Next Week's Assignments -- (assuming we have power)

Right now, next week looks a little iffy in terms of the impending hurricane/snowstorm. If Connecticut loses electricity, due dates are pushed back until we regain it. If the storm is not as serious, things will remain the same. Check email, the SCSU website, and/or the Inclement Weather hotline for updates and university closings...and be safe!

Personally, I'm hoping for a false alarm because I am not a fan of inclement weather, and so, with all optimism, here are next week's blogging assignments:

#1: Video and REFLECTION -- Post your video and do some reflection and self-assessment. How did it turn out? What are its strengths and weaknesses? How does it compare to your last video? What progress did you make? (due Tuesday instead of Monday)

#2: Reading response to Twyla Tharp -- Comment on the reading so far. What do you think of it? What interests you and/or applies to you? What do you bring to the reading to further our thinking and discussion of it?

One advising update: If you are a Psychology Major, you need to go to the PSY Dept. and sign up for a Group Advising Meeting (the sign-up is posted on their bulletin board).

"You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.” – Osho

Next week, remember that we are not meeting as a class in our classroom. Individual advising appointments are in my office instead. Take the extra time to make your video awesome and maybe get a jump on reading the Twyla Tharp book. Also, don't forget to blog!

Blogging assignments are:

1) Find a sculpture or piece of artwork on campus. Post a photo and give the title, artist if available, and the location on campus. Describe it in detail and discuss what you like (or not) about it, then offer an interpretation of what it represents, means, or tries to accomplish.

2) Report on your midterm grades for all of your classes and discuss. If these were your final grades, what would your GPA be? How satisfied are you with your performance? Do your grades represent the amount of time and effort you feel you were putting in? This blog post is due on Friday instead of Wednesday in order to give everyone time to get their grades from Banner or email your professors if your grades are not yet posted.

One last note: here are two more sites with creativity inspiration in case you need any for your video project:

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/24-creativity-quotes-to-bring-out-your-inner-artist.html

http://twistedsifter.com/2012/03/15-famous-quotes-on-creativity/

Video Assignment #2

School Spirit: "What makes Southern a good place to go to school?"

Your second video assignment is similar to the first in format but more open-ended in topic. Like the first assignment, you will need to create a 5-minute video that is both informative and entertaining. Your task in creating this video is to find something distinctive about Southern, perhaps something that others have overlooked when thinking about "what Southern is" or the opportunities it offers.

Choosing a Topic

What comes to mind when people hear "Southern"? How is it seen by its own students and by people outside of the university community? In INQ, we talked a lot about how people often dismiss or disregard Southern as "not their first choice" or "not a good school." However, many students choose to come to SCSU and/or stay at SCSU for a variety of reasons including the academic community, the student body, the faculty, the athletics, arts, and other organizations, the city of New Haven, the partnerships and professional internships, etc.

Your video should focus on one major theme and should try to capture some aspect of Southern that people may not know about or may not realize. Also consider how to make your video topic original (I am hoping that I will not have to watch 40 videos on the outstanding Nursing Program, for example, especially since there are so many other things that SCSU has to offer.) Your topic can cover a "big thing" that Southern is known for (like the Nursing Program) or it can explore something "smaller" that not too many people know about (the community garden, hiking up West Rock, the types of people who come here, the attitude toward X here, the Latin Jazz band, the Oceanography professors, the ability to go to school here and also....., etc.). Do a lot of creative brainstorming before you choose a topic, and maybe take a survey to get other people's ideas.

One inspiration for this assignment was the "Call Me Maybe" Video made by the SCSU OAs this summer (if you haven't seen it, search for it on YouTube and watch it). This video stood out to me because 1) Southern hasn't always been known for its school spirit, and 2) the people in the video were having a lot of fun and that was fun to watch. I don't expect your videos to be the exact same as this video, but try to capture those two elements in your videos if you can.

You can use interviews for this video project if you want, but you aren't required to do so. You can use other forms of research as well or take quotes from SCSU's website or offices/staff on campus; just be sure to cite them at the end of the video. Think about what other elements you can include to illustrate your points and tell your story: photos, music, skits, narrative, comedy, a TV show backstory, etc. Creativity will be weighted highly in this project in terms of the topic you choose as well as the way you present/format the information.

Creating a Video

The video must be 5 minutes and include a title and credits, just like the first video. Similarly, the project should have a clear beginning, middle, and end that moves through the following elements:

1) framing the topic and providing some context for the project,

2) exploring the issues and ideas of your topic in a creative way,

3) providing some closure from your perspective, some “so what?” or “what have we learned?” to leave the viewer with at the end of the video.

This project requires you to create a short video, not a set of PowerPoint slides. It is not a presentation project; your video needs to stand alone and run on its own. It is possible to create such a digital project using PowerPoint, but it is much easier and more professional if done in iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, or other video creation software. In past experience, iMovie has provided the best results and is available in any Mac Lab on campus. The final video uploaded to your blog; it can be first uploaded to Youtube or Vimeo and linked to on your blog.

Due: Oct 30

"Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else." - Judy Garland

To follow up on today's discussion of self-assessment, the first blog post for next week will ask you to do some midterm reflection. As you wait for professors to post midterm grades, look back on the first portion of the semester and assess how well you are meeting your personal goals set at the beginning of the year. What successes have you had? What setbacks? What goals do you set for the second half of the semester? What will you continue to do and what will you change in order to meet those goals?

Academic success is important in college (of course!) but not at the expense of your own personal health and sanity. For your second post, I'd like you to do something fun on campus in order to relieve the stress of the midterm season (as always, nothing illegal or illicit though). Blog about your experience and post a picture if possible.

Posts can be done in any order. Students can collaborate on a fun activity -- no need for everyone to invent their own wheel.

Video assignment coming soon!

If you haven't yet read MINDSET, you should! Then we can have some interesting conversations about it in class.

Next week we will be continuing to talk about MINDSET as well as the other readings on innovation and the role of failure in the process of success.

For blogging next week, here are your two assignments: (they can be completed in any order)

1. Write a post that synthesizes and responds to the readings on failure and the book MINDSET. Try to go beyond just the obvious points and say something meaningful and specific about the connection between these readings. Also, don't just summarize -- include YOUR ideas!

2. Do something that pushes you outside of your comfort zone (academic, social, or whatever, just not illegal!) and blog about the experience.

Two other things of note:

If you haven't yet "liked" the SCSU First Year Experience Program on Facebook, please do since they post event listings and reminders all the time.

Erica, a peer mentor for one of my classes, has a blog. Last week, she posted about motivation, and her post is a good example of how to not simply repeat class discussion but take a topic and run with it. Check it out here.