A Stimulating Intellectual Conversation....aka Common Hour

Heidi and I had an adventure today; we attended Coe's Common Hour for the first time.  What is Common Hour you may ask?  Well according to Terry McNabb, who is in charge of Common Hour it's

" Common Hour is meant to bring faculty, students and staff together to learn about issues of common interest to all members of the campus community." 

Today's topic was about academic rigor and culture at Coe.  Heidi and I sat at a table with a sophomore at Coe, three faculty members and one administrator.  Our question we were suppose to discuss was 

"Where else on campus, besides in the classrooms, does academic rigor 'live'?  How are academic expectations communicated by other members of the college community?  How can members of the campus community support each other in their attempts to be rigorous?"  

but we didn't get far on that because the faculty we were sitting with wanted to grill us on what we thought about Coe's academic rigor, teacher expectations, peer support, our college preparation, and much more.  What was great about it was it allowed me to think about and reflect on my opinions of the liberal education I'm receiving at Coe.  I was able to put my thoughts into words and have my opinion be heard; I loved the opportunity I had to discuss the definition of "rigor" and my expectations for the educating I'm receiving.  One of the administrators who was there said he loved that we had such a great passion for learning.  And that's true; I love learning and school.  While people might get overwhelmed by a syllabus, for me, a syllabus excites me; I now know what we are going to cover.  All that knowledge is sitting there on that one piece of paper just waiting for me to dig into it.  I love that. 

Heidi and I left Common Hour feeling intellectually stimulated and excited.  The discussion we had epitomized what we hope to have in all our classes; an atmosphere that allows us to express our opinions and debate or agree with others' opinions.  The back and forth conversation that eats up large chunks of time but to us, seem like only a couple of minutes; a place where time really does "fly."  Although this was the last Common Hour of the semester, Heidi and I have vowed to attend almost every one next semester.          

Caf Creation

All right, so here's the video of the week.  I've entitled this series "Caf Creations" and I hope over the next few months, you'll get to meet a lot of my friends showing you how they spice up the food they see everyday at the caf.  First up is Krista and she's here to show you the industrial easy bake oven the caf owns.  Enjoy! :)

Learning to Read...The Joys of Service Learning

Well it's snowing in Cedar Rapids and the first snow parallels what I was doing this morning.  Part of my first year experience requires me to volunteer 20 hours at a site of my choice.  I chose Garfield Elementary School, just a ten minute drive from Coe.  I volunteer every Thursday and I usually read books to kindergardeners.  They are so adorable, exciting and full of life.  I've read some great books to them so far, my all time favorite is Fancy Nancy.  But today I did something a bit different; the kids read to me.  They've gotten to the point where they know their alphabet and know small words.  The books they read to me were short and often rhymed, but it was exciting.  All the kids I worked with wanted to read to me, they were excited to show me what they knew.  To see them pushing through the words, making sentences, understanding that each letter has a sound, it was mind blowing.  We take reading as a simple thing but at one point we were at that stage, sounding words outs and feeling the accomplishment of figuring out that "tricky" word.  And none of them gave up.  I might have given them some helpful hints along the way but in the end, it was all their work.  I was so proud of them.  And I'm so glad I chose Garfield as my service site.  I've accomplished the goal the Service Learning Program gives each first year student: find a place where you can be passionate about what you're doing.  Because then the service doesn't really seem like service at all; it's just something you love to do.  

Thanksgiving Break Discovery

Happy Happy Thanksgiving!

When the turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie come out, everyone knows it's time for Thanksgiving.  Today is my last day at Coe because our break starts today.  I leave this afternoon and come back on Sunday night.  Heidi and I were talking and we decided on this: we are really psyched for Thanksgiving Break.  We know we will have fantastic times with our family: catching up, hanging out, and eating wonderful home cooked food.  But at the same time, we will dearly miss Coe.  Because at Coe we see our friends everyday: walk to class with them, hang out with them, eat dinner with them.  And so for about the next six days, that won't occur.  We'll all miss each other and serious catching up will need to be done when we return.  So Heidi and I have discovered we are an integral part of the Coe community and that feels great.  It's a beautiful situation we find ourselves in.

Have a great Thursday everyone!
    

A Crazy Week...Preparing My First Year Portfolio

This week has been a crazy one for me.  To start off, I had my first college research paper due today (Friday) for my FYS class.  The paper was on the 2008 Recession: how we got there, what happened once we got there, and why did it even happen in the first place.  I actually really enjoyed writing this paper (don't tell my classmates that, they weren't crazy about writing it!) and I felt it was a nice way to show my professor everything I've learned the past three months.  I now have a pretty good grasp on the crisis, the players involved, the gravity of this crisis as compared to recessions in the US' history, and the multitude of problems it created.  My paper, complete with three graphs, ended up being 12 pages so I spent a lot of my time this week revising and strengthening the paper.  At the same time as I was becoming very comfortable with the crisis, I was also preparing my First Year Portfolio.

Every first year has to make a portfolio; you include at least two FYS papers and then you could also include another paper you've written this year at Coe if you'd like.  The other part of this portfolio is a preface.  It's a reflection on your college writing experience so far at Coe and reflections on the two (or more) papers you've included.  You talk about your writing process in creating these papers, challenges you faced and triumphs you had.  You print two copies of your portfolios and one copy goes to a professor in your FYS area of study (for example, one of my portfolios will go to an economy teacher) and the other portfolio will go to another FYS professor.  Each professor will read my papers and give me a score from 1-6 along with feedback and comments.  The portfolios are a way for me, my FYS professor, and Coe to see how am I doing with college style writing.  So I finished my portfolio and research paper last night and turned them in today.  It feels REALLY GOOD.  Now I've got a nice weekend to relax and catch up on everything I had to put on hold while I worked on the paper and portfolio.  Then I've got Monday and Tuesday at Coe and then Tuesday afternoon, I'm going back to Mt. Horeb for Thanksgiving Break! Whoo!