Reading Discussions and Forum Comments
Students will be required to make postings to the forum section of the course website, based on the required readings. Every week, students will pair up and one person will take the turn to be the leader of the class discussion one week, and the next week that person will be the recorder. Each pair will shift roles from week to week. Being the leader will require preparing key questions to discuss in advance of the class and leading your pair in that discussion. Likewise, students will each take turns being the recorder, responsible for posting notes from the class discussions for a given session.
A total of 3 leader postings of key discussion questions and 3 recorder postings are expected per student. In addition, each student is invited to make individual commentary postings during the term. Commentary postings should critically engage with the assigned reading materials of your choice and should not exceed 400–600 words (about 1–2 pages, single spaced). Another option is to respond to a classmate’s posting. Posting should be submitted to the class website’s forum section.
WASH Tutorial
Students, individually, or in groups of two or three, will sign up for and give a 15-minute WASH tutorial to the class on a selected water/sanitation/hygiene topic. Your topic can be on any subject within the field of water, sanitation, hygiene, or environment. Some may focus on specific technologies, while others will do demonstrations, skills training, or share success stories of case studies, designs, policies, plans, or engineered solutions. Especially welcome are relevant topics that we don’t have time to cover during class. Example topics include:
- Rainwater harvesting
- Hygiene behavior change
- Stakeholder participation
- Ecological sanitation
- Private sector sanitation marketing
Using source material and/or topic ideas from any of the sites below and/or in the course website, you may find some resources to stimulate your interest. You do not have to draw from any of these resources. These are just offered as possible aids. Instead, you are welcome to come up with your own idea(s) for a WASH tutorial.
- WELL Technical Briefs
- CDC Fact Sheets on Household Water Treatment, the Safe Water Program, and Safe Storage
- Practical Action – Technical Fact Sheets – Topic – Water and Sanitation
- Center for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technologies (CAWST) – WASH Resources
Each person or team will give one tutorial during the semester. Imagine that you are presenting in a developing country village or school without grid electricity or Internet. Use of the white board or other simple, manual, visual aids and your own imagination are the major tools we welcome. Alternatives to PowerPoint are encouraged in the WASH tutorials exercise. Sharing short videos are fine too.
