Thursday, October 11, 2007
Academic Plan
I haven't really thought about my future at Butler yet. I've sort of been taking it one day at a time. I don't have a major, and I'm unsure of what I'm interested. I know that's the case for most freshmen, but I've never been so lost in my entire life. I know I want to do something where I make a ton of money. I'm intelligent so I could definitely go into the medical field which has always kind of been a dream of mine. I just don't know if I want to spend all that time-even though it'd be worth it. I'm also good with public speaking and people skills. So I could do something in the business field. It just seems like everybody does that these days. I just want to do something important. I'm at Butler because of Headliners. I'm learning how to cooperate with all sorts of people. I'm also not nervous to get up in front of people. I think those skills will definitely help me in my future. I'm planning on taking more science and english classes. I want to be a master communicator. I want people to respect me for what I say and how I say it. I think that Butler can definitely help with that. After Butler I want to transfer to a big university out of state. I think I believe I have a bright future ahead of me. And I appreciate everything Butler has done and is continuing to do for me.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Learning Profile
1. Being sick has it's advantages. Since I spent more time than normal resting, I had more time to read through my textbooks. Just for fun. That includes student connect. (Who read their student connect book for fun? Nobody. That's who). So that put me at a significant advantage over other students. I absorbed a little more material. Some themes I learned about were how to engage. Engage isn't necessarily going up and meeting people like I first thought when I started reading the chapter. Engaging actually means getting adjusted to the culture of college. That includes setting goals for myself and developing a strnger passion for academia. I learned how to persist. I learned to prioritize. That chapter especially helped me because I use to get so stressed out over all the stuff I take on. I learned how to better plan my time to reduce that stress factor. My favorite theme was how I learn. I learned what my dominate intelligence, learning style, and personality type meant. I learned how to record using my listening skills and note-taking systems that work for me. I learned way to better remember material, and how to prosper. Assessing and Thinking also provided invaluable tactics. All the themes together form a powerful bond. Anyone that masters those would be the ideal student.
2. Who would've thought there were actual learning styles. I never would have guessed there was a type that fit me best. After taking the multiple intelligences survey I learned that Musical rhythm and interpersonal were my intelligence strengths. Those were followed closely by verbal linguistic and intrapersonal skills. So according to that test, I love to sing, communicate well through language, possess great leadership skills, and am very reflective. Those are what I draw my strengths from. To further learn about my strenghts, I took the Learning Evaluation and Assessment Directory. I found that I'm mostly a visual learner. That means that I'm strongest at visualizing problems and would rather read instructions rather than listen to a lecture. It was weird to find how well these tests describe me. I found that I can read quickly and comprehend accurately. My advice to any student to come to this class: Make it to class. It's the easiest yet most important step. The rest will just fall into place. And work at a steady pace. Don't wait until the night before everything is due to finish your assignments. It sucks. The instructors give you plenty of time. Take advantage of it. Don't be dumb.
3. My biggest weakness would be organizing. I'm terrible at organization. My dorm's a mess, my notes aren't in order, my class notebooks have notes from other classes hidden inside them. I noticed that girls usually stay very organized. I wish I could stay organized like a girl. The tasks that usually take the most time for me are papers. I go through revision after revision. My papers hardly ever correction marks on them when I get them back. These blogs are an exception however. I'm in a hurry. That's another weakness. Time management. Here I am doing all the blogs the night before everything is due. I've had weeks. That was a big big mistake. If I organized like a girl and had time management skills of the president I'd be a master student. I wouldn't put money on that though. I've also got to work on my auditory skills. The textbook says that's my weakest learning style. That's silly though. I'm a good listener. That's another good point I've brought up. Acceptance. That's important. I need to learn to accept my weaknesses and work towards bettering myself rather than denying my faults. Living in denial is not a healthy way to live.
4. I learned that I'm not as great as I thought I was. I really let myself down. I thought I had everything down. I was pretty set with how I was doing things. I learned that there's always a better way out there. You just need to figure it out. You have it in you. I also learned that giving up is taking the stupid way out. Not the easy way, the stupid way. You're cheating yourself when you give up. The things I learned are probably a little different than what the other students learned because I didn't spend as much time in the classroom. I spend much of it in bed reading the book. So I had to teach myself a lot of this stuff. This course is important to me in that it helped me realize where I stand next to others. I'm not so different from anyone in that classroom. The most important skill I learned was how to utilize my strongest intellligence field to enhance studying and learning. I'm really glad I learned that when I did. I'm positive I'll be able to use that in the future. A lot of what I learned were things I believe I already knew, but were afraid to use. Or unsure how to utilize them. This course helped me uncover and sharpen those skills.
5. This one's going be tough. I was absent a lot. So I missed a lot of group discussions and activities. I remember one of the first activities we did was the stand up for what you believe in thing outside. It was a nice way to get to know everyone and what they stand for. I remember the speed reader activity was personally my favorite. I wish I would have gotten that installed on my computer when I had the chance. That program was a great chance to increase my reading and comprehension. I really enjoyed that. I thought the small group discussions were pretty worthless because nobody cared to talk. And when people did talk it was just nonsense stuff. It was never intelligent conversation so I had a hard time staying interested. I think that assigning reading helped me more than discussing topics in class. I formed more creative pictures and theories in my mind. We should have gotten to know each other better. That would've enabled more meaningful conversation. I don't regret anything though. It was an interesting course filled with interesting features. I had a hard time relating much of the material to my own life though.
6. I thought the course was pretty stable. You could tell it was new. Actually the theory behind the course is probably stronger than the course itself. I understand that the college wants to help synergize students into the Butler learning atmosphere. It's a difficult task that I believe was handled as well as it could be. The textbooks definitely should be kept. I learned the most from the book. Ice breaker activities were nice. It gave the students a chance to befriend each other. Group discussions were terrible. It may have just been my group, but I had a hard time participating in those. The daily logs were a good idea. It kept students on track. That's something they can use in the future. I think that the blog thing is a dumb idea. It just seemed sort of trivial to voice my opinion on subjects like academic honesty. We all know about that stuff. It was just dumb. I believe that in order to be successful in the future, you should design the course around the class you are given. Every class has their strong points. Take advantage of that. My group struggled with group conversations, so either teach us to do that better, or just drop it. Student Connect would be a fun class to teach because you have a lot of freedom. I would just have fun with the class. And grade the students on their effort and attitude. And maybe throw a couple papers in. You've always gotta have a few papers.
7. My advice to incoming students would be to keep an open-mind. I came in thinking "Man, this really sucks. Why am I here? I have better things to do with my time." I'm sure that was a pretty common theme among students. I lost motivation and interest early on and I only have myself to blame. I would tell students to give it a chance. Work with the instructor. They're trying their best to make the course interesting for you. As worthless as the class seemed when it started, it definitely surprised me. You learn more about yourself in this class than any other class you'll take at butler-probably. That's because the class isn't really specific to any one thing. You have the chance to observe so many different things. Try to participate in discussions. It's boring to sit there and listen to people 'try' to make conversation. Try to stay passionate about you're talking about and you won't get bored. And got to class. Seriously, go to class. And work at a steady pace. I fell behind early. It really stinks trying to catch up last minute.
8. I honestly believe that I will be more successful in the future because of this class. I was a nonbeliever when the course started, and now I believe. I really didn't think it would happen. I learned how to maintain healthy habits. When you keep yourself healthy, everything around you will benefit: relationships, grades, goals. This course has strengthened my self-confidence. I came in strong and left stronger. I appreciate Mrs. Milbourn and everything she did. She was very understanding and easy to get along with. She was a lot of fun. I learned to accept others the way they are. And not to judge. Everyone has something they're good at. We should celebrate that in each other. I learned that the future starts now. I shouldn't just hang around and hope stuff works out. I need to start planning and working towards goals. Small ones at first, gradually working towards the big ones. And that as long as you stay positive, you can only move forward. I also figured that it's best to absorb as much as you can about everything. And that I should always stay in the pursuit of knowledge.
2. Who would've thought there were actual learning styles. I never would have guessed there was a type that fit me best. After taking the multiple intelligences survey I learned that Musical rhythm and interpersonal were my intelligence strengths. Those were followed closely by verbal linguistic and intrapersonal skills. So according to that test, I love to sing, communicate well through language, possess great leadership skills, and am very reflective. Those are what I draw my strengths from. To further learn about my strenghts, I took the Learning Evaluation and Assessment Directory. I found that I'm mostly a visual learner. That means that I'm strongest at visualizing problems and would rather read instructions rather than listen to a lecture. It was weird to find how well these tests describe me. I found that I can read quickly and comprehend accurately. My advice to any student to come to this class: Make it to class. It's the easiest yet most important step. The rest will just fall into place. And work at a steady pace. Don't wait until the night before everything is due to finish your assignments. It sucks. The instructors give you plenty of time. Take advantage of it. Don't be dumb.
3. My biggest weakness would be organizing. I'm terrible at organization. My dorm's a mess, my notes aren't in order, my class notebooks have notes from other classes hidden inside them. I noticed that girls usually stay very organized. I wish I could stay organized like a girl. The tasks that usually take the most time for me are papers. I go through revision after revision. My papers hardly ever correction marks on them when I get them back. These blogs are an exception however. I'm in a hurry. That's another weakness. Time management. Here I am doing all the blogs the night before everything is due. I've had weeks. That was a big big mistake. If I organized like a girl and had time management skills of the president I'd be a master student. I wouldn't put money on that though. I've also got to work on my auditory skills. The textbook says that's my weakest learning style. That's silly though. I'm a good listener. That's another good point I've brought up. Acceptance. That's important. I need to learn to accept my weaknesses and work towards bettering myself rather than denying my faults. Living in denial is not a healthy way to live.
4. I learned that I'm not as great as I thought I was. I really let myself down. I thought I had everything down. I was pretty set with how I was doing things. I learned that there's always a better way out there. You just need to figure it out. You have it in you. I also learned that giving up is taking the stupid way out. Not the easy way, the stupid way. You're cheating yourself when you give up. The things I learned are probably a little different than what the other students learned because I didn't spend as much time in the classroom. I spend much of it in bed reading the book. So I had to teach myself a lot of this stuff. This course is important to me in that it helped me realize where I stand next to others. I'm not so different from anyone in that classroom. The most important skill I learned was how to utilize my strongest intellligence field to enhance studying and learning. I'm really glad I learned that when I did. I'm positive I'll be able to use that in the future. A lot of what I learned were things I believe I already knew, but were afraid to use. Or unsure how to utilize them. This course helped me uncover and sharpen those skills.
5. This one's going be tough. I was absent a lot. So I missed a lot of group discussions and activities. I remember one of the first activities we did was the stand up for what you believe in thing outside. It was a nice way to get to know everyone and what they stand for. I remember the speed reader activity was personally my favorite. I wish I would have gotten that installed on my computer when I had the chance. That program was a great chance to increase my reading and comprehension. I really enjoyed that. I thought the small group discussions were pretty worthless because nobody cared to talk. And when people did talk it was just nonsense stuff. It was never intelligent conversation so I had a hard time staying interested. I think that assigning reading helped me more than discussing topics in class. I formed more creative pictures and theories in my mind. We should have gotten to know each other better. That would've enabled more meaningful conversation. I don't regret anything though. It was an interesting course filled with interesting features. I had a hard time relating much of the material to my own life though.
6. I thought the course was pretty stable. You could tell it was new. Actually the theory behind the course is probably stronger than the course itself. I understand that the college wants to help synergize students into the Butler learning atmosphere. It's a difficult task that I believe was handled as well as it could be. The textbooks definitely should be kept. I learned the most from the book. Ice breaker activities were nice. It gave the students a chance to befriend each other. Group discussions were terrible. It may have just been my group, but I had a hard time participating in those. The daily logs were a good idea. It kept students on track. That's something they can use in the future. I think that the blog thing is a dumb idea. It just seemed sort of trivial to voice my opinion on subjects like academic honesty. We all know about that stuff. It was just dumb. I believe that in order to be successful in the future, you should design the course around the class you are given. Every class has their strong points. Take advantage of that. My group struggled with group conversations, so either teach us to do that better, or just drop it. Student Connect would be a fun class to teach because you have a lot of freedom. I would just have fun with the class. And grade the students on their effort and attitude. And maybe throw a couple papers in. You've always gotta have a few papers.
7. My advice to incoming students would be to keep an open-mind. I came in thinking "Man, this really sucks. Why am I here? I have better things to do with my time." I'm sure that was a pretty common theme among students. I lost motivation and interest early on and I only have myself to blame. I would tell students to give it a chance. Work with the instructor. They're trying their best to make the course interesting for you. As worthless as the class seemed when it started, it definitely surprised me. You learn more about yourself in this class than any other class you'll take at butler-probably. That's because the class isn't really specific to any one thing. You have the chance to observe so many different things. Try to participate in discussions. It's boring to sit there and listen to people 'try' to make conversation. Try to stay passionate about you're talking about and you won't get bored. And got to class. Seriously, go to class. And work at a steady pace. I fell behind early. It really stinks trying to catch up last minute.
8. I honestly believe that I will be more successful in the future because of this class. I was a nonbeliever when the course started, and now I believe. I really didn't think it would happen. I learned how to maintain healthy habits. When you keep yourself healthy, everything around you will benefit: relationships, grades, goals. This course has strengthened my self-confidence. I came in strong and left stronger. I appreciate Mrs. Milbourn and everything she did. She was very understanding and easy to get along with. She was a lot of fun. I learned to accept others the way they are. And not to judge. Everyone has something they're good at. We should celebrate that in each other. I learned that the future starts now. I shouldn't just hang around and hope stuff works out. I need to start planning and working towards goals. Small ones at first, gradually working towards the big ones. And that as long as you stay positive, you can only move forward. I also figured that it's best to absorb as much as you can about everything. And that I should always stay in the pursuit of knowledge.
Butler Resources
The first resource I would advise Stacey to check out on campus is the safety committee. Talking to someone of that committee might help her avoid online sexual harassment. Another source on campus would be the counselor. The counselor is always around to talk about whatever, she might be able to help narrow down some ways to handle the situation. Another source that would help train Stacey to avoid sexual predators is http://www.newtrainingideas.com/sexual-harassment-training.html. Another great source is http://www.calchamber.com/Store/Category/SH. That site provides women with training courses and ways to avoid sexual harassment. ANother source I found specifically defined and outlined the boundaries of online sexual harassment. That address is http://swc2.hccs.edu/tannahill/html/news_items/sx_harad.html. Good luck Stacey.
Community Service
Three issues that are affecting me right now are college prices, the iraq war, and another that I never would've argued for but have seen in a different light becuase of Headliners is gay rights. I'm actually going to focus on gay rights. Not necessarily right as much as treatment and acceptance. After reading through articles I found on the search engines the library webpage provided, I wasn't surprised to find that gays around the world are mistreated. Many countries don't even allow gays. There aren't many ways I can make a change however. One way is just support them and their fight for acceptance. Another way would be to help others realize that there's nothing wrong with being gay. People have to start accepting it instead of making fun of them. A third way would be to help raise public awareness towards gay right and acceptance. I never felt so strongly about the subject as I do now. As a member of Headliners, I cooperate with homosexuals without even realizing it. They are some of the most witty, funny, and intelligent people I've ever met. I enjoy hanging around them. Not like kissing and stuff. They're just a cool crowd. It really is a tragedy that it's even a issue. They are who they are and people shouldn't be fighting against them. Let change come. It's healthy.
Coping with Change
The biggest change for me has just been getting used to dorm life. Although I still go home about every other weekend, It's still been a really rough adjustment. Showering in the same shower that forty other football players use isn't really what I'm use to. So ya, it's been difficult. My roommate's really nice though. He has cerebral palsy. So I'm learning a lot about new experiences as well. Change is hard for me because of the adjusting process. I'm always down for new things. Big permanent things are the killers for me. Change is absolutely necessary though. It's healthy. Benjamin Franklin once said, "When you're finished changing, you're finished." I love quotes. They help me change. College and high school aren't really that different. Responsibility kicks up but that's about it. It's about growing up and becoming who you are. I'd like to believe that I've initiated change. I've always been a rebel. Not like a punk. But when I don't receive something well, I show it, and people follow me. The biggest physical change I've experiences here at Butler was the loss of my afro. I had to cut it for Headliners. I hated Dean Patton for making me cut it. He still owes me sixty bucks. I'm getting along fine though. Change is healthy. I don't think there really are any attitudes or emotions that can hinder change. It's always happening. You can't stop it. Your mind will forever mature. No matter what. You can't prevent change.
Time Management
People of utilize time management without even noticing it. It's become second nature to many. I use time management more than ever because of college. I take 19 credit hours, participate in Headliners and Smorgaschords, work twenty hours a week, have piano lessons, and work out 4 days a week at the YMCA. Not even mentioning the time I take in for studying and hanging out with friends. I use time management more than the average college student. That doesn't mean I'm great at it however. I often find myself managing my time inefficiently. Take this student connect class. Even though I respect the instructor, the class itself is worthless. I really believe that. So I've had a hard time managing to get to class. I don't have that problem in any of my other classes. I guess if you're motivated to participate in something, you'll find a way to get there. On the other hand, when I am successful at time management, my overall attitude lifts. The most important factor in time management is organization. And motivation. You have to be willing to get things done. I can definitely distinguish differences in my high school and college time management skills. I'm way more independent now which has forced me to plan my time more often. Although I'm maturing, I'm no master. My biggest problem is just motivating myself to get more involved in activities I don't particularly like. Like student connect. It was a bad idea class.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Academic Honesty
Academic honesty is an issue that students deal with everyday. Teachers expect students to do their own work in a timely, responsible, and honest fashion. Although reasonable, it's hardly how students operate. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqd&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&genre=article&rft_dat=xri:pqd:did=1341318421 is an interesting source that talks about misconduct involving plagiarism in schools. Plagiarism is basically the calling of someone else's work your own. http://depts.washington.edu/grading/issue1/honesty.htm is another source which tackles plariarism more deeply. One of the biggest problems for students is citing their sources correctly. http://web.grinnell.edu/writinglab/CitationGuides/achondiscuss.html teaches students how to cite sources correctly. http://www.charleslipson.com/Reading-Writing-Plagiarism-and-Academic-Honesty.htm provides students with alternate solutions to avoid plagiarism. Another good source that provides students with way to avoid academic dishonesty is http://www.usc.edu/programs/cet/private/pdfs/teaching_nuggets/academic_dishonesty. There are many reasons why students result to academic dishonesty. The most dominant reason is that they are lazy. They often argue that it's too time consuming, it's easier to just copy someone else's. Another reason is that after a person examines anothers material, they'll think less of their own. So they combine their thoughts with anothers. The best way to avoid academic dishonesty is to simply set goals for yourself. If you have something to work towards that you believe in, you'll work harder. Also, stay motivated. I'm way behind in this class. I have to hurry and do all these posts tonight or I won't pass this class. That's motivation. Motivation and goals will help with academic honesty. Commitment is another good one. If you're not committed, you're less likely to work honestly. That's fact.
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