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Learning/Participation grade

Hi everyone! Welcome to the world of blogging. Some of you might already be blogging, others may just read blogs periodically, or some of you might be asking "What in the world is a blog?" In short, a blog is defined as non-directional writing. So, what does that mean? It's a collection of random thoughts put onto to paper to form some sort of topical area. Since I am not a strong writer, a blog is the best invention ever for me.

Each week, I would like each of you to put your thoughts about our week in class on paper. In a sense, this will serve as a journal for the class. It's doesn't have to be that, it can be anything you want it to be. I am not looking for a novel, just a couple of paragraphs about what is on your mind regarding management, job satisfaction, school, or anything you would like to discuss. If you want to vent please do, but please consider the names of others in your posts.

I used blogging in my Masters Degree program for any activity similar to this. It's a great way to introduce you to new technology, critically reflect, and earn some easy participation points.

Enjoy!

SCC BSAD 2540 Management

Hi everyone,

By now you have found my latest blog entry. As you can see it's been a few months since I last wrote a blog. We used blogging in my Master's program and it was well received by my cohort group.

What does blogging mean to me? I love it for one reason alone, grammatical issues are not relevant. A blog is described as "non-directional writing." So what does that mean? I refer to it as a random stream of thoughts that have some similar meaning to the author, but not necessarily to the readers.

Most of you have probably noticed, typing is not one of my strengths. That is why I love blogs. An author can touch on so many topics without transitions and be completely decrypt. A lot of bloggers comment on current issues with links to the news stories they are offering opinions one.

I read several blogs daily. I am an avid sports person, so naturally I read a lot of sports blogs. One thing I have noticed is how often blogs are updated since they are not held to the same criteria feature stories are held to. Perhaps some of you read blogs often, but just didn't realize they are blogs. The great things about blogs is people can offer up comments to yours.

Hope you enjoy this week's discussion forum.

Doug

P.S-if you want to read some of my posts from my graduate program (don't know why you would) feel free.

At a Crossroads.....

Where do we go from here? This academic endeavor started a little over a year ago has quickly come full circle. We started with twelve and ended up with ten. Thousands of posts (not all of them actually read), hundreds of hours reading and researching, and countless hours on the Internet, our experience is coming to an end. Jessie La Cross asked me this morning if I was going to continue blogging? I couldn't give her a definitive answer. Is anyone in the class going to use some of the components we discovered in this class? Will Windows Movie Maker ever be applicable again? It's hard to say one way or the other, but if you don't have an excuse to use it, it's easier for an individual to use that as a legitimate excuse.

I'm not going to sit around and pat myself on the back for this accomplishment because the bigger picture is about 60% complete. I will be moving on for a PHD from North Central University in what appears to be January. There is one small problem I must figure out between now and then. How am I going to pay for it? Looks like my career in bartending will continue to grow rather than expire as I had hoped in it might.

My passion from this experience has given me the strength to consider alternative employment in the educational sector. I might continue my duties at SCC in another role, perhaps move out of the state, or end up back in a corporate setting. The one thing I do know is that I don't think I am long for my current situation. I have an appetite for online learning and to play a critical role in that development. For now, I will have to settle for being an online instructor in one of SCC's Principal's of Management classes.

Onto the questions
What comments and/or suggestions do you have about the seminar experience?
First and foremost, the seminar experience was a good one. It was a great way to wrap up the course. I might suggest doing the seminar leadership before the class creation project, It can work either way. One thing I can testify to is how difficult it is to lead a seminar online. It has obvious advantages and disadvantages. The most obvious observation being 100% student participation. You might not be so luck in a classroom. It's not as easy to hide in an online classroom as opposed to an actual classroom.


Did the format work for you?
The format is what drew me to the program. I travel a lot in the summer and this worked perfect. I did homework from another country, on the beach, in the car, and other places. This has to be a preferred method for working adult students. The PHD Program is going to be the same format as this program. If I wait for the cards to fall into place, I might not be able to begin that process for years to come.

In general, do you think seminars work well for adult learners?
Seminars are complex and you need to have a proficient level of academic maturity among students in order to conduct a successful seminar. The only suggestion I would offer is letting students define the weekly objectives.

I want to take a minute to thank and congratulate all the member of the GMIT group. We had some hot conversations at times, but everyone worked well in this program. If our conversations got heated, that's good because it shows growth in education.

I am going to sign off on this blog, who knows, I might jump on here in a week, or maybe not again. It's kind of like an anticipation for a bad sequel.

Good luck everyone, I know the choices and paths you enter will only lead to greatness for everyone. I also wanted to give a hearty THANK YOU to Pat Artz. This past year has really changed my outlook on a lot of things and given me a new professional persepctive I never saw coming. I hope there is another GMIT cohort, the students would be lucky to have and share the experience we just concluded!

Ethics vs Morals....

I wanted to drop a quick blog on the 660 topic this week, ethics. I work a part-time job that deals with a lot of college students, some of which are SCC students. Anyway, I was talking with an SCC student about our online classes. The first thing she said to me really struck me. She mentioned she really wanted to take some of her classes online because they are "really easy and you can cheat." I think I paused for 90 seconds before I opened my mouth. I had to ask why she was so convinced on her assumptions. She answered with the ever popular notion that you can use your book during tests and even have someone else participate for you. I have heard all of those arguments before, so I moved onto her "easy theory".

She mentioned all the normal conveniences, no class, easier assignments, and no teacher. I asked her if she thought about how much work actually goes into an online class and that many times the students end up working harder in these classes.

To make a long story short (too late), you have a twenty year old college sophomore looking to take classes based on self perceptions that they are easy and a student can easily cheat. Where did she go wrong? Maybe, she didn't take a wrong turn, she's just driving down the same road as everyone else?

Should student's morals take precedent here? Shouldn't it be assumed that students should just know better? Where do they learn the "know better" concept? When you actually think about it, it's down right startling to think about the perceptions and practices of our younger students.

I wanted to conclude with the Pete Rose story. For those of you who don't know Pete Rose, he's Major League Baseball's all-time hits leader and a sure fire Hall of Famer. There is only one problem, Rose bet on baseball when he was a manager. First, he denied this action, but accepted a lifetime ban from the game. Later, he admitted he did bet on the game when he was set to release a book. I am sure sales had nothing to do with the timing.

The bottom line is this, Rose thought he wasn't doing anything wrong because he was betting his team would win. He is a student of the game, shouldn't he know the ethics of the game. His personal morals are a separate issue, but I don't think he can blame his situation on a gambling disease.

Genuine Development

What a way to wrap up the book. This chapter was by far the simplest to comprehend, interpret, and relate to. I wanted to reflect on a few observations the text mentioned this week.

-There are several types/areas of development. Development includes intelligence, cognition, social roles, moral understanding, and identity. I would want to add that development is also physical. Most people would say that is obvious, but physical development is a direct correlation of the other attributes mentioned above.

-Multiple Developmental Pathways. Development can AND will take alternative routes. This is the biggest obstacle for instructors. It only proves that they are not teaching ONE curriculum among a class of 30, but thirty development factors among one class. So, would that make it a class of 60?

Development Theories
1. Encouraging students to call on and reflect on their experiences. That is really what this quarter has really been about. Some people might argue this quarter's classes have been opinion based, but really they have been a tremendous tool for learning. It's called development.
2. Peer groups and review. I don't one person in this program would ever underestimate the significance and importance of this process.
3. Exposure to conflict and its resolution. I am not saying people threw down their gloves and duked it out, but this week has been an eye opener with ethical conflicts. Ethics will always continue to present conflict, some of which might not be able to be resolved.
4. Recognizing student achievements. We have a wonderful group of complimentary cohort members.
5. Placing students in situations requiring new responses and action. Blogging! Enough said.
6. Providing students with relative freedom (internally and externally) and encouraging them to take risks. Pat has taken us down a technological pathway none of us ever envisioned. It's been a fun and exciting ride.

Next weeks blog entry is really going to be a fun one. I have been thinking about the future a lot lately, but I want to save all of those thoughts for next week's Crossroads blog.

See you then.

Community College Relationships......

When you first look at the title of this blog, you might think it will be based on the faculty/support staff relationship a community college has with its staff. That would be half true, it will touch upon that direct topic, but I wanted to cover a number of things in this week's blog.

Kathy Zabel took the baton this week and did another outstanding job. She found a great article about the personal relationship of teachers and students. She posed the question, "what type of relationship should a teacher/student have?" Okay, it wasn't word for word, but KZ asked whether students and teachers should have a friend-friend relationship within the classroom. my opinion on this matter was an overwhelmingly, NO! I can't say there was an majority answer on either side. My personal thought is higher learning needs designated roles. Teachers need to know that their relationship with a student is a direct reflection on the outcome of the student. If a student and instructor maintain their designated roles, the contingency of the of the student's classroom experience is more likely to be positive.

Here is one for the rest of the cohort. Pat addressed the discussion board and asked an ethical or role question of why students no longer engage in a social setting after a long academia endeavor. Now, there is talk about a social gathering among the cohort after the GMIT series is completed in a couple of weeks. Based on this set of scenarios, is a cohort member going to invite Pat? If so, is he going to accept? I found this topic fascinating and the timing impeccable. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.

I have a suggestion to Pat for the next series of GMIT classes and I have to credit it to KZ. When the next cohort members reach the 650/660 classes, each student should come up with their own objectives for their seminar leadership week. I think that might be the most difficult part of the week's assignments. It's just a suggestion and I think it would be a nice touch after our final project from last term.

The great thing KZ does for the rest of the cohort is she sets a standard of measurement, I mean besides the class rubric assigned this term.

Learning Objectives:
Compare traditional education and adult education in the area of relationships between students and instructors.
Discuss how community college instructors constrained by accreditation practices can effectively distribute power to their learners.
Share your biggest annoyance, fear, or guilt as you establish teacher-student relationships and what your advance plan is to address it.
Discuss the electronic relationship between teachers and learners.
Explore instructional technology resources at cognitivedesignsolutions.com.
Discuss how the teacher-learner relationship can influence student success and retention.

After reviewing KZ's objectives, I would have to say she did an outstanding job. In fact, Pat might want to make the article she chose as a scholarly reference a must read in the next cohort.
________________________________________________________

Enquiring Minds Want to Know!!

Community College prospectives are always a hot button at SCC. It was good to see the cohort members on their best behavior regarding their comments on the college. I don't suppose it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact it is now July and we have not seen a letter regarding our 2007-08 employment and salary increase. I know it's a formality, but it has to be somewhat discouraging the letter haven't shown up.

Jessie LaCross and Al Allen did a great job this week. In fact, the three seminar leaders this week are the most active in the discussion boards. I was pleased to see Jessie was one of the leaders this week because she is commenting on this topic as an adjunct faculty. She is the only member in the cohort that a full-time benefits employee of the college. That does not mean she is less involved on the topics at hand, but she always does not have to go through the motions of LRP's, performance reviews, and staff meetings. In essence, she has the best of both worlds: she's gets to teach and do it without cutting through the red tape.

Al and Jessie gave us another great week of personal experience and theory based questions in the discussion boards. It's a funny thing, the three of us that have not taught at the college in any capacity has decreased by 66%. Al has become an adjunct instructor and I have started to drink the teaching kool-aid as well. **(Did you know kool-aid was invented in Nebraska?)

After I read the Johnson CC assessment article, I forwarded it to our Vice President of Academic Instruction for a couple of reasons. JCC is reasonably close and considered a competitor and I wanted to see what his response was in regards to what we are doing for assessment. I will have to wait for another week to get his response because he is on vacation.

I would not consider myself an expert on assessment, but this past few weeks has really made me curious as to what SCC is doing in this area. I have to remember to be to inquisitive on this topic, I wouldn't want him to think I am questioning his job. Before I know it, my letter will never show up. What's the saying in that old annoying commercial, "Enquiring minds want to know!"

Happy 4th of July Everyone!!!