The major component of the class is developing and persuasively presenting a thoughtful, in-depth analysis of an issue challenging education both in writing and in oral presentation using a presentation software package (Microsoft's PowerPoint). Since you will implement this component as part of a team, each member will receive the grade assigned to the team.
The other course components for evaluation consist of (a) one scanning abstract and (b) your individual critique of an issue analysis paper. The scanning abstracts are important in assisting us identify the critical issues that we want to work on this semester; the critiques are important to classmates in the development of their written communication skills.
Criteria for Issue Analysis Critiques. The overall criteria for your critique is how helpful your critique will be to the authors. This requires both attention to the quality of writing (i.e., is it clear? could a sentence/paragraph be expressed more clearly?) including the quality of style (i.e., use of active voice instead of passive voice, grammar). You may want to refer the authors to specific pages in the APA manual or to a specific URL in Strunk's Elements of Style.
I suggest that you begin your critique with pointing out your overall evaluation of the major strengths and weaknesses of the paper. Note that each issue analysis paper is written according a specified outline. Are there any significant omissions or excesses in coverage? Please note where material is weak, incomplete, or hard to follow. Is a section too long? Too short? How can it be made more useful? Remember: the purpose of the critique is to be helpful to your colleagues in presenting a stronger paper. This is hard work, but is a critical skill for you in your work as an educational leader.
The specific evaluation components and their relative weight are as follows:

Component	Weight
Scanning abstract	15%
Issue analysis paper	40%
Issue analysis presenta tion	30%
Written critique of issue analysis paper	15%

Grades will follow the Graduate School's definition: an "H" represents genuinely superior performance; a "P" represents that quality of work normally expected of graduate students at this university; an "L" represents an assessment that the quality of work examined is below expectations; an "F" represents an assessment of doubt that the student can improve the quality of work to the point of successful completion of a degree program. Usually, a student receiving a grade below "P" will be given the option of revising it to improve the grade to "P." Incompletes will not convert to a grade higher than "P" unless the incomplete is based upon illness or similarly unpredictable personal or family event.