Tips for a successful project proposal

As you start working toward your upcoming partner project proposal, I wanted to give you a couple of additional ideas that might be helpful to you and help you earn some great points toward a better grade.

• Use headings to designate changes in sections: this makes it clearer for your instructor as grading begins
• Indent paragraphs: just like any other paper, you need to demonstrate that you understand formatting
• Cite your sources: if you take information or can back your ideas up with a source, give credit to the source; doing so adds to your credibility and ensures that you don’t plagiarize
• Proofread carefully: yes, spelling, grammar, and punctuation matter immensely in a college-level class; take time to ensure that what you write is what you mean

Bonus opportunity next week

For those of you who check the blog, this is your “heads up” for the upcoming bonus opportunity next week.

Be working intently on your research this week for your group project. You need to have some great sources planned out and ready to consider. If you have already started reviewing sources and taking notes, you’re even closer to having this bonus project done.

Keep in mind that ONLY students who are present and include their signature and printed name on the bonus assignment will be eligible for the bonus points. All other students automatically forfeit points. That said, groups CAN work together to make the assignment load quicker and easier, as long as each student takes part of the load.

You may want to review *HINT, HINT, HINT* what we discussed about Annotated Bibliographies. That could be VERY key to some of these points.

If you aren’t concerned about bonus points, let it go and forget this post!

What I wish students would understand about writing for a college class, part 5

You’ve turned in your work (hopefully on time!), and are anxiously awaiting your grade and the instructor’s feedback. Some are hopeful that their work really paid off; others dread the grade’s appearance.

Let me talk about a basic element of college grades: grades are important and determine a lot of your near future. Getting into a program, maintaining scholarships, graduation, or being considered for a job can be influenced by grades. The most important factor, however, is that a grade does not define you; it only shows how you performed in a class.

Second, most instructors have a philosophy of grades. Mine is simple: grades are earned, not given (just like respect and self-confidence). If you want a good grade, you have to work for it. That means understanding the assignment, expectations of your instructor, and how you’re being graded all play a role in earning the best possible grade (as I’ve discussed in the last few posts).

Third, and probably most essential for my students to understand: I tend to feel empathy for students regarding their grades. When it’s high, I rejoice with them. When it’s low, I feel saddened to my deepest core of self. I want students to do great things, which is why I tend to go over assignments in class and work to ensure they have access to all parts of the assignment from the first day of class.

Fourth, grading takes a while. I don’t simply look over and see if it’s “good enough.” My intention with grading is to ensure that students know why they earned the points they do (or rather, why they didn’t get all the points they wanted on something). I don’t just grade, either; the bulk of my time is spent on providing written feedback on what I liked and what I want to see improved.

Keep this in mind when you go forward with assignments: It’s not just content, as we discuss in my class: it’s how you present the message. An analogy I use frequently to remind me is that a gourmet meal sounds incredible! At the same time, if that beautiful filet of beef, blue cheese, and shrimp is served to me on a dirty trash can lid, I don’t want it. So it is with writing: you can have a brilliant idea, solid understanding of a concept, and superb analysis, but if you convey that message with a lot of spelling, grammar, punctuation, citation, and formatting issues, it influences the reader to think less of your ideas.

Remember what I discussed in class regarding listening and nonverbal communication: appearance matters. We wouldn’t be inclined to take financial advice from a person begging for pocket change on the interstate exit. They could be a financial expert, but we might simply dismiss the idea because of how they look. So it is with writing, too.

All this to say, take pride in the work you submit. Know that I am rooting for you and want you to succeed! If you don’t get the grade you want, read my feedback. You can also make time to come talk to me about what you can do to improve in the future. I’m always hopeful for your improvement, regardless of where you start.

What I wish students would understand about writing for a college class, part 4

Assignment due. Three days away. Haven’t started writing.

Procrastination, as I stated in the last post, is the enemy of learning when it comes to college writing. Another challenge I find is that citations are REALLY tough for students.

Maybe you haven’t been expected to credit your works in text with other classes. Maybe you learned it a couple of years ago, but your instructors didn’t make you use it. Whatever the background is, know this: Your instructors in college WILL expect you to credit sources in your papers. In my class, I also expect speeches to have incredible citations.

For students enrolled in our Introduction to Oral Communication class, our library has developed a website JUST for our students. This includes the best databases for our class, as well as information on how to cite in the Works Cited page. Citing in text is a little more challenging. My recommendation is to meet with our Academic Commons Writing Tutor.

You can also schedule time with me, but I hope you will take advantage of all the personal and web-based sources our campus provides you. By working with someone who specializes in writing, you can get more information that will be more helpful and personalized to you.

If you struggle with writing skills, from grammar and punctuation to citations, I’d also recommend that you take some time to search the web for video tutoring. Lots of colleges have created short videos that can help you understand which form of a word to use (your vs. you’re; there, their, they’re; to, two, too; etc.) to how to properly cite sources within a text.

Remember this, especially in college writing, simply putting a source on the Works Cited page is NOT enough. You MUST give credit in the paper, or it’s seen as padding your source list.

One more post in this series–on grading these assignments from an instructor’s perspective.

What I wish students would understand about writing for a college class, part 2

As I said in my last post, I completely appreciate the challenges you go through as a student. Believe me, when I go home after a day of teaching or grading, all I want to do is curl up with a good show on Netflix, binge watch to my heart’s content, and scarf down food.

At the same time, I know that’s not helpful or healthy. Further, that doesn’t get my WORK done. College is true work, both for the student and the instructor. That said, I hope you remember this simple fact…

This quote has gotten me through a lot of pain, frustration, and challenges I’ve faced over the last few years. As I told one group of students, I had good grades and generally, school came easy to me. At the same time, I can be fully honest and tell you that college was still tough for me.

The classes I am most proud of in college aren’t the ones I earned As in, though. The grades I am MOST proud of are the hard-fought Bs, the classes I struggled through, the ones that I had to spend extra hours in a lab looking at rocks or writing the same paper for the fifteenth time. One instructor flat-out told me my paper wasn’t good enough and that I would need to redo it (again) if I wanted a B. Yes, at the time, I was furious; I’m a good writer! I’ve been told so all my life…

But writing for THAT instructor was different; his standard was harder, more direct. It wasn’t about flowery language (my strong suit in high school); rather, he wanted me to fulfill the page requirement by supporting my ideas more effectively. He wanted TRUE content, not fluff, and when he said 3 pages minimum, he meant that I shouldn’t end the paper until the top of the fourth page, not 2 inches from the bottom of page 3.

If you’re frustrated, I get it. But come talk to me about it before you hand in something that you think “will do.” I don’t want your “will do” work; I want your BEST work.

What I wish students would understand about writing for a college class

As I’m grading papers this week–nearly a knee-deep stack of papers, no less–I am realizing some basic things I wish students knew about writing for college. With this in mind, I’m going to have a couple of blog posts for you about what I want, expect, and challenge my students to do.

College writing is not like writing in high school, first and foremost. That may seem obvious to some, but when you’ve been taught one way to do things and your college instructor wants something different, it’s a challenge to completely shift gears.

PLEASE KNOW, MY STUDENTS, THAT I APPRECIATE THE CHALLENGE YOU’RE FACING.

I’ve been in your shoes. My instructors in high school always commented that my work was excellent, that I had a “way with words,” and that I would be successful as a college writer. To some degree, they were accurate. However, I also struggled in some of my writing classes because my instructors wanted something different than I had done previously.

First, your instructor is here to help you. My office hours are used for a lot of different purposes: grading, editing tests, committee work, student organization sponsorship, etc. That said, my primary purpose of office hours is to work with students enrolled in my classes. Please come see me and talk with me about assignments, confusions, or other challenges you’re facing.

Helpful tips… Study guide-ish-thing-somewhat

Here’s my plan for the coming week’s portion of my FACE TO FACE classes. My hybrid section has a whole different package, due to the nature of their course. While the formats may slightly vary, they will have similar principles, in terms of material coverage.

That said, I would STRONGLY recommend that learners read every section of the chapters, because a section not included here may contain information that helps you respond more effectively and accurately on another multiple choice or extended response question.

End of the semester

I’m always grateful for the start of a semester, but there is something fulfilling about the end of a term, as well. I love knowing that my classes are coming to completion, and I can find out just what my students really learned from this course.

I’m curious, though, what others remember YEARS after taking a class. After attending a conference in the spring, I walked away with one overarching concept from the leaders: rather than focusing your objectives on the short-term, think about the long-term implications of having taken your course. What is it you want students to remember about your class in 5 years? In 10? In 20?

For me, that’s pretty simple: I want them to remember that my class taught them a lot about how to interact with others more effectively. Having been in relationships of all types (professional, familial, romantic, friendships, etc.) with dysfunctional communication, I want students to remember that there is a better way to share their understanding with others. I hope that means they become more reflective in time, thinking about what they have once said, then sharing that in a different way later on.

One class I vividly remember from my undergrad years was my upper-level Interpersonal Class. It wasn’t just the methods our teacher used, focusing on critical research articles, etc., it was that she helped us gain understanding based upon our own reflections of those articles. I also remember her very clearly telling me to find a way to be more concise in my reflections–in other words, always go back and find a way to simplify the message. Somehow, that’s stuck with me in my teaching, as much as anything.

What do you remember from college or other experiences? Share them with me in the comments section!

After the first test…

We are now 1/4 of the way into the term, and have had our first unit test of the semester. One of the things that I always try to do with my students is make them more reflective, not only of their communication skills, but also of their study habits. With this in mind, I often ask my students to share with me whether they believe they were effective with the first test.

Keep in mind the key factor: effective. I don’t ask students if they scored 100%, but have them focus on whether they regard their performance as effective. I may alternately ask if they accomplished their goal for the unit. Regardless, the priority is THEIR definition of success.

After this, they are asked to explain why they believe they were successful, or why they may have missed the mark. Part of this is to ensure that students take ownership of their actions, but also because it allows me to determine if I need to recover a concept more fully.

There are enough semesters behind me at this point to help me say that the responses are pretty consistent. The students who believe they succeeded are likely to have

• Read the textbook fully (reviewing each chapter in the unit)
• Taken effective notes (often asking questions about the material AS they study)
• Ask questions in class (to ensure that they “get it”)

Conversely, students who struggle with the material, those who do not see themselves as successful jump to a couple of alternate conclusions:

• Didn’t study enough/right material
• Avoided discussions in class or participating in discussions
• Opted to not read the textbook or utilize the review questions

I want students to be effective in this course, not just by the grade they earn, but by actually feeling confident in the material they have been learning. Sometimes, that does require understanding and using terminology effectively. But it can also be that students need to simply know the process of asking for clarification or more information.

The next test is late this week. I am very hopeful that their effective reading will be reflected in the responses they give to extended response questions.

Welcome to a New Semester!

Good morning!

This morning, I’m sitting outside, thinking about the wonderful future we have this semester. One of my favorite things about college is how easy it is to start over–we get to do that every semester. Students can reinvent themselves, instructors can try new methods, and friends can make new bonds, all because we start over.

As stated in our course description, we are focused on developing our thoughts regarding human interaction. At each moment of the day, we are communicating, regardless of awareness, regardless of intention, regardless of whether we say anything. Even in our sleep, we are communicating to others that our bodies need rest. It’s truly amazing how pervasive communication is to our lives.

So, this semester, I hope to communicate through our Introduction to Oral Communication course–with my learners and co-creators of meaning–how vital communicating is to our daily existence. I hope you are excited for this 16-week journey, too!