Friday, December 12, 2008
Help for Low Income Millennial College Students
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Busy, Yet Fulfilled...
The past few weeks have been busy, yet very fulfilling. Here are some recent accomplishments that I am very proud of.
Accomplishment List (I have many updates!)
1. Finals started today!
2. Recently, I was awarded a faculty research grant from my university to extend my research on African American Undergraduate College Students and HBCUs.
3. I found out that my dissertation was selected as "Dissertation of the Year" by a state association.
4. Our conference proposal was accepted by the Gulf-South Summit on Service-Learning and Civic Engagement, which will be held in Baton Rouge.
5. I will present with an undergraduate student at the Southwestern Black Student Leadership Conference in January.
6. I attended the National Communication Conference in San Diego for the first time!
7. Distributed Christmas gifts to department colleagues and the wonderful women on the second floor of our office building.
I need to:
1. Update my vita and portfolio.
2. Submit another conference proposal that is due by Dec. 31st.
3. Contact participants in the grant-funded study.
4. Write a couple of papers in the next few weeks.
5. Administer three finals.
6. Contact colleagues from the National Communication Conference.
7. Send Christmas cards to mentors.
8. Wrap my family members' presents!
9. Update the TACUSPA blog.
Is there anything else that I should apply/submit a proposal for? Upcoming Grants? Fellowships? Conference Proposals? Let me know!
Sincerely,
Millennial Professor
*By the way, I absolutely LOVE the "Knock Knock"/"Ding Dong" chain (i.e. - to do list picture). Instead of using a legal pad (which I used for the past 15 years - former high school debater), I use items from the "Knock Knock"/"Ding Dong" chain. This chain is usually available at TJMaxx or Office Max.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
How to Cheat on Blackboard!
- Walk around the classroom while students are taking the test.
- Show the students' answers and the correct answers at the end of the test. This helps the students learn which test questions they answered correctly and which questions they answered incorrectly. My students enjoy this feature.
- Provide the students with a test time frame. This prevents the students from accessing the questions and answers later.
- Provide a test question database for each course test (i.e. - 50 questions). Then make blackboard randomly select questions (i.e. - 25 questions) from your test question database (i.e. - 50 questions). This feature serves as another anti-cheating mechanism.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Benefits of Using Blackboard for Testing!
- The assessment feature enables the professor to add extra credit points with ease and to correct an incorrect answer with little effort.
- In the pre-blackboard/scantron era (i.e. - last semester), I agonized over entering the students' grades in my gradebook because it was time consuming. Blackboard.com enables me to export grades into an Excel spreadsheet, which I import into my gradebook. This is a definite plus for me!
- Students get instant feedback on their test and they are also able to view their grades in the blackboard.com gradebook (i.e. - mygrades). This feature helps me tremendously, because the students always know their course grade at any given moment and I do not have to use paper to disperse their grades.
Monday, November 17, 2008
This Week is BLACKBOARD WEEK!
Monday - "Weekly Topic Announcement"/"Ask a Professor" (Response - Next Tues. 11/25/08)
Tuesday - "How to Cheat on Blackboard"
Thursday - "Benefits of Using Blackboard for Testing"
Next Week - "My Response to the "Ask a Professor" Question"/New Topic
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Do Students Prefer Online Courses?
When examining the enrollment each semester, I pay particular attention to the following: (a) the number of women and men, (b) the majors that may potentially add to the dynamic context of my course, and (c) the amount of students who enroll in a class that is held at a morning time vs. an afternoon time.
This semester's registration period is slightly different for me. I am teaching three sections of COMS 101 (Fundamentals of Human Communication) in the spring, because this will be my first semester teaching an online course at a university (I taught a similar course at a community college). The students seem to be very interested in my online COMS 101 course. At this time, I have more students in my COMS 101 online course than my three sections of COMS 101 (face to face classes) combined. I have to keep in mind that many students have not registered yet, but it seems that they are excited about taking an online course. Next semester, I plan to conduct a few assessments in both types of classroom environments (face to face and virtual). I cannot wait to see the results!
Is anyone else encountering this situation (increased enrollment in online courses vs. face to face courses)?
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
My "Virtual Vacation" to Focus on the Presidential Campaign
During the past couple of weeks, I took a "virtual vacation" from the blog to focus on the presidential campaigns. Today, my information overload illness will be cured by the announcement of the new President of the United States. For now, my eyes continue to watch CNN/MSNBC/FOX, my ears continue to listen to the aforementioned stations via Sirius radio in the car, and my computer screen is fixed on the CNN electoral map.
No matter who wins the election today, the results will be monumental. As a millennial, I am focused on the future of this country and the impact that I can make. Please bear with me through the next few days and the blog will be "renewed".
Sincerely,
Millennial Professor
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
College Students with Learning Disabilities
Please read the article here - 10 Tips for College Students with Disabilities.
Sincerely,
Millennial Professor/Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Thank You! - Millennial Professor
This is my 100th blog post! I am very happy that we reached this point. At first I was not sure that I would be able to contribute blog posts on a frequent basis. However, blogging seems to be a very easy process for me.
Thank you for visiting this blog. I appreciate each and every one of you for helping me through the transition process of simply blogging through my pseudoname "Millennial Professor" to joining the higher education conversation as myself, "Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards". During the past few weeks, I revealed my blog to the librarians(and other professors) at my
university through a blogging workshop.
Sincerely,
Millennial Professor/Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
The Dreaded 24-Hour Professor Phenomenon
Millennial Professor
References:
Young, J. R. (2002, May 31). The 24-hour professor. The Chronicle of Higher Education website. Retrieved October 8, 2008, from http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i38/38a03101.htm
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Prospective College Students Encounter a Potential Facebook-Based Barrier
Monday, September 22, 2008
Do Your Students Prefer Simple Cell Phones?
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Five Best Practices for Online Workshops Targeted Towards Millennial Students
There are certain aspects of this generation that we have to take into consideration when planning this event. I am a college professor and my husband teaches high school, therefore we have very interesting conversations about students from the millennial generation before and during college.
While planning for the workshop last weekend, I found an article from Litmos.com titled, "5 Tips to Design Effective Training for Generation Y". This article focuses on online workshop facilitation for millennial students (which we may consider in the next few months). According to this article, these are five things to consider before you build an online training course for students of this generation:
- Keep training short & to the point.
- Good communication tools within the training system are a must. Messaging at a minimum!
- Community is important. Build forums & discussion groups around topics.
- No one likes to be told what to do, especially Gen Y. Make sure your training 'guides' thinking rather than telling them how it is.
- Incorporate the big picture. Generation Y are very interested in their part in it, and more importantly how they can change it!
Thursday, September 4, 2008
The 100th Post...Almost (Help Me Celebrate!)
Hello Readers! We are almost to the 100th Millennial Professor Post! I am very excited about these next few posts and to celebrate this joyous occasion - I would really like some feedback about the blog.
If you are a faithful reader/subscriber, occasional reader, or if you just stumbled upon this site. Please leave some comments about it. What do you like about the blog?
By the way, the Ch-Ch-Changing Librarian...this means you too!
-Dr. Jennifer Edwards (Millennial Professor)
Testing Millennials Via Blackboard
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Are Millennials Politically Engaged Inside and Outside of the Classroom?
As a millennial, I feel that this has been the most interesting election since I have been able to vote. As a freshman in college, I was VERY interested in the 2000 election. In 2000, on the count/recount night, I remained awake until 1:00 a.m. to see who the new president would be. This time I have watched CNN and Fox News every night to hear the new stories that emerge from the political battleground.
However, it seems that my undergraduate students are not experiencing the same level of exhilaration that I have at this time. On the first few days of class, I asked my students if they watched CNN on a regular basis and if they were keeping up with this year's election. None of the 75 students in my lower level classes watched CNN on a regular basis and only a small percentage of the students were actually keeping up with the election.
This was very discouraging to me and I felt that my millennial students were not politically engaged. However, the students from my upper level course were politically engaged and were excited about the election. This is a very small example, but are older millennial students more politically engaged than younger millennial students? Hmmmm... this may be a great research study.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Creating a Syllabus for Millennial College Students
Monday, August 4, 2008
Can College Students Still Afford Alcohol When They Cannot Afford to Pay for Food?
Friday, August 1, 2008
Cafeterias and Millennial College Students (Financial Cutbacks) - Part 2
Fall 2008 = No Trays
Bruce Horovitz, a USA Today contributor, wrote an article about this food service transition process titled, "More College Cafeterias Dump Food Trays". According to the article, food service companies like Aramark and Sodexho are creating a college dining experience that is more "sample and toss" than "take all you want". This move perpetuated a 50 percent decrease in the amount of daily waste that cafeterias produce. New York University reports a food waste reduction of 44.03 ounces per tray to less than 2.37 ounces.
Scratching the Recipes?
JJ Hermes, of the Chronicle of Higher Education, wrote "Soaring Food Prices Squeeze Dining Halls". He reported that universities like Louisana State University may choose to reduce the amount of ingredients it takes to complete a recipe. In the article, the director of dining services stated, "Maybe we're going to put half an ounce less cheese on a slice of pizza". Ohio University cut their food service costs by making many items from scratch (i.e. - cookies, rolls, and pizza dough).
Increasing the Costs of Meal Plans
Alternatively, some cafeterias are taking the easy route by increasing the dining costs. The highest meal plan fee increase was reported by Louisiana State University (LSU), which will increase the cost of their meal plans by 7 percent this fall. The LSU meal plan fee increase is followed by a 4.5 increase at the University of Miami and a 3.5 increase by Ohio University.
- Will the college buffet continue to exist?
- Will the trayless and recipe ingredient reduction approach cause college students lose the freshmen 15 stigma?
- Will college students choose the healthiest food if they have to choose one or two items at a time.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Gas Prices and Our Undergraduates!
The number of students enrolling in online courses is increasing.
College students at most colleges and universities do not live on campus and they have to commute to campus. The cost of commuting is rising with the gas prices and let's not forget about the wear and tear on the student's automobile. Students are feeling the crunch and are deciding to enroll in online and hybrid (face to face and internet instruction) classes.
According to Ed Klonoski, a representative of Charter Oak - Connecticut's public online college, across the nation there is a 10 percent increase in the number of students choosing to enroll in online courses.
Are faculty ready for this new demand?
As the number of students choosing to enroll in online courses increase, it seems that the number of online course offerings will increase as well. In my experience, a large number of the faculty at small and mid-sized institutions are resistant to offering online courses in their discipline. As a professor from the millennial generation, I believe that this resistance comes from the technology-centered learning curve that exists between the generations. This curve is perpetuated by the increase in internet technology and the content management systems that colleges and universities offer to their faculty and students. The blackboard.com content management system has experienced many updates that benefit almost everyone at a given university. For example, all of my grading for my face-to-face classes is conducted online by using the rubric feature and my my tests are administered online as well. This is a win-win situation, because the students gain instant access to their grades and I conserve paper and time.
However, as I stated before, many faculty are resistant to this new change and it will be interesting to see more internet-based classes are offered in the future.
Are For-Profit Institutions Taking Our Potential Students?
Since the gas prices increased, I observed fair amount of commercials advertising online degrees (associates and bachelors) through for-profit institutions. Many high school seniors and non-traditional students will have trouble gaining financial aid from private lenders (Schnurman, 2008) and they may start paying more attention to these for-profit colleges.
What will be the impact on U.S. competitiveness when this growing amount of students with degrees from for-profit institutions enter the workforce? Will these students be as competitive as students from traditional public and private institutions?
Interesting Article! - Gas Prices Driving Students to Online Courses - By Jeffery R. Young
Thanks for reading!
-MP
Friday, July 25, 2008
VOTE for the AUGUST Topic!
Please remember to vote for the August topic by August 3rd. The selections for August are:
*Remember - VOTE ON THE MAIN PAGE OF THE BLOG!
Minority College Students | |
Reaching Millennial Students | |
Gas and Its Impact on College Students | |
My Experience as a Millennial Professor |
You may vote for more than one! :)
-Millennial Professor
Black in America - Day 2
According to NCES (2005), the nationwide African American undergraduate enrollment at HWCUs was over 1,734,000 in 2002. However, the graduation rates for these students were very low (Benton, 2001). In fact, over half of the African American undergraduate students enrolled in HWCUs fail to persist and graduate. The picture is worse for African American undergraduate students who attend HBCUs. Only 28% of these students actually complete their degrees (Gasman, Baez, Drezner, et al., 2007).
This leads me to one last sentence: What should HWCUs and HBCUs do about the African Americans (and Hispanic Americans) in higher education? Any suggestions?
-Millennial Professor
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Black in America?
I am watching the first day of the CNN special "Black in America" and I decided to blog during the two day special. After these two days, I will post a couple of posts related to: (a) the impact of gas prices and higher education, and (b) how to engage students on the content management system websites.
"The Black in America" Blog Special:
Paying Students to Learn
The African American drop out rate. This aspect of the special was heartbreaking. I feel that I am so far removed from the secondary school environment that I do not know about the startling statistics pertaining to the high school graduation achievement gap. One professor had a solution (grant funded, I believe) to increase the high school graduation rate for African American students. His solution was to pay students to stay in school and to achieve. I think that the average student received $65.75, but these students were in elementary school. I wonder how this would work at the high school level.
My Take
Interesting enough, I am launching a weekend-based college prep academy for junior and senior level high school students. This academy will teach students about college admission secrets, scholarships, and SAT/ACT preparation. After the workshop, I want the students to have access to my personal e-mail address and cell phone number. Most of the students will come from underrepresented populations, but I want EVERYONE to have access to this workshop.
While watching the CNN special, an interesting thing has happened tonight. I received 10+ telephone calls and text messages from friends/former students who wanted to make sure that I was watching the special. My husband wondered if people of other races were watching the special. Were they? Not sure.
Potential Impact
However, I think that this special will result in a preponderance of scholarly articles and newspaper articles on this issue. In addition, this will be an interesting issue for my Intercultural Communication course in the spring. I hope that CNN has a Hispanic American special as well.
We shall see. Any thoughts?
MP
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
I have decided to take a mini break (4 days) to spend with my family. Please remember to send your "Ask a Millennial" questions by Friday and I will respond to them on next Monday. next week I plan to write about: (1) gas prices and their potential impact on millennial college students, (2) dual credit courses and millennial college students, and (3) the "Ask a Millennial" section.
Have a great week! I look forward to receiving your questions and feedback.
-MP
Friday, July 11, 2008
Ask a Millennial: "Four Ways to Reach Millennial Students in the Classroom"
Monday, July 7, 2008
New Blog Feature - "Ask a Millennial"
Every Friday is "Ask a Millennial" Day!
Every Friday, I will address several questions that were submitted (millennialprofessor@gmail.com) from the prior week. Please ask me questions about:
- millennial students in the classroom
- student engagement
- millennials and the media
- professors from the millennial generation
- the work/life balance for a millennial
- teaching online
- using WebCT/Blackboard in a face-to-face setting
- or almost" anything!
-Millennial Professor
Friday, July 4, 2008
Do ALL College Ministries Effectively Reach Millennial Students?
Benson Hines from the Exploring College Ministry Blog (http://exploringcollegeministry.wordpress.com) wrote about importance of text messaging in his article titled, "Txting 4 Gen Y". I am a Christian, but I have never explored religion and text messaging. Interestingly enough, I have not functioned as a leader of a college ministry in about three years, but it was interesting for me to communicate with my millennial peers (students) about Christ. I used text messaging to stay in contact with the student leaders in the ministry, but we never thought of advertising our bible studies/college lunches via text messaging.
As I stated before, I am African American and I observed a growing number of black churches are grasping technology. However, the number of churches that are actively grasping technology are not meeting the demand of their millennial students (middle school and college). It would be interesting to see how many additional college students would begin to accept Christ if churches would use new technology to reach the students of this generation.
Read Benson Hines's article here - http://exploringcollegeministry.wordpress.com/2008/06/29/txting-4-gen-y/
-Millennial Professor
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Conducting a Text Message-Based Poll in Class
I discovered a WONDERFUL online mechanism that enables professors to conduct anonymous polls in class via text messaging (thanks Adventures in Educational Blogging - Susan).
This is the BEST "free" program that I have seen thus far. I think that my millennial students will actually be excited about using their cell phones in the classroom. The website indicates that if the audience (or classroom) is 30 participants or less, the service is FREE.
I will definitely use this in the fall and I also hope to conduct a faculty workshop on this mechanism as well.
- Millennial Professor
Monday, June 30, 2008
Millennial Motivation for June (Itunes Style)
- Butterfly - Crazy Town
- Crush - Jennifer Paige
- Can't Get You Out of My Head - Kylie Minogue
- World Town - M.I.A.
- Bamboo Banga - M.I.A.
- A Milli - Lil Wayne
- Lollipop - Lil Wayne
- Be Good to Me - Ashley Tisdale
- Foolish - Shawty Lo
- Cyclone - Baby Bash
- Gonna Make You Sweat - C+C Music Factory
- And Then What - Young Jeezy
- Gimme More - Britney Spears
- Wall to Wall - Chris Brown
- Shining Star - Earth Wind and Fire
- Love Don't Cost A Thing (RJ Schoolyard Mix) - Jennifer Lopez
- Whine Up - Kat DeLuna
- Just Fine - Mary J. Blige
- Work That - Mary J. Blige
- Don't Stop the Music - Rihanna
- Take You There - Sean Kingston
-Millennial Professor
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Cafeterias and Millennial College Students (Financial Cutbacks)
In addition, over the break I had the chance to speak with a dietitian of a community college cafeteria. She said that a significant number of the millennial students are coming into college with diabetes and are on medication. In addition, she indicated that these students eat ranch dressing with their greased-filled pizza. Amazing!
It will be interesting to see the health implications of early life McDonald's addictions and status quo infatuations with calorie-filled items (i.e. - Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, etc.) on my generation.
What do YOU think?
Friday, June 27, 2008
Exercise YOUR RIGHT to VOTE! - The Predominate Blog Topic for July
-Here are the topics:
Teaching Millennial Students | |
Millennials and the Media | |
Millennials and Social Networking | |
Millennial Professionals and Inner and Outer Generational Conflict | |
Social Integration of Millennial-Based Sororities |
If you have an idea for ANOTHER topic, PLEASE contribute the idea in the "reply" section below.
Thank you!
-Millennial Professor
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Millennials Mentoring Millennials
Since it seems that millennials in the workplace are having such a hard time connecting with Gen X and the Baby boomers, they should mentor themselves. It also seems that other generations think that millennials have a know-it-all personality and want to become the CEO within a ten year span. This is impractical, but we (millennials) do have ambition in the workplace.
This ambition that derives from my generational birthright drove my need to create a list of best practices for millennial mentoring.
1. Provide millennial professionals an opportunity to network with other professionals their age.
2. When initial connections are made, enable millennial professionals to foster a long-term connection by promoting linkedin.com and facebook.com.
3. Explain the importance of face-to-face and virtual mentoring to millennial professionals. If members of this generation realize the importance of peer mentoring, they will be more inclined to sustain the connection.
Please contribute any additional ideas! :)
Sincerely,
Millennial Professor
Saturday, June 21, 2008
A Millennial's Perspective on the Work Life Balance
When I started my higher education career, I was 20 years old. I was younger than many of my students and I lived in the college town. I wanted my students to respect me and to know that I was professional at all times. Therefore, I never wore anything that resembled "student wear" anywhere in town (the grocery store, Wal-Mart, local restaurants, etc.). For a long time, I did not wear tennis shoes or indulge myself by walking around the neighborhood to exercise.
This personal/professional decision worked well for my career, but was devastating to my life outside of work. I felt like I was always on display, because I wanted to represent the university well. As a result, I made a conscious decision to move to a city that was closer to the metropolitan area. This was one of the BEST moves that I have EVER made.
I was happier because I could be ME. If I wanted to go to the grocery store in workout clothes, I could. If I wanted to peruse SAM's or Target, I did. If I wanted to spend my entire day in the Barnes and Noble bookstore without seeing my students, I could.
This was one of the highlights of my student services career. I was more productive because I could leave my university work in my office. When I lived in the college town, I took most of my work home and I made trips back to the office on weekends. When I moved, I made my five trips to the office a week and that was it. In addition, my students loved my commute. When they did something extraordinary, I would stop by SAM's and pick up a cheesecake factory cheesecake, an entire sheet cake, or vegetable/fruit tray and I would bring it to work to reward their efforts. When I made the transition to academia, I would often bring the same treats to the classroom.
Thank goodness for the work/life balance!
I am happier now than I have ever been before. I can seek grant money to write about topics that I am very interested in. I teach millennial college students about the importance of professionalism and about life in general. This is my life's passion.
What is your life's passion?
MP
Even a clock that does not work is right twice a day.
Polish Proverb