Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Apology lessons

You know Andree,

I once gave a presentation live in a classroom. The instructor required the other students to provide feedback. Everyone said all kinds of nice and cuddly sayings. However, one fellow, whom I really respected wrote me a note that hurt me for years. The sad part, was that what he said was not really that bad. All he commented on was that I had apologized for myself at the beginning of the presentation.

Years later, I attended a Dale Carnegie Seminar and read a number of his books. This very principle was demonstrated before our eyes. This beautiful confident woman had done incredible mental gymnastics before our eyes. Her trainer was there supervising her whole first time as a trainer for us. What did she do? She apologized. It ruined our entire experience.

A third time this lesson came to me as well. I now no longer apologize from a place of weakness and shame. I simply say with the skin of a rhinoceros, 'sorry', or 'my apologies.' The difference, is that I have released the baggage and the 'extraneous editorialism.' Know that your classmates are learning too. As you go on in the course work you will have perhaps more of these experiences. Try not to take them personally.

We are all on our own paths in different places to where we want to be.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Student finds error on date to turn in

Hi Candida,

Glad you are back and that you had an enjoyable break. It always helps me best to receive an exact copy and paste of what you are reading that led to the misunderstanding. I did look at the Week 8 Checkpoint Worksheet in the Course Materials room to find that while having moved all my due dates from Fridays to Saturdays for the Checkpoints, that I had indeed overlooked this on this specific resource and I should have changed that due date to Saturday so that it would be consistent with the Syllabus and the Class Calendar. Was this the resource you were speaking about?

As far as knowing the difference between the Checkpoint and the Assignment, I am looking at the posts in the main that have been there since break began and I see that the Checkpoint called Energy Resource Challenges Checkpoint is due on Saturday, and that the Energy Resource Plan Assignment is due Sunday like all other assignments as is on the Course Calendar and on the Syllabus.

The Checkpoint is asking you to fill in the Worksheet and the Assignment is a choice between turning in a PowerPoint Presentation OR a paper, your choice. Does this clear things up?

Karen H. SCI 275

Thursday, December 17, 2009

how can I do better Week 2

Hi Adrianna,

The best thing to do is to work down the grading rubric I sent back to you to make sure you understand why I deducted points.

Consequently, to work ahead, review the helping guides I make that are the grading rubrics and templates, and posts in the Main. Ask whatever questions you have about them a head of time and as earliest in the week as possible.

Overall, I sometimes find that once people begin taking those citations seriously, they begin integrating industry professionals work in as the results of studies and this greatly increases the depth of research, necessary content and focus in the paper.

What I noticed in your paper, and is a common issue in education today. is that what was needed was to have defined your terms. These definitions should come from your text, be cited just like we did in the Week 2 Checkpoint.

There is a learning phenomenon known as the 'misunderstood word.' Much work has shown that when there is little time invested in considering and working through the significance of a new term within the context of the industry in which it is to be used, there will indeed be a greater mental engagement that brings together that term and the concept being learned.

Had you seen that I had encouraged everyone to make use of the template I had made for the assignment? I have attached it here. Can you see that had you taken advantage of the template that it might have forced greater focus on each of the steps. I have a template for each paper and I hope you take advantage of them on future assignments.

Ideally, I would have seen all four steps as subtitles in the paper with a paragraph beneath each that defined the step and provided studies for and against.

If we begin with the introduction. Did you know that professional writers write their introductory paragraphs last?

The logic is...how can you introduce someone you do not know, or tell someone about a movie you have not seen?


Here is your introductory paragraph: Did you read How to Develop an Introduction that was posted in the Course Materials Forum? I have attached it here this post.

After reading the post on How to Develop an Introduction, try to mark in your paragraph here, the what? the so what? the how do you know what you know? and the what next? or could be call to action.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Wikipedia Answers etc

Also. be mindful of not using non academic sources such as Wikipedia. These types of secondary sources often result in biased information as the information can be changed by anyone at any time. There is actually a policy at Phoenix/ Axia not to use these sources and some instructors will automatically half the number of points possible if they see it.

If you cannot break the habit of going to use such sources, back track on their sites as to the original source, or ask whomever your facilitator is for a source suggestion.

Fancy front pages

Just a favor to ask of you. I understand that putting a beautiful cover on the front page of a document is seemingly a nice gesture, however, such creativity can result in an uncessesary extra scroll and the taking of additional memory. Lastly, in at least corporate America, such might be considered a deviation from the norm, and if you have ever spoken to hiring managers, they are looking for any opportunity to exclude you from the hiring pool as possible including fancy unasked for covers that may very well end up in the circular file.

Over Maximum word count

If we go over the count is there a penalty?

No. Although. TS Eliot once said, 'had I more time to write, I would have written less.' At any rate, it is so seldom that I see people going over in their word count so extensively that I have always just dismissed it and will not deduct points.

Can you explain what your scoring is for over the word count?

Once, someone wrote a 10 page paper when they were to write a 4 page paper at the most and so what I did was to send it back to them and tell them to cut it down before I would agree to read it. I did not deduct any points.

There will be plenty of other items in the course to be concerned with other than going over the word count. Do try to stay at about the desired count and know that I will not deduct for overage, however, for your own professionalism and or career - strive for economy and encapsulation of issues when appropriate, always supporting work with citations and references.

Is this okay? Do you have a history of going over the maximum word count? How have your other instructors handled this in the past?

Friday, December 4, 2009

Holiday breaks vacation announcement

Hello Everyone,



Just posting my understanding of the up coming holidays. Let me know if you have any particular special needs around this can be hectic time.





No assignments due on Thanksgiving.


The winter break dates are below:

Classes that start prior to 12/21/09
Two-week break begins
Classes resume

UOPX Online Campus
12/22/09
1/5/10

School for Advanced Studies
12/22/09
1/5/10

Axia College
12/21/09
1/4/10




NOTE: There will be some UOPX Online Campus courses with a start date of 12/29/09 and Axia courses with a start date of 12/28/09. Those courses will not take a break.






Hi Charlene,

You are correct. When you return, it will have been as if no time had transpired. The 4th of January falls on a Monday which is our Day One. You can participate that day and then for Tuesday, turn in your DQ and ideally another participation, and so forth just as though we had never been on vacation.