Peer Mentor Program at SCSU

The Peer Mentor Program is one of the best (and most effective, in my opinion) parts of the FYE/INQ experience. People in all stages of life need mentors, and certainly faculty can mentor students on one level, but peer mentors can speak to a whole set of experiences that faculty know less about. Last year I had a very positive experience -- two great peer mentors who my students liked a lot and felt comfortable enough with to ask all those questions they couldn't ask me. My peer mentors also were able to help with publicizing the "events on campus" and talking about the social aspects of college life which are two areas that I know less about and never emphasize enough in my academically-focused INQ syllabus.

This year I am again lucky to work with two great peer mentors who bring unique and interesting perspectives to my class. For example, today Kaitlyn assisted my class in participating in the Red Flag Campaign, a national campaign to raise awareness about dating violence, especially on college campuses.



In my second class, Lee facilitated a stress-reducing workshop centered around laughter. All of my students who came to conference with me afterward were smiling and feeling good about having taken time out of their hectic schedules to laugh.



My students benefit so much from their interactions with these campus leaders and role models -- but so do I. Thanks for making our classes go that one step further!

Events Update

Tonight's soccer game has been postponed until next Monday night. I will pass on more details when I get them. This gives us more time to come up with a team name and uniform!

For those of you interested in creative writing, Folio, the undergraduate literary magazine, is holding a reading on Oct. 1 at 7 p.m. in the Fireplace Lounge in the Adanti Student Center. Featured student writers are Michael Tenney and Joe Dlugos, and there will be an open mic portion of the event following the featured readers.

Blog Recap: Learning By Example

Last week's blogs were really interesting to read because, in finding and describing professional blogs to share, you all revealed such diverse interests from bowling to movies to poetry to cooking and more. The blogs you found were all different in style and appeal as well, and I liked how many of you commented on what you could learn from seeing those differences: what you could apply to your own blog creation process. We are not professional bloggers, of course, but I do think we use some of the same principles as professional bloggers do when we write/create and especially when we want to make our entries stand out. A few students have consistently striven to make their entries not just done, not just good, but excellent. As you click through the list of blogs, do you notice which ones?

Along the lines of learning from others, this week The New York Times published a multi-authored piece called "Ditch Your Laptop, Dump Your Boyfriend: Advice for freshmen from the people who actually grade their papers and lead their class discussions" which I thought might be interesting food for thought.

For this upcoming week, here are your two blog post assignments:

1. Write about an event you attended at SCSU, preferably one you haven't already blogged about. (Ex: Come to our class soccer game on Monday and cheer us on and post pictures on your blog!)

2. Explore the inquiry questions/topics you are focusing on in your digital storytelling project. Your blog post can be part of your brainstorming process for this assignment.

One final note: Lee Tripler has joined Section 32 as our peer mentor, and we are so thrilled to have her as part of our class! Check out her newly created blog and welcome her to the INQ blogging adventure.

“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” -- Jonathan Swift

On Tuesday in class, we talked a little bit about the importance of the learning that happens outside the classroom in college, and I wanted to extend our discussion because I think it's very true. Getting involved in clubs and organizations can help you learn leadership, networking, organizing, community outreach, skills in your major or interest areas, and more. But learning outside the classroom is also very real in terms of academics and the courses you take in college. Much of your education is self-education, the kind that happens outside of class, what most students call "studying."

When people say "studying," do they mean reading, or reveiwing notes, or something else? What do professors mean when they say that they expect students to be doing 6 hours of homework per week but the syllabus doesn't show any actual assignments due on that week? What are you supposed to be "studying" for 6 hours?

I mentioned in class that, in college, there is often a lot of invisible work expected (as opposed to papers or projects which seem like visible work to me). Some of the invisible work involves not simply reading the assigned chapters to be familiar with them or even simply reading for information; instead, it is the kind of reading and annotating and processing and thinking that can bring real understanding of the concepts you're reading about to the point where you can engage with, talk back to, appply, etc.

Ok, but how do you do that? And if you've never been expected to have done that before, how do you know if you're doing it right?

As with most things in college, there is no one set formula that works for everyone, and part of your job in your first year is just figuring out what works for you. But here are a few strategies that you can try out:

1. Read assignments more than once. The first time you read it to know the gist of it, read for information. The second time, you read to begin to understand the finer points and subtleties. The third time, return to a few interesting and/or difficult passages to analyze and puzzle through.

2. In taking notes, make sure you have the different layers of thinking (higher and lower) represented in your notes. You should have some of each of the following represented: information or facts pulled out, comments and connections, and inquiry questions. If you take your notes in the margins of a reading, maybe afterward pull them out and classify them into this lower-to-higher level system. Or if you take notes in your notebook, use symbols or colored highlighters to classify them.

3. Dig deeper into the concepts by researching about the author or the context or unfamiliar terminology. This will allow for a broader understanding of what you're reading.

4. Expand yor knowledge base even more by comparing the reading material to previousle assigned texts, putting them into conversation with one another within the course but also putting your readings into conversation with other material you're studying in the university as a whole. This tactic will help you see the connectedness between the disciplines at the university, and that helps your brain make sense of all of the information you are processing.

5. Before you put a reading to bed, consider the "So what?" and "Why is this important?" and "What can I learn from this?" questions. Try to anticipate what the professor might ask aboout the reading on a quiz or exam or writing prompt. Try to think of good inquiry questions that will make class discussion about this reading interesing and productive and enhance learning.

Try these strategies (as well as your own or ones you have gained from this week's reading assignments) for reading with the goal of in-depth understanding of the material and see if it makes class discussion or lectures more meaningful or engaging. See if this helps you also have more of those "lightbulb moments" as you progress throughout the semester. Then you'll know that you are truly becoming educated rather than simply filling time or fulfilling requirements.


*image by Ramona Forcella

This Week's Recap: Pushing Ourselves Forward and Resisting the Urge to Slide Backward (even if it seems easier)

This week's blogs posts showed an interesting mix of ideas, writing styles, and creative choices. The "free choice" blogs for this this ran the gamut of topics, some fascinating (check out Oscar's blog to see the most interesting title of the week!) and some more ordinary. I enjoyed reading the wide variety of topics chosen to explore this week and encourage you to check out what others are writing about (and leave comments).

In the Outcasts United blogs, some people reverted to a "summary mode" of writing rather than an "inquiry mode" of writing. Those who engaged in inquiry moved beyond summery and instead asked questions, explored possible answers to questions, thought about the connections between the book and college, thought about what we could learn from the book and what we could apply to our own experiences. In all college writing, try to avoid simply summarizing even if what you read was boring or not to your taste. Try to avoid telling your readers how boring it was, how you didn't like it, or how you "don't really have anything to say." Readers will wonder, "then why are you writing this?" Yes, it's an assignment so that's why you're writing, but it's your choice on what to highlight in each post, your choice as to what style to write in, your choice to make your writing engaging for your readers...or not.


www.toothpastefordinner.com

For this upcoming week, one post should be on time management as I explained in more detail in my post last week. For the other post, I want you to find two professional blogs that are both interesting to you in some way but are both different from each other in some way. Write your post with the purpose of introducing your readers to these two blogs, writing a little about what the blogs are about, discussing the style of writing and/or visual peresentation of each blog, why they interest you, and what others might find interesting about them.

Also, I'd like each person to spend a little time browsing through other student posts this week. Next week I'm going to ask you to think about assessment a bit more and nominate your personal best post (and grade it) and find some examples of "A level" posts that others have written.

"Better three hours too soon, than one minute too late." -- William Shakespeare

This week's readings are all about time management, and in the past two weeks, we have been practicing time management with juggling various assignments and deadlines, multiple readings, blogging, and especially, the "Group Think" Project. Many groups lamented the lack of time members had available to meet, and many students wrote in their blogs that managing their time was one of the biggest challenges faced in the first two weeks of college.

Effective time management is one of the biggest predictors of college success, and therefore it's important that we spend a lot of time in this class discussing it, reading about it, practicing it, refining it, figuring out what works best. As many of us already know, the college student's worst enemy is...PROCRASTINATION. Let's spend a little time thinking about procrastination. I've noticed, when checking the blogs on a Saturday morning or afternoon, that a bunch of students have not yet posted even one of the two blog assignments due by midnight Saturday. Why is that? Why wait until late Saturday when you have all week to complete this assignment? Do those students have their posts already written and saved in Microsoft Word, and just have not yet uploaded them to Blogger? I tend to think "probably not" because I know, for myself, that as soon as one post is finished, I want the satisfaction of seeing it live. More questions: If you save both posts for Saturday, are both posts "your best work"? Do you have to rush to finish them? What if Blogger goes down on Saturday and you can't get your posts up on time because you haven't left yourself any wiggle room (they're still due, after all, because you've had a full week to do them)? Why not just complete them (or at least one) during the week so they don't interfere with your Saturday? These are real questions that I want you to think about, not to chastise yourself, but to get you to feel in charge of your own time management decisions.

We all know the pitfalls of procrastination, but we all often do it anyway. Why? And more importantly, what can we do about it? What do we learn from this week's readings? How can we apply those ideas to our own experiences? We are going to begin this discussion in class, but take it further in one of your blog posts for next week and try to answer some of the questions I've posed (and maybe try to complete your post before Saturday ☺).

Events Galore

As you all know, today is Convocation, The Club Fair, and the talk by the author of Outcasts United. The FYE Program has also passed along to me the announcement of the following upcoming events:


SPECTRUMS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT
Monday, September 20, 7:30pm, Lyman Center
Join us for a presentation, Spectrums of Sexual Assault, by Alex Fernandez and Beth Hamilton of the Women’s and Families Center for a discussion of what sexual assault is, why this topic is relevant to college students as well as how society contributes to the growing rates of sexual assault and lack of support for victims/survivors. Sponsored by the student group, ProCon.



FRESHMAN FITNESS NIGHT (& FIT-FEST WEEK!)
Friday, September 24, 6-8pm, Fitness Center
All freshmen are invited to come to the Fitness Center for an evening of express fitness classes, prizes and raffles, free chair massage, free t-shirts, healthy snacks, free body fat screenings and much more! In addition, all students can visit the Fitness Center during the week of September 20-24 for FALL FIT FEST, a week of FREE fitness classes and events for students during the week to give a taste of what we have to offer and how exercise can be fun, help relieve stress, and be a part of healthy campus life.

HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR TO SPEAK AT SCSU
Wednesday, September 28, 6pm, EN C112
The Programs Council Lecture Committee would like faculty to know that they will be bringing a Holocaust Survivor to speak to the SCSU community on September 28th. More details will be available soon about this event.

CAN I KISS YOU?

by michael domitrz
Monday, Oct. 4, 1:pm-2:pm, ASC Theatre October 4, 2010, Monday, 1pm - 2pm, ASC Theater, Can I Kiss You? Presented by Michael Domitrz of the Date Safe Project. Domitrz is one of the leading experts on healthy dating, consent, and sexual assault awareness. This is NOT a lecture full of statistics. You will get an interactive expert who inspires people to make powerful and life changing decisions! Sponsored by the Women's Center, Sexual Assault Response Team, First Year Experience and Student Life.

This Week's Recap: Building Our Blogging Muscles

I just finished reading this week's student blogs and want to call attention to some of the interesting stuff out there. In terms of challenges being faced in the first two weeks, many commuters are having parking issues (see Shelby's blog as one example), and many residents are having roomate issues (see Alexis' blog for an example). A lot of people also touched on issues of time management (Julie's blog is one example), and we are going to spend a lot of time with this topic in the weeks to come: readings, discussion, and developing some practical strategies. The key is to find what works best for you and then implement that: Ryan, in response to all the distractions in his dorm, was finally able to find the "sweet spot" for studying, and Jeanette realized that based on her own learning styles, it is best to do work earlier in the day rather than at night when she is too tired to do good work. Both of those examples seem to echo the concept of "Work Smart" because they capitalize on what works best. Finally, Elena reminds us in her blog that there's nothing wrong with asking questions in order to surmount some challenges, which I think is an important reminder for all of us.

In terms of the formats of the blogs, I noticed that a few people tried out a few new templates, a few people have started commenting on other people's blogs, some posts included funny comics, many included great links, and most included pictures. Many cited the articles that the post was responding to and even provided quotes (for a good example of how to format quotes in a blog post, check out Nicky's blog.)

A few important housekeeping notes:

1) Give each post an interesting title.
2) Put titles of articles in quotation marks.
3) Do not simply summarize the reading! Engage! Question! Apply! (For example, Kristen applied a concept from the reading to a specific real-world example, Melissa asked an inquiry question in her post and answered it, and a number of people weighed two concepts from two different readings against one another.)
4) Work Smart! Don't save both post assignments until Saturday!
5) This week, a number of people didn't complete one or both posts by deadline and receive zeroes for those assignments. If your post isn't long enough, doesn't answer the assigned question, or doesn't include either pictures or links, you receive a check minus. If you are worried about your blog grade, come check on it during office hours.
6) Next week's blog assignment: 1 post on Outcasts United (either respond to the author's talk on Wednesday or connect something in the book to topics we have been reading about and discussing for this class) and 1 post that is free choice.

Important Information from the FYE Office

The following information was sent to me today, and I wanted to pass it on:

CAMPUS COMMUNITY DAY
Wedensday, September 15, 2010
Due to the Hurricane Earl rescheduling, this day now includes New Student Convocation, the Student Invovlement Fair, a Dinner, and the Warren St. John, author of Outcasts United lecture, offering us an unexpected opportunity to involve new students in a whole day of campus community events. Tickets are available in the FYE office or the Office of Student Life, ASC 213. Remaining tickets will be available at the door to the event, but we are strongly encouraging you to get them ahead of time. In addition, tickets for the dinner, which will be held in Conn Hall immediately following the Involvement Fair can be picked up by faculty, staff, and commuter students at Student Government Table at the Involvement Fair.Please note that entrance into Connecticut Hall for the meet and greet requires a paid meal plan or a guest ticket.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FRESHMEN UNITED: A SOCCER TOURNAMENT
Start date: Monday, September 27th, 7:00pm, Jess Dow Field
RSVP date - Friday, September 17th
Sign up your learning community as a "team" in the soccer tournament. The Office of Student Life, the FYE program, Athletics, and Buley Library are sponsoring a soccer tournament for freshmen, inspired by Warren St. John's Outcasts United, this year's text for OPEN BOOK: SCSU's Freshmen Read common read program. Each freshman learning community is invited and encouraged to participate! We are asking that FYE instructors and/or peer/staff mentors let us know if their students will be participating by Friday, September 17th, as the number of teams will help us determine how many additional dates we need to complete the tournament To sign up your class or for more information, please contact Eric LaCharity at lacharitye1@southernct.edu

"Self-respect is the root of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself." --Abraham J. Heschel

When discussing "Don't Eat the Marshmalllow Yet" in class on Tuesday, many students expressed skepticism at the validity of the findings presented by Joachim de Posada: the idea that kids who didn't eat the marshmallow at 4 years old went on to be more successful in school/career/life than kids who ate the marshmallow before the 15 required minutes had elapsed. However, most of agreed with the basic theoretical premise that self-discipline and delayed gratification were key elements to success.

I want to interrogate the term "self-discipline" a bit more, and I think it has some nice connections to Luma's formula for success in Outcasts United. It's important, in truly analyzing this term, to split it into its two parts: self and discipline. Discipline, of course, is not always self-motivated; teachers, parents, coaches, etc. can all impose discipline, but that doesn't always lead to success. In fact, some students who were overly controlled in high school seem to rebel against that discipline in college, not always to the best results unfortunately. Therefore, the idea that discipline leads to success only when it is self-imposed, or intrinsically motivated, is an idea that resonates with me in thinking about college students. You have to want it for yourself, for your own betterment, because it rewards you, or else it rings false. But that's also really difficult -- it's easier in some ways when someone else is in charge of telling you what to do. Then all you have to do is follow directions, not decide what those directions will be. This kind of freedom and responsibility that comes from being a college student is harder, but I think it's also more rewarding in the end.

What is self discipline (the kind that brings freedom, responsibility, rewards)? What does it look like? I think of Luma, standing on the sidelines, watching her team but not yelling out to them. She let them make their own decisions, their own failures, and their own successes. Of course, in her many team practices, she tried to impart to them the knowledge they needed and help them hone their skills, but when it came down to game day, they were responsible for what they produced. I think Luma also saw her job as providing critical feedback from her more experienced perspective; she told them exactly what was good and bad about how they played without sugar-coating it. That kind of feedback must have been difficult to hear at times, but it provided the players with an honest assessment of where they needed to improve. It would take a lot of self-discipline to take that criticism in the positive way it was intended and not feel defensive or discouraged.

Before coming to college, are there a lot of spaces in which students get to practice self-discipline? I asked this question in class and got a mixture of answers depending on individual experiences and background. I started to think about a book we used in orientation last year called Generation Me in which the author, Jean Twenge, argues that today's college students have had a lot of experience with self-esteem building: everybody gets a trophy for participating and no one gets one for being the best, everyone gets a pizza party for just showing up whether or not you did anything good, no one gets singled out as better than anyone else because that makes others feel bad. Twenge goes on to say that this has been detrimental to students because 1) it doesn't motivate them to try to make themselves achieve higher than anyone else, 2) they aren't used to hearing criticism and don't respond well to it, and 3) don't look at themselves with a critical eye since they aren't used to that in general.

As with all of the information I try to have my class put in conversation with one another (and then enter into that conversation ourselves), I'm left with thinking "What we can learn from all this?" Here's my personal take on it: in INQ, we need to practice self-discipline, setting our own goals and meeting them; we need to practice self-critique so we can push ourselves to the next challenge; we need to practice building our self-esteem through the rewards that come from hard work and tackling complexity. When you become the person you are answering to, you can choose to cut corners, but it seems like it only cuts out on your own achievement and self-worth; a greater sense of self-respect comes when you are able to rise and meet those expectations you set for yourself. I see my role in that process as facilitator: I'm not exactly the "Luma" in the classroom, but I do want to emulate the way she facilitates the self-discipline she instills in her players.

‘“Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.” - Dave Barry

This post is my official recap of last week's student postings. A lot of cool things happened last week. People who never used blogger or never blogged figured out how to do something new. Some people watched the video tutorial on Blogger, some perused the FAQs in the "Help" section, some asked their friends for help, some asked their English professor, some asked me, but everyone got something up on their blogs. Good for you!

Some people went even further and got creative with their titles: "Little Fish in New Waters" and A Day in the Life of a College Superhero" as two examples. Some blogs included lots of great pictures, and some even embedded video: check out Mike's video of riding his bike as an example and maybe ask him how he did it.

Not too many blog posts had links, but a few did. For example, Jeanette found a link to "25 Tips to Help you Succeed in your First Year of College" that I plan to assign to next year's INQ classes. If you didn't include pictures, video, or links this first week, that's okay, but it's also something for you to try out in upcoming posts.

A lot of the writing about college in these first posts interested me as well. I agree with Shekira who talks about college as a step into adulthood, and I love Katie's idea that we should accept imperfections as a way to learn and advance. Jocelyn is exactly right when she notes that commuters need to be involved on campus even though they don't live there -- being involved is a big part of the college experience that no one should miss out on.

Speaking of getting involved, be sure to be reading this blog for announcements but also Peer Mentor Kaitlyn's blog, "Dancing Through Life," where Kaitlyn will post updates about events happening on campus.

A few final notes about blogging as we go forward: be sure to proofread and check for typos since blogging is public and professional, and help each other figure out what to do if photos aren't loading or links aren't working -- we are all each other's audiences as well as tech support. Remember, too, to comment on things that are working, interest you, strike you as creative or thoughtful. I'm looking forward to reading this week's entries.

When is public use not for public use? (and how can I be a responsible public media user?)

Today in both classes we discussed the use of images in our blogs and questioned what was legal, fair, right, and appropriate to use with and/or without permission and citation. Issues of copyright are complex, especially in regard to new technologies, especially in regard to public online content. I thought some good points were raised on some guidelines of what to post and when to cite, and the conversation mostly ended with the idea that everyone should think about each case separately and use common sense to make the best judgment.

But then I wondered...if we are new to this scene and have little experience blogging, then what would that common sense or judgment be based on? Isn't that idea a little flawed and suggesting that you can know the right answer without having done any research? Certainly instinct serves us well in some contexts, but this issue seems tricky, and I wanted a few "second opinions" from people who knew more than I do.

So I did a google search and found this great interview with an expert in the field. He cites two sources for finding "fair use" images: PhotoDropper and Wikimedia Commons. Of course, as mentioned in class, you can always use images from your own camera.



I actually got this photo from ARTstor, one of the SCSU's Library Databases that allows us to use the images collected there for educational purposes like our blogging assignments. (You can get to ARTstor through the library homepage, then clicking on the databases.)

Finally, two other takes on adding images to blog posts, specifically addressing the issue of how to do the citations, can be found here and here. These may be useful in not just thinking about the criteria for citation but also the format.

One last thought seeing that many of us use Google to find everything from articles to images: does Google have an official policy about using the images it finds?