Changes to the Course: Friday Office Hours

As many old students know, there has been a new schedule of test correcting that I have been "trying out" since April. Instead of returning exams once a month, I have been doing them every week, and have created office hours on Fridays.

This has been running at about an 80% success rate and I am quite pleased with it. However, some modifications will be made for the next year to accommodate the few times of year that I have an extra load of lectures or work from other sites. I have not finished modifications to this schedule yet, however, my vision for it is that it would stay intact as a weekly schedule but I would add in some 'school breaks" a few times a year, much like you would have at a regular university (spring break, winter break, a couple weeks for summer break, etc...). This does not mean that I would not be available during these break times for tech support or other questions or that you cannot work during these times. It would only mean that during those "breaks" I would not be correcting exams on a weekly basis and would not have office hours on those weeks. As I mentioned before, the "weekly" office hours were a new venture this year and everything else about them has been going well. I just forgot to build in some "break or vacation" time - and certainly everyone needs some of that. And without that it may appear that the schedule is "unpredictable" when, in actuality, I can predict with accuracy when those breaks will need to happen. This will help you to plan better as well.

My main goal is to serve you as students and make sure everything goes smoothly, and I believe part of this process is clear guidelines and communication. I have been very happy with the Friday office hours, as this has improved both. However, some misunderstandings have ensued on weeks that I was out of town for lectures or had to take a break for holiday season mailings.

Blessings & Health,
Karima

Student Question: Help with Clients or Extra Work

I received a letter from a student this week:

I've sent you an article on (topic deleted for privacy) about couple of weeks ago, I would be very grateful if you are able to provide any feedback.

That sounds like a very interesting topic. I do receive an overwhelming number of articles, requests for reviews and extra questions from students and members, however, since June of 2008 I am answering all extra questions via the chat list at www.herbnhome.com - members of this list are able to e-mail me on or off list with extra questions about clients, their own work or health issues and I either answer their question on-list or I re-post it without their name. I do comments and corrections on tests and quizzes every Friday. There are a few students who are members of this list that have been consulting with me about their clients and business on the list.

Blessings & Health,
Karima

TECH SUPPORT: Page Numbers for IHC

Dear Students,

Thank you to Mujahid for pointing out that Unit One, that has been re-formatted is still missing page numbers! I corrected the file today. A glitch happened where the page numbers had been removed because when I went into the file to correct it everything was actually "out of alignment" by one or two lines, indicating something was missing from each page.

This has now been corrected and re-posted to the site.

Additionally, I have changed the site a bit more to reflect the units that are re-formatted and the units that are not. When a unit is re-formatted it will be added put in the column under "updated". This way you will know at a glace which units have been finished and which have not.

Thank you for your patience in this matter. This course was originally distributed as individual files and everyone in the courses received the files via e-mail. With the new delivery options I now have for the course E-books are now possible but it does take some time to re-format the individual files into the e-books. If anyone is working on an individual file or particular quiz it is quite easy for me to send you an individual file.

Although I have office hours every Friday I do try my best to answer quick questions and tech support questions as soon as possible.

If you send me a quick e-mail "I need Unit One: Chapter One" or "I need the Unit One Quiz" I can easily send that to you if you have any trouble with the e-books that are not yet reformatted.

Blessings & Health,
Karima

Student Question: Office Hours

Dear Students, I have had one or two students contact me in the past few weeks with some confusion about office hours. This was my response:

I think there might be a misunderstanding in the way the office hours work for students. I have office hours for students every Friday and that is the only day that I commit to answering questions from students. A few times a year I need to skip one Friday. Usually twice in the summer and once during Western Christmas Season. I do my best to answer questions before Friday if they are short (like "What e-mail should I send this to?" or "Where is the link to the student Facebook site?"). If a student has a tech support question (they cannot access a file) I try my very best to get back to them within 12-hours but sometimes if the problem is complex it takes longer.

However, if I do answer an e-mail before Friday, this is done on a voluntariy basis by me and is according to the time I have available that week.

However, on a regular basis, as a rule, I have student office hours ONLY on Fridays. Tests used to be corrected once a month, but to make things more convenient for students I changed it last year to once a week. Any Friday you may IM me, call me or e-mail me and I will respond on that day. Or you can e-mail me before Friday and I will respond on Friday.

Keep in mind that one reason I specify Fridays is because I want students to know that if they do not hear back from me that something may have been lost - or sometimes mis-filed. A few times I have dragged an e-mail to the "student" box and it was mis-filed in another box. Mistakes and Internet errors do happen so I want to make sure students know that I am responding to them on Fridays.

Hope this helps!

Blessings & Health.
Karima

Student Dialogues - More Depth to the Temperaments

This is from a student's test comparing homeopathic temperaments to the Islamic temperaments. The answer is correct, but I wanted to comment (for the benefit of everyone) that you CAN expand the Islamic temperaments beyond the four by combining themkin the same way homeopathy does - there is no rule against this. I often find it useful. Assignment and my comment are below...

Homeopathy also further breaks down the four major temperaments into 12 minor groups as individuals may not fit completely into only the four temperaments. These minor groups are: cholero-phlegmatic, the sangino-phlegmatic, the nervo-phlegmatic, the phlegmo-choleric, the sanguino- choleric, nervo- choleric, the cholero-sanguine, the phlegmo-sanguine, and the nervo-sanguine, the cholero-nervous, phlegmo-nervous and sanguino-nervous. The nervous is known as melancholic in the Islamic temperaments.

Very good. Although when one starts using the temperaments you can also break them down yourself as well. I will often combine temperament evaluations and have noticed, for example, that a melancholic sanguine is much different than a melancholic phlegmatic.