Campus Quips

The Transfer Seminar has had its ups and downs during this, its first, semester. As I reviewed some reflective assignments students in my class submitted in the final class period, I found some encouraging comments. I hope they encourage you, too.



"I would like to be more courageous (I experience high anxiety during tests) to prepare me for stressful situations in the nursing field."

"I feel that I am a focused, driven person and able to focus my attention on what needs to be accomplished, which helps me in academics. However, I need to be constantly willing to change certain aspects of my self in order to become a master student nurse. I aspire to be joyful in my education because I have the opportunity to learn about God's greatest creation...the human body. This is something to rejoice about! :-)"

"My goal is to become a missionary to Kenya. I am working on that goal every day and currently taking a trip to Uganda next week to do God's work."

The most significant thing learned? "I am capable and motivated as long as I make the time and locate the necessary resources."

"I don't know if I'll end up with all A's, but I am OK with it. I know I did the best I could, and I'm not letting it bother me."

"I am caring. It fits me well. I care about everything a lot more than what people think."

"My two discovery wheels were quite different. In my second one, my scores were significantly higher. I had improved in each category. In my 'purpose' category, I went up by 12 points. This is proof that I have learned lots of new things about myself."

"I will approach my new classes with more confidence in my ability to do well. I will not put myself down."

"I know from the first and second Discovery Wheels that my ability to use resources needs work, so that is one thing I will continue to work on."

"I don't really care whether or not I get A's in all my classes; perfection is not necessary to me. Despite this, I aspire to be a published author."

"I have greatly improved in communication with much class speaking and many presentations. I also have improved in interpersonal skills, making new friends."

"I am highly motivated, and my idea of success in not weighed by the amount of money a person makes; it's the character built along the way."

"My critical thinking has improved, and now I don't just take info as true. I have to find out why and how."

"I have learned new information in my Foundations of Math class including some statistics."

"I have realized more that I am responsible for my future and especially the decisions I make in College."

"I really felt the Honor Code meant something special to me. I followed it all semester."

"I am highly motivated and feel 100% sure of my success now, here at King College."

"I am not afraid to ask my professors for help or to ask questions."

"I have been really good at resourcefulness. I never bought a book for any of my classes this semester. I have 3 A's, 2 B's, and 1 C." [Is this really a good thing? :-(]

"I continue to be honest, though cheating would be easier."

"I may have grown most in my concern for others. When I see others struggling, I try to take time to help them. In the long run, I learn more and grow more from the effort."

"King College is giving me a greater understanding that educational success (at King) means far more than preparing for a profession. It means succeeding as a community in Christ. Intellectual growth up to this point has been lacking any sense of community, Christian or otherwise. This led to a sense of isolation that has been remedied at King."

Learning about Health and Wellness in KING 2000

Nora Helton, KING 2000 student, as a dental services volunteer, RAM, Union County, TN, 11/15/09


I saw a different side of one of my students over the weekend at RAM. This young woman has missed several KING 2000 sessions, but was 100% present in the rugged clinical atmosphere of the Remote Area Medical Clinic in Maynardville, TN.

This week's health and wellness presentations allowed me to see the same sort of transformation of all my transfer seminar students, who were trying very hard to please me and also to give important information to their peers.

When I watch presentations, my "English teacher" kicks in. I wish that were not the case. I can certainly tell you what the students could have done better in their PowerPoint presentations and the brochures they made.

HOWEVER, there were some noteworthy positive aspects to yesterday's presentations:

1. They took the mandate of the assignment seriously, finding and presenting truly life-saving information to the class.

2. They were undaunted by technical medical terms and completely comfortable with all sorts of information about body parts--quick to demonstrate when that was appropriate, eager to make sure their peers understood the risks and dangers of unhealthy lifestyle choices.

3. Several were very vulnerable as they shared personal stories of family members who had experienced the health challenges they were presenting. This honesty drove their points home in ways that were both poignant and memorable.

4. They bonded in their groups. There was actually a warm feeling in the class.

My conclusions: This is a valuable assignment. We should definitely keep it in the course, and we should probably move it to the first month of class to help the students make for themselves small communities of learners across disciplines.

Watching the Documentary and then De-Briefing

This week you will watch Martin's film "Theologians Under Hitler" with your class. Since the film is 64 minutes long, I suggest that you email your students a reminder to be on time.

Marsha had some trouble getting her quiz to work, but it is now operational. She will be sending it immediately. I was able to import it to my Blackboard site with no difficulty.

I plan to make the quiz available to my students immediately after we watch the film instead of waiting until next week, so they can take it when the images, dialog, and events are fresh in their minds.

I will post some discussion question suggestions after I watch the film when it's closer to the time of our class discussion. Has anyone used the study guide for the documentary? I know the library ordered it for us.

You mignt also want to remind your students that the Clydesdale selection is pretty long; they may begin reading ahead of time.

Focus on FOCUS-2

It's time to introduce FOCUS-2 to our transfer students. I went to the training on Friday afternoon and have spent some time exploring the program on my own as well.

FOCUS is a powerful resource that puts clear information in students' hands. We have already done a lot of self-assessment in KING 2000--the learning styles exercise, the Discovery Wheel, and the "Journal 32" self-discovery about health and wellness. FOCUS-2 puts one more item in students' toolboxes.

The advantage of this one is that it gives an independent perspective and ties student responses to career information, salary ranges, and choice of major/minor, as well as indicating how students might enjoy spending their leisure time.

Explore the site yourself and go through the various assessments, so you can talk persuasively about it.
http://www.focuscareer2.com

By now, you know your class, and you will need to use your knowledge to effectively pitch this tool. My class is at least 80% nursing and 10% education majors. These students KNOW what they want to do (or at least they think they know). I hope to sell them on taking the time to do FOCUS-2 thoughtfully as a way to CONFIRM their choice of career.

The second thing I plan to tell them is that the information the get will give them ways to choose service opportunities that are in line with their personalities and interests. Since 14 chapel/convo/service credites are required each semester and the Cross-Cultural Experience is required to complete the Core, it would behoove students to choose things that match their talents and preferences.

I intend to ask my students to print two documents: the "Work Interest Profile Summary" and the "Leisure Interest Profile Summary."

Because of the large number of pre-service nurses and teachers in my class, I will give them the option of making an appointment with Nichole Long to talk about careers/internships or with Heather Levesque to determine some service possibilities. They should take their profiles with them to whichever meeting they choose to schedule.

Just a word about experiential learning...the nursing and education students have experiences--clinical rotations and student teaching--built into their programs. There are majors that require internships; TCOM, Digital Media, and Sport Management are three of these. Many students in the sciences do summer research or intern in various places. It is a goal at King for all students to have an intentional experiential component to their program of study. You need to be an advocate.

Goals and Plans

Week 7 is all about goals and plans. If you have had your students do the Discovery Wheel, the discovery exercise about health and the nutrition journal, they should have some data that should prepare them to think ahead. You can tell them that people who write down their goals are 85% more likely to reach those goals.

In addition, the students have probably had a test or two. They know how hard they need to work to attain the grades they want.

As I mentioned to you in the training seminar back in August, I really like the goal setting exercise in BAMS. This exercise is available online at the Cengage site for Becoming a Master Student:
http://college.cengage.com/masterstudent/shared/content/get_real_with_goals/get_real_with_goals.html

You can also just do the exercise on paper or do the 3x5 card version of it that I put in your notebooks. Mid-semester is a great time to think about both short-term and long-term goals. It's not too late for a mid-course correction.

Instructions for Importing a "Test" or Survey

Here are the instructions that Matt wrote for us. They will stay here in the blog, and I won't have to search through old email archives again to find them.

Instructions (by Matt):

1. Save the attached ZIP file to a location on your computer (I'd recommend putting it on the Desktop)
2. Go to Blackboard and navigate to the Test area (Control Panel -> Course Tools -> Tests, Surveys and Pools)
3. Click on Tests
4. Choose Import Test
5. Click Browse for Local File
6. Find the ZIP file you saved in step one using the file chooser
7. Click Submit

The test is now in your test bank. You'll then need to:
1. Go to the Quizzes button
2. Choose Create Test (Evaluate -> Create Test)
3. The test you just imported will be in the list, so you can set the time when the test will be available.

Information Literacy

Week 6, September 28, 29, 30, is "Information Literacy" week in KING 2000.

We will meet our classes in the library, where Jenny Horton has arranged for a librarian to go over basic skills with the students.

Before class your students need to complete the information literacy survey on Bb. They need to do this by September 28. This survey is a zip file, just like a quiz. I will email it to you, and you will upload it exactly as you do a quiz.

In class you will give them the assignment sheet for the project. I will email the assignment sheet and post it on our Mentors' Blackboard site as well.

I suggest that by Friday of this week you send them an email telling them that they need to do the survey and also letting them know what the topics are for the team project. Each student should think about the list of topics and know what two or three they are interested in. You need to get the students into no more than 4 teams (there is only enough time for 4 teams to present on presentation day, which is November 18). I will also draft an email message that you can use or not use.

Perhaps at the beginning of the library session you can have them turn in to you their list of three. By the time the librarian is ready for them to begin their research, you can have the list of teams ready.

Our goal is graphically depicted by this cartoon (found on the North Myrtle Beach High School Website):

BAMS

OK, I admit it. I am definitely a devotee of Becoming a Master Student by Dave Ellis.

One of the most memorable conferences I ever attended was one that he led for freshman seminar instructors. As I told you at our workshop, even though there were 500 attendees, he made us feel as if we were in a small group.

I stumbled across the website for the 10th edition of the book.
http://college.cengage.com/collegesurvival/ellis/master_student/10e/students/index.html

Perhaps you will find it a useful resource as we move into Week 5 and begin to talk about both study skills and health issues. The menu along the side of the splash page gives you many choices.

There is actually an online version of the Discovery Wheel exercise, but don't tell the students--since we had them buy the Discovery Wheel booklet.

This week could be as illuminating as the Learning Styles Exercise was for my class. Almost literally, lights went on all over the room the day we did that exercise. Seeing the graphs the students made based on the word lists I read them was instructive for me--made me realize why individuals were reacting to their classes and their new experiences the ways they were.

I expect the Discovery Wheel to provide the same sort of insight.

Preparing for Buechner Lecturer Makoto Fujimura

Makoto Fujimura's "Golden Summer"

Once again, my apologies for being late with the quiz on the Fujimura readings. I have spent several hours immersed in the texts and following up with some web reserch. The links below were instructive to me in the process.

Japanese Tea Ceremony
http://www.chinatownconnection.com/japanese-tea-ceremony.htm

abstract expressionism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_expressionism

Nihonga
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonga

Fujimura assumes that his readers know the terminology he is using; my guess is that our students will not know these terms. I am going to send my class an email suggesting that before they do the reading and take the quiz they should look up the following words/terms:

abstract expressionism
Nihonga
modernism
post-modernism
anime
metanoia
Eucharist

I have a lot of cool ideas for teaching this week's material, but...ALAS...I am out of time for today. Other tasks await. I want to make a slide show of some art from both the abstract expressionists and the Nihonga painters to give students a sense of the two traditions. I'm also thinking about using a movie clip and some music. It's too bad my class is not first in the week. That would make me work faster.

I am sending by email some class discussion questions that have occurred to me as I read and wrote the quiz.

Katie

Honor Code Cards? + Service Fair Accountability

After a search, we were able to come up with Honor Code Pledge Cards--enough for our transfer students to sign. Since only a few of them signed the banner on Monday during Launch, the cards are appropriate.

The question is...do we want to back track to do this?

My workship will deliver to you an envelope with enough cards for your students. You can decide whether or not you want to use them.

CROSS-CULTURAL EXPERIENCE & SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES FAIR
The event on Wednesday, September 9, may have even exceeded our expectations. We had lots of students! And, furthermore, the agency representatives were very complimentary about the smooth organization of the fair and the genuine enthusiasm of the students who talked to them.

We do have an accountability sheet from everyone who was there. Heather is going to take care of organizing those and pulling out the ones for your students. You will receive them soon.

Free Lunch for Commuters on Wednesday, September 9!

FREE LUNCH is always good news!

Commuters can thank Student Affairs for a free picnic lunch on Wednesday as part of the Cross-Cultural Experience and Service Opportunities Fair being held on the Oval. The Fair will kick off with a devotional from Fred Foy Strang and music by the Chapel Band.

Then students will move to the grassy area in front of Bristol Hall where more than 20 local agencies and campus trip sponsors will be set up with information to help students understand how the Cross-Cultural Experience works now under the revised Core and what services King students can provide for less-fortunate citizens of the Tri-Cities area.

This event has been long in the planning (since last spring) and carefully imagined. We are elated by the response of area service organizations such as Big Brothers/Big Sisters, the Salvation Army, and Appalachian Service Project. Faculty and Staff will be on hand, too, with information about study abroad possibilities, mission trips planned for 2009-2010, and important information about the Cross-Cultural Experience requirement. There will be prize drawings every few minutes and a grand $$ prize given at the end of the fair.

I said on the syllabus plan that I would design a feedback sheet for students. But, actually the feedback sheet has become ubiquitous. A form will be given to all students who attend. Once they visit several of the tables to get information and get their sheet initialed by the information providers at those tables, the sheet turned in to Heather Levesque will serve as their entry in the grand prize drawing. We can retrieve those sheets from Heather to use to record attendance for our transfer students.

I hope each of you can come on Wednesday at least for part of the time. We are anticipating a successful outcome. Join the committee in prayers for good weather.

Katie

The Plantinga+Student Handbook Quiz

This poster is too cool not to share, obviously advertising another event earlier this year. It is is time this week to start encouraging students to attend the event on September 9 at 10:30 on the Oval. I know that's far from Kingsport, but the service mandate is a King College imperative no matter where we teach our classes.

I was pretty excited this past week to experience success with the process of exporting and emailing you the quiz. Matt Peltier helped me write the instructions about how to deploy it. Both Marsha and Annie reported that they were able to get the quiz up on their Bb sites.

As I worked with the Plantinga material, I was interested to notice his emphasis on education as preparation for service. That idea resonates nicely with the September 9th event where we will publicize service opportunities and to explain to students and others how the New Core treats the Cross-Cultural Experience.

There will be a brochure passed out about it at the Faculty Meeting on September 7 as well as the revised forms that all of us (students, faculty, liaisons) need to be familiar with. I won't say more; just wait until September 7. However, you need to pull that idea out of the reading when you do the class discussion, so students can see the connection and understand why they should attend the September 9th extravaganza, which will combine chapel, opportunities to discuss service and cross-cultural opportunities with community agencies as well as campus sponsors, and great prizes.

Marsha, I'll make sure you have a packet of brochures and handouts. Just let me know how many you need.

Katie

First Week is Done

I had my first real KING 2000 class today. By the end of it, I think the temperature was at least 95F in Sells 201. The air conditioner does little to cool the room.

My students did well with the Campus Resource Exercise even though few of the places they went appeared to know that they were coming, in spite of the fact that the times were supposedly arranged with the service providers. I saw the email trail on that. Did any of the rest of you find no one at the destinations your students visited? We went on to work on Appendix 1 in the textbook. To answer the question about "Your Academic Dean's Office" I talked about King's "small university" model and named all the school deans.

I have completed reading the Plantinga "Preface" (again) and the selections from the Student Handbook. I hope to have the quiz ready tomorrow by the end of the day. I will be the first one to try out the Export-Save-Email process for the quiz. I hope it works well. Fingers crossed.

I hope you are accessing the King Mentors' Blackboard Site. That is where I will post documents for you to use in classes and other information as I find it.

Tired,
Katie

Two distinct groups of transfer students

As I watched the last week play out, I realized we have two distinct groups of transfer students with very different needs. Many of them commute to campus in some pretty amazing vehicles. I haven't noticed a Corvette yet, but I did see a huge yellow Hummer in the commuter parking lot behind the FAB.

The first group is the traditional 19-25 year olds who have, for the most part, the same needs and concerns as the traditional students (both residential and commuters) who came to King as freshmen. They are looking for "the college experience" and should be encouraged by us to make friends, sign up for intramurals, attend sports events, and participate in S.L.A.C.K. activities. Transfer students in this group, at least the ones I met, are coming from local community colleges or have been recruited by a King College coach to play a sport here. These kids are resilient and will adjust quickly to our campus culture.

The second group is much more fragile. These students are older, very serious about their education, and very stressed about meeting the academic challenges that lie ahead. Many in this second group have heavy work obligations, family responsibilities to spouses and children, and their self-concepts on the line. This group is much the same as students enrolled in our G.P.S. programs. We need to get to know these students right away and make sure they have the support they need to survive.

One older student in my KING 2000 class, whom I met on Monday at the transfer meeting, is 45 and introduced himself by saying, "I always wanted to go to college, so I finally decided to do it. I will be a nursing major." Two others I can think of that I met later in the week are at King to become secondary teachers. Another, who is working full time by combining hours on MWF and weekends, wants to be an elementary teacher.

I know that Marsha and Martin both have had much experience with students like these in their GPS classes. Simeon, Annie, and I will need to learn how to serve these students as well as we can. They probably need different campus resources than traditional students, or at least a different emphasis: the A.C.E., the library, the Help Desk, and the Counseling Center will be important to them. Am I missing any?

Now, one week in, the "transfer students" are beginning to have faces for me, and I am acutely aware of these two distinct categories.

Katie

Campus Resource Day in KING 2000 & More...

This week, August 24-26, the focus of our class will be campus resources. Knowing where things are seems very simple to us; we forget how overwhelming it might be to people in our class.

We need to use this exercise to help students get to know each other (the groups they "travel" in to get the information on their resource will be a start for them to learn the people in their KING 2000 class). I have made a "notes" sheet that I will give to each student at the beginning of class. They will use this to record names and significant information about their teammates for the scavenger hunt for the campus resources. I will take up the Notes sheet at the end of class as a class participation exercise.

I have posted both the Campus Resources Report and the Campus Resources Notes page under "Resources" on the King Mentors Bb site. You may be wondering why I am posting things on a Bb site instead of sending everything to you by email. Well, because everything is there on Bb in a secure place. I get so many emails in a day that it's easy for me to miss important documents when I get them as email attachments. I get busy or check my mail in a hurry, and you can guess the rest of the story.

The second thing we need to do this week is implore students to attend chapel and convocation. Martin will get to tell his students on Monday morning to be sure to go to Opening Convocation. The rest of us should surely make some mental notes about Walter Fluker's talk and try to get a discussion started among students who went. I posted the time and day on my Bb site for the class and told students to go. I guess I'll find out if they took me seriously.

Presenting the Honor Code to Transfers

You may have noticed on the planning sheets I gave you that we will be talking about the Honor Code in class during the week of August 31-September 1-2. I included some material from the Student Handbook as part of the reading assignment along with the Plantinga selection.

I think the Honor Code fits well here--the idea of a Christian College and the Honor Code go together in my mind. Our transfer students were not required to go to the Honor Code Session run by SGA during Launch. A few transfers did show up for that (obviously they did not come to the morning session where I specifically told them the session was not required...), and they were not turned away.

At the end of the SGA session, students signed a banner indicating their agreement with the principles of the Code at King.

We, as the transfer year seminar mentors, need to decide what we want to do about some sort of "act of agreement" for transfers. We have options:

1. We can get the banner, take it to our classes individually, and have the students sign it.
2. We can use the cards that students used to sign and have each student sign a card (Heather thinks there are enough cards left in the SGA Office for us to use).
3. We can come up with a new strategy unique to us and our situation.
   

As I already mentioned to you at our planning session, I will be asking the students to work through the plagiarism site that Fred Foy Strang pointed out in his email to all faculty a couple of weeks ago. I will post that URL on our Bb site so you can grab it easily if you want your students to do that exercise.

In addition there is an essay assignment for freshmen. I'm not advocating that we have our students write an essay; I think we have already laid out enough for them to do. However, the assignment, slightly revised might make a good discussion exercise for our classes. I will post the assignment and the rubric that accompanies it on the "Resources" section of our Blackboard site.

Do we want to all do the same things? Or do we just trust each other to present the Honor Code and get something signed from each student? We may, at the very least, want to agree either to do the banner or to do the cards.

Katie

Reserve Readings Available in the Library*

*...almost...

As I write this at noon on Wednesday, August 19, the notebooks with the assigned readings are ready. The E.W.King Library in Bristol should have the notebooks on the reserve shelf today or tomorrow.

The notebook for Kingsport will be physically transported there tomorrow by Librarian Erica Brammer.

So, you will be able to direct your students next week to go to the libraries and photocopy their readings. Since there will be quizzes on the readings, I strongly suggest that you tell students to photocopy the readings so they can truly "interact" with the material by marking up the pages and hi-liting.

Exciting News about Making Buechner Work for Kingsport

I have talked and emailed with several people on campus this morning. We are hoping that we will be able to place the recordings of the Buechner Lectures done in the Chapel on our (fledgling, but existing) iTunes University site. We can supply all the KING 2000 students with links to that site where they can download at will.

Students could put the files on their iPods, iPhones, or a CD. All the Kingsport students commute, right? This use of technology available to us should make it possible for them to hear the Buechner Lectures while they drive around town...maximizing their time and making it possible for them to participate in the lecture series virtually.

This could also help students on the Bristol campus who have to miss required lectures for one reason or another.

I'll keep you posted on this initiative.

Katie

Getting the course together

It's been more than a week since our workshop day. I had little time to think about KING 2000 until yesterday, when I began working on the syllabus I promised to create.

I also talked to Matt Peltier about how one person can make a quiz that we all can use on our individual Blackboard sites. He said the creator of the quiz should be able to write the test on his/her individual Bb site and then export just that test. The export function will put the test in a zip file that can then be attached to email. Those of us receiving the test would then save the file to a known location (maybe Desktop) and browse for it as you would any file you are uploading into Bb. We'll need to work together to get comfortable with this technology feat!

James Wilcox made the Mentor's Blackboard site for us yesterday. I have worked on it some. All the weekly plans that you have in your notebook are posted so that you can copy and paste from them as you make your own weekly assignments. I have also posted links to information by or about the Buechner speakers we are highlighting in KING 2000.

I will get the syllabus "front matter" on the King template to you very soon. Note that the document is "landscape" rather than "portrait" because I like the wider space to do the type of schedules I create for my students. Of course you can re-format the document any way that suits you. Once you take it, make it your own.

Katie