INQ Final Thoughts

Congratulations! If you're reading this, you have made it to the end of this thing we call INQ!

Each INQ class presents unique challenges: how can we aid the transition from high school? how can we prepare students for the academic challenges that await them beyond the first semester? how can we not just teach them the tools of success but let them experience success? This last one is so important to me. For example, I can tell students how to manage time or ask them to read articles on it or have them fill out worksheets on it, but until they truly experience juggling lots of tasks for a specific deadline, then they don't know how they personally react or how best to manage it themselves. And all students are different and have to figure out what works on their own. INQ is all about whatever the students bring to the class, the ways they seek to meet the challenges, and the personal results that each individual student takes away from the experience as a whole.

Here, at the end of the semester, I am proud of my students' many accomplishments, but I know that I can't take credit for them. They are not my accomplishments; like everything else in INQ, they belong to the students.

But I do want to acknowledge those accomplishments:

I have seen students gain confidence in blogging, writing entries that were fluid, fun to read, and creative, not just fulfilling assignments. I have seen students come up with creative titles, themes that carry through the semester of blogging, and openers and closers that make the writing professional.

I have also seen students master lots of technology, from embedding videos in blogs to using iMovie and Windows Movie Maker to converting files into various formats. In the videos, I have also seen creativity, humor, professionality, engaging openers and thoughtful closers.

I have seen students become engaged in classroom discussion, even some who didn't want to talk or felt shy in the beginning of the semester. I saw students go from not understanding what "college level thinking" was to becoming the questioners, the ones who pushed the envelope in class discussion.

I have seen students distinguish themselves, capitalize on their strengths and present their work and ideas with pride and confidence. But this skill didn't come at the expense of others, since I saw much support and camaraderie among students instead of competition. I saw students give feedback because they knew what they were talking about but gave it in constructive, helpful ways.

The first semester is not an easy semester, and INQ is not an easy class (in some ways), but at the end of it all, I see many students showing me that they're prepared for the coming semesters, that they know what to expect and how to achieve their goals.

Over the winter break, take time to relax, reflect, and rejuvenate. Also take stock of all your growth and accomplishments, and make a plan to push yourself even further next semester. This semester is just the start of something much bigger.

Final Self-Assessment Assignment

Final Self-Assessment Assignment

“We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience” -- John Dewey

Write a 600-word blog post that functions as a final self-assessment for your first semester of college. Use the following questions as a starting point for organizing your ideas. Your answers should reflect an honest evaluation of yourself and should not be an evaluation of SCSU, me, the class, or the FYE program.

1. What have you learned about yourself as a college student so far? Where are
you in your learning process?

2. What have been your biggest challenges so far?

3. How did you react to and/or meet or mishandle those challenges?

4. What have been your biggest achievements so far?

5. What habits or processes made certain that you were able to earn success
in those areas? How have you used the resources available to you in order
to ensure your own success? How can you do more of this in the upcoming
semester?

6. How successful have you been with time management and workload in your
courses? What have you put the majority of your time and energy into this
semester? What is the result of that?

7. What have your grades been like this semester? More importantly perhaps,
what are you learning? Are there classes where you are learning a lot or only
a little? Why? What can you do to maximize your learning?

8. How are you doing in meeting the personal goals you set for yourself at the
beginning of the semester? Are you where you had hoped you would be by
this point in your college career?

9. Where do you want to go from here and what do you think you need to do in
order to get there? Is there anything you need to change? Is there anything
you can improve upon in the upcoming semesters?

10. What specific goals would you like to set for yourself next semester and how
do you plan to meet those goals?

Be sure that your post is clear, detailed, shows in-depth thinking, makes specific points, and supports those points with specific evidence. In addition to rich content,your post should have a clear beginning, middle, and end, and unifying transitions.

This assignment is due (posted on your blog) on Saturday, December 17 by midnight.

End of the semester blogging assignments

Blogging is coming to an end very soon. Here is what is left:

Next week:

1) Write a post that describes what your ideal life after college would be like (this idea was inspired by Creativity Guru Keri Smith who has a similar prompt here.)

2) Reflect on your experience in a learning community (the same group of students placed in two classes) and tell us what you'll miss most about seeing this group of people every T/R in two classes next semester.

3) Your very last Campus Safari!!

Finals week:

1) Post your video.

2) Post your final self-assessment (assignment posted on the blog in a separate post).

Both of these are due by Saturday Dec 17 at midnight.

This week's blog posts

For this week, you need to submit only one blog post again, by Wednesday (plus a campus safari post by Saturday as usual). Your post this week should be about your video and you can do a short update on where you are with it. But the most important part of the post should be addressing the following issue:

How are you going to make your final video interesting, creative, distinctive, unique? How are you going to make it a step up from your midterm video and how are you going to make it stand out from others in the class? Be specific? How exactly are you going to add originality to your work?

You may not be sure where to start in adding a creative spin to your project, so here is a direction you might explore.

In terms of creativity, artist and writer Keri Smith always inspires me. She has a great post on her blog that everyone should read; it's called "Secrets of the Self Employed (or How to be an Amazing [insert profession here])" and it lays out some basic guidelines that are applicable to many professions and pursuits. Some of my favorites from this post are:

-- You are always working for yourself, even when you work for others.

-- There are no actual rules for how to become a successful [insert profession here]. Make your own path.

-- What you think becomes your reality.

-- Take some small risks on a regular basis.

-- Always come back to work that excites you. Even if you get off track for a while.

-- You can reinvent yourself at any time.

Sometimes in the midst of stress (like the end of the semester crunch time), it's hard to see these truths, but I believe they are truths that can help us focus on the bigger picture. Read the rest of her post -- there's a lot of food for thought there.

Proposal Comments

Only about half of you completed a project proposal which is your blog grade for this week. I commented on every proposal posted by this morning since I am hoping that you all will be getting started on your video projects soon (1st draft due Tuesday).

A few general comments:

1. Try to make your final project different than your midterm project(and a step up in terms of quality). You don't have to interview anyone for the final, but you may find it to be a useful tool to use again. If so, also include other elements so it doesn't look or feel too similar to the midterm projects.

2. Be as specific as you can; avoid just talking in general about your topic. Always go more in-depth into your topic rather than just adding more information or more video filler.

3. Have fun with it. Add something creative to spice it up.

4. Have as much of a complete 1st draft as possible on Tuesday so you will know what you need to get feedback on and what problems you need help with.

Sample Proposal

Check out Hanna's blog for an example of what your project proposal might look like.

And here is a video done by an INQ student in another class. Her assignment is not exactly the same as ours, but it is similar in that it addresses a specific problem on campus.

Final Video Project Assignment

INQ Final Video Project:
Identify a Problem/Question and Propose a Solution/Response


Project Description

Reflect on your first semester at college. What problems have you faced and what have you learned? Brainstorm ideas that concern yourself as well as SCSU as well as college students in general (readings, class discussions, blog posts, and presentations might help with this phase.)

Out of your brainstorming, choose one topic or a set of related topics. make sure your video will not cover so much ground that it won’t go enough in-depth but also make sure your topic is broad enough to keep your viewers’ interest in the video. It can be possible to fit just about any topic into a problem/solution format, but if you are lost for a topic, feel free to choose one that we came up with in class. Make sure you come up with an original title to open your video.

The video itself should present the problem/topic/set of questions. There are many ways to sketch out your ideas in this part, including using narration, research, data, quotes, surveys, interviews, and filmed skits. Explore the nuances of the problem, not just the surface. What causes it? Why is it important? Who does it affect or matter to? What consequences stem from it? What are people trying to do about it? Why aren’t more people doing more about it? (These are just a few questions you might explore in this part of the assignment.

The video should also present some possible responses to the problem and evaluate them, pointing viewers to what you see as the best solution and why. How can this solution be implemented? What are the steps viewers need to take? What will be the effect of such an implementation? How would the lives of college students change for the better? However, also consider some obstacles that may need to be overcome in addressing the problem in this way.

Finally, the video should leave viewers with some type of closure. This might be another place to use creativity in your presentation style (perhaps by including a skit or interview or survey quotes or image/text montage). Also remember to have credits roll at the end to acknowledge any research or people that might have contributed to your project. Also, make sure you list yourself as the author/creator of the video either on your title page or as a closing signature.


Project Criteria

Your video should be 8-10 minutes long, include photo, sound, text, and video, and should be submitted in a format that can be uploaded to the internet (youtube, vimeo, blogger) and linked to or embedded on your blog.

Be sure to narrow down your focus so that the video has a clear beginning, middle, and end with a significant portion of the video devoted to exploring the problem, a significant portion devoted to possible solutions, and a significant portion devoted to the conclusion. The video should inform as well as engage. It should demonstrate creativity as well as college-level thinking. It should make some interesting concluding points, and it should provide evidence to back up those points. Finally, try to make the project unique, distinctive, and not just like everyone else's in class, both in topic/content as well as form/style.


Project Deadlines

⌾ Project Proposal due Wednesday, November 23, posted on your blog (this will count for your blog grade for the week)

⌾ Video 1st draft due Tuesday, November 29

⌾ Video 2nd drafts due December 1-December 8 (sign-up in class for a screening date)

⌾ Final Video due by the Saturday of Final Exam Week, midnight



Additional Project Resources

This assignment mirrors a problem/solution essay, so you may find it helpful to read more about that genre in thinking about how to structure your video: http://www.enotes.com/topics/how-write-problem-solution-essay

Video Projects incorporate many elements of digital storytelling, so you may find the links gathered at this page helpful: http://couros.wikispaces.com/digitalstorytelling