"Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success." -- Dale Carnegie

Week 6 Blogging Assignments

This week's readings and assignments center around the concept of persistence or grit, especially in the face of challenges and obstacles. Recent studies suggest that building this character trait is very important to any kind of success, but especially college success. Some researchers complain that education has "dumbed down" standards and expectations so much that students do not have enough practice in developing the skills of perseverance in school, but others claim that experiences outside of school can also help build those muscles.

My husband teaches high school music in New Haven, and this short article from the New Haven Independent highlights how one of his former students (now a freshman at Fairfield University) is facing some of the challenges of going to college. The article is a perfect example of the type of persistence needed in college, so please read it in addition to the other assignments for this week. I think the article is valuable because it showcases how some of the challenges you will face in college are not academic, but how they can also impact your academics.

Blog A: Think of a significant challenge that you have faced in your life and needed persistence to overcome (it can be one that is in the past or one that you are currently still working on). Discuss the process of working through this challenge, what strategies you employed, how it made you feel, and what you learned from it.

Blog B: Compare the concepts we are studying this week to the concepts we have studied previously. Write a post that attempts to put this week's reading "in conversation" with at least two other previous readings, using analysis, comparison, contrast, synthesis, and commentary/discussion from your perspective as well. Be sure not to simply summarize but instead draw some interesting conclusions and/or raise interesting inquiry questions based on your comparisons. Include at least one quote from this week's materials and at least one quote from the previous materials.

A note about "Agency"

Agency: I need to clarify because online dictionaries are lousy at this word and steering people in the wrong direction for their V posts this week.

Agency is related to action, power, movement, initiative. Here are a few quotes using it in the way that it relates to our class.

"We just ask the agency to make reasonable and honest decisions, and the public deserves no less."
--Fred Thompson

"Women often find great roles in revolution, simply because the rules fall apart and everyone has agency, anyone can act."
--Rebecca Solnit

"If, then, knowledge be power, how much more power to we gain through the agency of faith, and what elevation must it give to human character."
--Matthew Simpson

"I'll take any life in which I can make choices and have agency, and America is not a bad place for all that."
--Aleksandar Hemon

"As precious as life itself is our heritage of individual freedom, for man's free agency is a God-given gift."
--David O. McKay


For your Vocab Blog this week, think about the way that you had/have agency or are prompted to take agency, especially in the readings/activities from this week.

Registration Information for Education Majors

I received the following information from the School of Education. If you are planning to apply to an education program, please take note:

All SCSU teacher education programs require an application for admission to the program. As you prepare for course registration for the spring semester please consult with your prospective major department regarding course requirements and admission criteria.


**Please note that Early Childhood & Elementary Ed have info sessions coming up soon:

INFORMATION MEETINGS (RECOMMENDED FOR STUDENTS CONSIDERING THIS MAJOR)



Wednesday, October 2 1:05 – 1:55 Davis 211

Monday, October 7 1:05 – 1:55 Davis 211

Friday, October 11 1:05 – 1:55 Davis 211

For those majoring in World Languages (7-12):

INFORMATION MEETING (RECOMMENDED FOR STUDENTS CONSIDERING THIS MAJOR)

Thursday, October 31 2:00 PM Engleman A107

INQ Midterm Video Project

“Show Off Some SCSU School Spirit”

Your midterm video project assignment is to create a short video (5-6 minutes long) that showcases some positive aspect of Southern in a fun and lively way. The projects are vehicles to both express school spirit as well as inform viewers about what makes Southern a good school to attend.

Brainstorming

What makes Southern special? Why do students choose to attend school here? What is the draw? Once here, what does SCSU have to offer? What do students participate in and create in order to make college at SCSU a remarkable experience for themselves and others? What do first-year students think? What about upperclass students? What about the faculty and staff of SCSU?

Think about how to answer the above questions and how many different avenues/perspectives you might explore in answering it. Some preliminary ideas might include…

1. the academic side: majors, departments, professors, the FYE program, the peer mentor program…

2. the social side: the students themselves or makeup of the student body, dorm life, clubs and organizations, activities like the Day of Service, New Student Orientation…

3. the athletics: varsity sports, intramurals, the culture of student athletes…

4. the arts: the theater groups, choral groups, bands or other musical ensembles, the Lyman Center, visual arts…

5. the location: city of New Haven, an hour and a half from NYC, medium-sized campus community…

6. other Southern specialties…

Narrowing Down a Topic

Your video will only be 5-6 minutes long, so you will not be able to cover all of these topics. Instead, you will need to focus on one topic only so you can go in-depth and be informative. For example, you can make a whole video about the SCSU Day of Service or about Greek Life or about the Nursing Major or about the First Year Experience Program or about the Women's Soccer Team, but maybe not one video about all of the varsity sports or about all of the majors in the School of Education because that would be too much. If you choose a topic that is too broad, you will struggle with incorporating all of the requirements and organizing the information.

Exploring Your Topic

Once you choose a topic and get it approved by me, begin gathering as much research as you can, both online and in person. Start by visiting the SCSU website for information, then go to the appropriate places on campus, talk to people, pick up flyers and other promotional materials, take photos or video and/or find photos or video you can use.

As part of your research, you are required to interview at least 5 students (both first-year and upperclass students) and at least 2 faculty or staff members. You can take in-person video or audio interviews, hand-write them, conduct phone interviews, or even use email. In the final draft of your project, you need to use clips or quotes from at least 3 student interviews and at least 1 faculty or staff member interview.

Creating Your Video

This project requires you to create a short video, not a set of PowerPoint slides. It is not a presentation project; your video needs to stand alone and run on its own. It is possible to create such a digital video project using PowerPoint, but it is much easier and more professional if done in iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, or other video creation software. In past experience, iMovie has provided very good results and is available in any Mac Lab on campus. Windows Movie Maker has worked well for students too, but it can sometimes be harder to navigate, depending on your experience level.

If you have never used a program like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker before, budget plenty of time to allow yourself to learn how to use it, even before you start to make the video. Watch tutorials, play around with the program, make a sample video just to acquaint yourself with the process. Also allow enough time for you to make mistakes and fix them.

The project should have a clear beginning, middle, and end that moves through the following elements:

1) framing the question and providing some context for the project,
2) exploring answers to your question from multiple perspectives,
3) providing some closure from your perspective, some “so what?” or “what have we learned?” to leave the viewer with at the end of the video.

Just like in blogging, be creative! Use music, photos, skits, a storyline, humor, etc. to make the video engaging and entertaining. Don't just lecture us and don't make us read a textbook! Also, be sure that everything is slow enough to be watchable and readable. Make sure you include an original title and out your name on it as well.

Other Details

The final video should be 5-6 minutes long and needs to be uploaded to your blog; it can be first uploaded to Youtube, Vimeo, or some other video sharing site and linked to on your blog. Be sure to make it available for public viewing and test out that it works. Also, include a works cited listing all of the people you interviewed and their titles, if appropriate.

The final draft of the video is due posted to your blogs by midnight on Thursday, Oct 24.

A first draft is due posted on your blog by midnight on Monday, Oct 14.

Three possible topics are due to me (handed in to me in class) next Thursday, Oct 3. By Friday, Oct 4, I will select one of your three topics and give you approval to create your video around that topic. Find a unique angle so all of the videos are not exactly alike!

Bonus

Here is a video created by one of my INQ students last Fall. Hers is a problem/solution assignment, a different topic from your assignment -- but you can watch this to see an example of what your final video project might look like: #CommuterProbs

Goofy Scavenger Hunt Pictures

So I said I would give extra points to the group who emailed me the goofiest picture of themselves in the Fireplace Lounge. I only received four photos so far (I will post the last one if I get it). Do any of these deserve points for the goofiest photo? Vote in the comments if you want, and maybe I will give a "people's choice" award.

Advising Info

I will post advising reminders on the blog as it gets closer to registration. Don't worry if you don't have a major yet -- I am going to meet with all of you and help you with everything that you will need to register for Spring classes.

If you are a Nursing major, you must attend a mandatory advising session next week. Choose one of the following to attend:

Monday, Oct 7 from 1-2pm

or

Wednesday, Oct 9 from 1-2pm


Both are held in DA 101.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” -- Aristotle

Congratulations! You have completed the first four weeks of the semester -- 1/4th of your semester. At this point, you should have an idea of what is working and what isn't working for you in terms of your study habits, scheduling, time management, and organization. It is time, then to reflect on that, learn from it, and take control of it. The transition to college is overwhelming for many students, but the best way to ease your own stress level is to take initiative: make choices that help you control your college experience rather than feeling controlled by it. Remember, procrastination increases overall stress levels in the long run even though it feels good in the short term whereas productivity can produce an adrenalin rush and feelings of elation, freedom, completion.

The two blogging assignments for this week as you to reflect on your first four weeks and your own learning experiences. This week's homework, the time study (due Thursday in class) will aid in that process. However, it is not enough to simply analyze the past four weeks; you need to also 1) plan for the coming twelve weeks, 2) learn from your mistakes, 3) set some goals to help you achieve maximum success, and 4) be conscious about how you will meet those goals. The college semester is short. It is important to try to get into a good routine for all of your classes early on and get a little ahead rather than being in a position where you have to catch up after you get your midterm grades. The readings from this week speak to the development of good academic habits and ways to become a solid student in the classroom. But don't be satisfied with "good student" -- always push yourself to set your own challenges: cover new ground, think a little differently, stretch your vision of who you can be.

Blog 5A: Reflecting on Academic Habits

Reflect on your academic progress for the first four weeks. What successes have you had so far? What has been difficult, or harder than you thought it would be? Have you had any failures? Any things you are disappointed about? The readings for this week discuss methods for improving your academic habits in order to become an even more successful college student. What methods have you used that have worked? What methods do you hope to try and implement for the rest of the semester? Many of you have large goals such as "get good grades" or "make the Dean's list" but this week I want to know the smaller goals you will set for yourself, the daily practices you will adapt to better yourself, in order to meet those larger goals. Use the readings as a guideline for what you plan to do from now on in order to advance your own self-improvement.

Blog 5B: Using your Time Wisely

This post should be all about the time study and what you found out about your habits and practices. Reflect on what the study taught you about how you spend your time. Discuss how many hours you spent on doing school work versus how many hours doing other things. Were you able to devote 30-40 hours to doing work outside of class? Also, what sucked up a lot more time than you expected? What did you procrastinate on and how (if you did)? How can you eliminate that procrastination while still allowing for downtime, socializing, etc.? How do you want to plan out your week in order to do a better job at time management and maximize your own productivity? What can you take away from the study and apply to the rest of the semester to come?

"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of." -- Benjamin Franklin

On Thursday, I will ask you to begin a week's worth of Self-Study on how you use your time. I want you to make a chart of all the hours in the week (each day) and mark on the chart how many hours you spend doing all of the things that take up your time:

1. sleeping
2. getting ready to go to class
3. eating
4. going to class
5. doing homework
6. socializing
7. playing sports
8. on facebook, twitter, instagram, texting, etc.
9. participating in a club or hobby
10. whatever else fills your days

This will allow you to see how much time you spend per week on various activities and let you know if you need to plan your weeks differently or not. Also, it will allow us to see how many hours you spend on learning outside of class and if you are meeting your expectations for that aspect of college work. You can make a handwritten chart for yourself or make a spreadsheet using Excel. I found a model for a Time Study Sheet here: http://ldadvisory.com/time_management_tool. You can adapt this version or use it as a template. It was originally intended as a time management tool, but can also serve for our Self-Study. Note that it doesn't contain all of the "middle of the night" hours, assuming you are sleeping, so you can add those in or just add the extra hours of sleep at the bottom.

By next Thursday, I will expect you to have something to bring to class which accounts for all of the hours you spent in that one week.

"Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice." (and afterward, you can eat marshmallows!)

Nature vs. Nurture, Motivation, Gratification (Pulling together last week, this week, and beyond)

Think of someone who is "smarter" or "more successful" than you.

(Of course, there are lots of ways to interpret those labels depending on what exactly you value in terms of intelligence or success -- think about your own definition of these terms as you consider this post.)

Okay, now think of someone who is "smarter" or "more successful" than you. Were they born that way? Given more advantages in their upbringing to become that way? Did they simply work harder to make themselves that way? What other factors come into play?

Carol Dweck would suggest that had, or developed, a specific mindset or outlook on life that helped them achieve success. Malcolm Gladwell (who we will read soon) would theorize that they put in more hours practicing in order to get better until they became masters in their field. This week, you will see that Joachim de Posada attributes their success to the ability to delay gratification. These are all interesting perspectives to consider, and overlap somewhat, although also differ in crucial ways -- and we can learn something from all of them.

I often ask my SCSU students to consider where they are and how they got there, especially in comparison to others who are on different paths. For example, what do you think is the difference between Yale students and SCSU students? Yale students are seen by many as more successful -- are they? Are they smarter? More hard working? Do socioeconomic factors separate these two groups and/or determine their different paths? Or are these two groups essentially the same but have made different choices? How about Gateway students vs. SCSU students? Or Quinnipiac students vs. SCSU students?

My questions here are not solely asking you to think about which is better...instead, I hope you will consider how you have gotten where you are and what factor have contributed to that as well as where you want to go from here and what factors can help you get there.


This Week's Blogging Assignments

Blog 4A:

This week's topic of discussion is delayed gratification. Think about what things in your life have been worth waiting for and/or what things you expect will be worth waiting for. Why? People often say that Americans hate to wait, that we have no patience? True? Do you think we, as a society, do enough to cultivate the skills necessary for delayed gratification or do we value instant gratification instead? How so? What should we be doing differently? Some people believe that technology plays a role in this -- what do you think? Include at least one quote from this week's assignments.

Blog 4B:

Choose 1 or 2 inquiry questions that you developed in response to the readings/videos assigned for this week. Use this blog post to explore potential answers. Be as in-depth as possible instead of simply scratching the surface and try to consider how you might answer your question(s) from different perspectives. Be sure to engage with this week's assignments using direct quotes to discuss, but remember that your ideas should drive this post!

"There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so" -- Shakespeare

This week's blogging exercises are listed below. Remember to begin tackling them early on in the week instead of procrastinating until Saturday! Procrastination is Enemy #1 of first-year college students! Finish your blogs by Thursday and then your Saturday is free for something else.










Blog A: Consider the above quote by Shakespeare. What does it mean? Discuss the quote and how it applies to 1) intrinsic motivation vs. extrinsic motivation and 2) growth mindset vs. fixed mindset. Use references to the readings assigned for this week.

Blog B: Think about an activity, subject, project, etc. that is easy yet exhilarating for you. You don't need to convince yourself to make time for it because you enjoy doing it and when immersed in it, you experience a state of flow (click here if you need a basic definition of flow or google it and follow links to wikipedia or TED talks or other resources). It may not be easy in that you have to work at it, but making time for it is easy because of the enjoyment you get from it. What is this activity and why is it so easy to motivate yourself to do it or to do it well? What can you learn from this experience and how can you apply it to your college education/future? If you can find a way to channel that energy into your academics, career, or future, how might you do that?

*One restriction: sleep doesn't really count because it is a passive activity, so choose something that is more active.

"The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community." --William James

What a great start to blogging and to our semester! Most everyone has figured out how to get their blog to me (check the sidebar to see if your blog is listed; if not, resend me the link). One benefit of communal blogging is the ability to look at other students' blogs as examples of what you might do in your own -- if you see something you want to learn to do, let me know and I can ask that student to share.

Sharing knowledge is one aspect of a successful learning community, and many of you noted that in your first in-class writings. In order to help the course progress, be a productive use of time, and not feel stagnant, many people noted the role of participation and communication. Many noted, also, how a classroom needs to facilitate a sense of openness and trust in order to encourage everyone to share their views without feeling judged. Here are a few guideline suggested by all of you for creating a positive classroom environment:

1. Agree that we can have productive debate and even disagreement about the concepts and ideas of the course, but resist targeting an individual or being dismissive of an individual's experience or perspective.

2. Agree to allow others to disagree with your ideas without feeling the need to shut down as an individual or even "win" the debate. Sometimes we can all learn simply through weighing various sides of an issue, without always agreeing.

3. Listen to others' perspectives, ideas, experiences -- try to learn from them as well as formulating your own response to them.

4. Keep a positive attitude, and show respect for all, even those you disagree with.

5. Keep discussion centered around relevant course topics instead of getting off topic and stalling the forward progress of the learning community -- wasting time in class is disrespectful to all who are here to learn.

In addition to these guidelines, I liked the ideas of what all of you intend to bring to the table in our learning community. Here is some of what you shared:

willingness to step out of comfort zone
patience
optimism
willingness to help others
honesty
empathy
enjoying working in groups
willingness to try new things
humor
collaborative spirit
willingness to ask questions

Week Two Blogging Assignments

(Complete in any order, but remember to label your entries 2A, 2B, 2I, 2V)

Blog A: What is most useful to you from this week's readings? What tips will you put into practice right away? What ideas were new to you or were most interesting to you and why? Use some direct quotes from this week's readings (and cite the articles they come from) and discuss what they mean to you and why they are important.

Blog B: College is very much about self-discovery, stretching yourself, trying new things, sometimes even reinventing yourself. This week, set one new goal for yourself that encourages you to try something different or work on something you want to change. For example, maybe you'd like to become a little less shy: set a goal for yourself to introduce yourself to someone new in each one of your classes this week. Or, maybe you have always thought about majoring in marine biology but aren't really sure about it: set a goal for yourself to find out a little about that major every day (go to the dept at scsu and talk to a faculty member there and get some info, talk to an junior or senior in that field, read up on that type of career, check out a marine biology book from the library and browse it, go to an aquarium or nature center or the beach and do some amateur marine biology on your own). Or, maybe you want to be more organized and on top of your homework: set a goal to put everything into your planner, set specific study times and stick with them, find a great place to study where you get a lot done, and finish everything at least the day before it's due.) In this Blog entry, write about your experience of trying something new. What did you decide to change and why? What goals did you set? How did it work out? What did you learn from this experience?

One last note: This week is New Student Convocation on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2013, at 1 p.m. in Lyman Center. I encourage you to attend, preferably with friends but by yourself is ok too. It can count as one of your Involvement Blogs, and is an easy way