Tag: college

AcAdv, Career, UGST1000

Open Options: Choosing a Major With Road Trip Nation

Laura Pasquini

With first year students, there are many new, exciting and scary things about starting college or university. Higher education offers a place to be intellectually challenged, develop socially, discover your interests, and engage with a variety of opportunities on campus and beyond. The road and journey are both wide open. The open road and the growing number of academic/career possibilities seems to be a bigger challenge to our student population. Besides the confusion of campus jargon and the navigation of a larger than high school institution, there seems to be more students and family members at orientation who are anxious about making the “right decisions now” for later. Many higher ed students have an idea or inkling of what they want to do, but most are not sure about their academic options, career path planning, and helpful resources to support their decision-making process.

For UNT students who enter into the undecided/undeclared program at UNT, the Office for Exploring Majors [where I work] utilizes the Roadtrip Nation (RTN) resources and has a  RTN project as part of the UGST 1000 – First Year Seminar class.

The Open Road for #UGST1000 Course Design The RTN project helps students explore their personal, academic, and career path. More importantly, it allows them to learn that there is more than one path to obtain their goals and dreams. In picking up  Roadtrip Nation: A Guide to Discovering Your Path in Life and Finding the Open Road: A Guide to Self-Construction Rather Than Mass Production – I was reminded about my own academic/career journey and questions I had in undergrad and after. There are a number of different professional journeys and narratives that provide readers a “path” of how to get to where you want to go.

Overall, I will be using Finding the Open Road stories and interviews (posted online) to help expose the pre-Journalism (News, Advertising, Strategic Communication & PR) and pre-Business (Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Management) students in UGST 1000 figure out how to navigate their own experience. I do like the strategies and ideas in the “Do It Yourself” section of the Roadtrip Nation book to help guide our students learning. The plan is to take the follow chapters and make them into easy-to-use guides for both the UGST 1000 instructors and students that follows the Roadtrip Nation Manifesto:

  1. First, Find Your Red Rubber Ball – What inspires you? What is your passion? Identifying interests, values, and likes.
  2. Whom Should You Meet? – tips on how to find people, being resourceful, using your personal network, how to reach out to new people
  3. Getting the Meeting – cold calls, the pitch, being persistent, communication strategies
  4. Preparing for the Interview – researching the person, their company, their work experience
  5. In the Meeting – what to talk about, suggested questions, informational interview samples, interview/meeting etiquette
  6. Closing – ending a meeting, sending thanks, developing a mentoring relationship

RTN asks....

References:

Marriner, M. & Gebhard, N. (2006). Roadtrip Nation: A guide to discovering your path in life. New York: Ballentine Books.

Marriner, M., McAllister, B. & Gebhard, N. (2005). Finding the open road: A guide to self-construction rather than mass production. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press.

Learning Community, Micro-Blogs

Teaching with Twitter

Laura Pasquini

Some college students may be introduced to instructors & courses that ENCOURAGE micro blogging with Twitter.

Twitter is becoming a fast buzz in both media and celebrity circles, however, I think that more teachers are beginning to realize the power this social media tool for learning.

Here are a few benefits for professors who experiment with Twitter as a teaching tool:

  • source of news
  • opinions of peers
  • gain knowledge from experts
  • live & archived tweeting in class
  • capture lecture content
  • add depth to lecture material
  • build a learning community inside & beyond the classroom

For those faculty/instructors who might consider tweeting in class, I might recommend that you start up your own Twitter account and play with it. Also, be sure to read up about strategies &tools that to optimize learning with Twitter.

I personally like TweetDeck (an Adobe Air-based app) to organize & categorize my tweets. I can clearly see my messages, replies and content areas I am interested in at a quick glance.  Some categories I use for tweets include Higher Ed, Web Tools, Career Research, T.O., Students, etc.

Are YOU tweeting with your students? If so, please share!

Higher Education, web 2.0

Higher Education 2.0

Laura Pasquini

worldonshoulderswos

Technology has become quite accessible, especially in higher education. Whether you like the term web 2.0 or have caught the social media bug, the fact is, technology is present in many learning environments. The “alternate” forms of education are no more – it’s now just learning.

“Web 2.0 technologies and open education learning design, employed by imaginative teachers, create a landscape of learning–collaborative, problem-based, experiential–that is closer to our nature than the ranked, single voice classrooms so abundant in recent times. The single voice classroom developed because of the lack of other ways to help students learn. We no longer lack the resources and tools to develop learning designs that fit how people learn.”c/o Why Web 2.0 is Important in Higher Education, T. Baston, Campus Technology

Although this though is not widely embraced by faculty and administrators alike, it will be the challenge for the new generations of students entering into our colleges and universities.

Here are some interesting comments about this Campus Technology article’s message about web 2.0 in higher education:

Wed, Apr 15, 2009

I want someone, an actual human to talk to. Interaction with other humans. and the Web is not personal. I enjoy learning on line but getting the information and hearing the emotional delivery of a lecture is critical.

[Who is talking about online lectures? We are talking about engaging students in 2-way conversations online. Dialoging about relevant course material. Sharing ideas, thoughts, facts and opinions.]

Wed, Apr 15, 2009 

I still don’t see this. With the busy lives most of our students (mine are older) live, they need a lot of direction to get things done. My job as an instructor (I hate the instructor/professor paradigm) is to provide them with the initial stimulation to show them what they need to know and to make it interesting enough for them to pursue later (Web?). My students actually WANT me to talk to them, to help them see the framework things can be seen in, and to set the challenges for them. I wouldn’t dare say this always happens, but I try. And it is congruent with my own experience. I always loved great lectures from people who thoroughly understood and integrated knowledge (perhaps that’s why I still spend so much money on Teach12.com). I don’t say this as a Luddite. I’ve been involved in technology education for 25 years, and I am still uncertain where it can help ….

[GREAT! Keep talking to your students in-person… then engage & challenge them online and beyond the classroom/office hours environment – to share research, ask questions, and grow your learning community.]

Perhaps the misconception for technology in higher education is the thought it has to be ALL or NOTHING. I would encourage educators to think more broadly on how to support those adult learners, and seek out online mediums to to compliment and make your teaching practice more effective to cultivate learning communities at your institutions. It is never about the technology, it’s really the reason and purpose it plays in education.