to ethnicity, race, culture, gender, age, socio-economic status, religion, sexual orientation, and physical disability. The Family Sciences Department does not condone discrimination in any form and complies with Texas Woman’s University Non-Discrimination Policy. The faculty actively seek enrichment through the strength, power, and wisdom of diversity.

Logging into Blackboard for the first time

Accessing Your Blackboard Course

For Fall 2004, TWU is moving from Blackboard 5 to Blackboard 6.
  • In Blackboard 6 you will use your Pioneer Portal username as your Blackboard username.
  • Your Portal username will also be your Blackboard password.
  • You must customize your password under "User Personal Information:(Change Password Here)" once logging in to the new system.
  • Please make a note of your new password.
  • Student accounts are being loaded on a daily basis, and all accounts may not be loaded until the first day of classes. Please try to log in again every day.
  • You may not be able to log in until the first day of school.
  • Classes will not start to show up in your account until August 23.
  • All Blackboard classes may not be loaded into your Blackboard account until the first day of classes, August 30.
  • Not all classes have Blackboard segments associated with them.
  • Blackboard and Portal are separate systems.
  • Your username will be the same in both systems, however, they are not connected. If you change your password in one system, it will NOT change in the other.