A Great Co-Curricular Program - "Reflection Week" (Stephen F. Austin State University)

Today is the first day of "Reflection Week" at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, TX (my alma mater). After reading the campus newspaper, The Pine Log, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to highlight Reflection Week on my blog.

Here is the overview:


This merger between student affairs and academic affairs at Stephen F. Austin State University is an ingenious effort to reach students from both sides of the spectrum. This week enables students to reflect on concepts they learned this year and how these concepts helped them become better individuals. 


Monday, April 26th - WELLNESS: Students have an opportunity to win various prizes by responding with correct answers to wellness questions. This day will also feature an all-day open house in the recreation center. 

Tuesday, April 27th - LEADERSHIP: There will be a make-your-own "Wax Axe" table, a journaling wall, video blogging opportunities and prizes. 

In the evening, Jack Sacco, author of "Where the Birds Never Sing," will speak about his father's experiences from boot camp to the invasion of Normandy and liberation of a Nazi concentration camp in World War II. 


Wednesday, April 28th - SERVICE: A photo wall will be set up in the Spirit Lounge for students to reflect on the impact of their community service over the last year. There will also be video blogging and prizes.

Thursday, April 28th - DIVERSITY: Students can find out how their culture influences the way they see the world with an interactive exercise. The event is sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Student Life, NAACP at SFA, Lumberjack Cultural Association, and the Organization of Latin Americans. Video blogging and prizes will be available Thursday as well.

At 7:30 p.m., The College of Liberal Arts and the Archie McDonald Speaker Series will host "An Evening with George Foreman" in the Grand Ballroom. 

Friday, April 29th - SCHOLARSHIP AND GRATITUDE: A Reflection Lunch, free to students, is "the highlight of the week," according to Dr. Adam Peck, dean of student affairs. It will take place from noon to 1 p.m. on the patio of the BPSC. Students and Dr. Michael Tkacik, director of the School of Honors, will speak on the subject of scholarship. 


I think this is a GREAT week-long program that will really make a differences in the lives of students, faculty, and staff at SFASU. Go Jacks! I hope the coordinator of the program uploads the videos on youtube!


Here is the link to a newspaper article promoting the event - http://media.www.thepinelog.com/media/storage/paper954/news/2010/04/12/News/Student.Affairs.To.Host.Week.Of.Reflection-3903803.shtml

Millennial Professor
Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Encouraging Students to Copyright their Creative Works!

Our students work hard on their class assignments and most of the time, these assignments are diverted to File 13 (the trash or a forgotten folder) after the class ends. However, in the higher education environment, we are encouraging students to present or publish their undergraduate research. This provides students and faculty to showcase concepts learned in the classroom and how the student(s) was/were able to gain new knowledge within a semester's time frame.

In addition, to the higher education environment, some high school teachers encourage their students to create and maintain wikis. These wikis enable high school students to have a record of their educational development. As a result of their students' efforts, faculty and K-12 educators might want to encourage their students to copyright their materials through the website Creative Commons.

Creative Commons - Draft 1


Millennial Professor
Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

"How Twitter in the Classroom is Boosting Student Engagement"

Here is a recent article I discovered about Twitter and how it can be used in the higher education classroom environment. This article, "How Twitter in the Classroom is Boosting Student Engagement".

What do you think?

Millennial Professor
Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Millennial Musings - Southern States Communication Association Conference 2010

Millennial Professor
Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Backchatter - Were Your Top Words Used in Tweets This Morning?

As most of my readers know, I LOVE twitter! I love integrating the website in my classroom, communicating with former students/colleagues, and gaining new information and I interact with faculty/staff from other universities. However, I always look for new and innovative ways to increase student engagement through this particular communication media.


Backchatter, a game about Twitter trendspotting, was a recent topic on Jane Knight's blog Social Media in Learning. Here is her post -  http://janeknight.typepad.com/socialmedia/2010/02/backchatter-a-game-about-twitter-trendspotting.html. Backchatter enables users to select words they think people include in their daily tweets. If these words emerge in the day's tweets, then the users gain points!


This website is usually integrated with attendees at conferences, BUT it seems the developers are working on expanding their audience.


Have you HEARD OF or TRIED Backchatter?


Millennial Professor
Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

A Millennial Professor's Musings: SSCA 2010/Allergens/Stressors/De-stressing...

I admit, the life of a millennial professor never ends. On Sunday, I arrived back from the Southern States Communication Conference (held in Memphis, TN) at 10:00 a.m. The night before leaving Memphis, I typed and submitted minutes from a conference committee and then I created a sample template for the call for proposals (2011) for a committee and I sent this document via e-mail to the appropriate people.

So, this leads me to Sunday - which I spent taking allergy meds for eight hours and then I spent four hours grading speech outlines via blackboard for a COMS 101 course.

Sunday was finished and Monday morning arrives. Now, take into account - I took so much allergy medicine on Sunday that I was VERY tired and groggy on Monday morning. So, I drove 45 minutes to the university and had a cup to tea to dilute the meds. Thank goodness for tea and the 9 am class because both of these provided a GREAT start to a very long day! After spending the night grading speech outlines I noticed the need for students to find additional research for their topic. This additional research is best accomplished in a computer lab, which is conducive for college student research synergy! It is AMAZING what happens when you place 25+ students in a computer lab (all working on the library's databases). I was able to reserve the library for Monday morning (thank God) and the students were able to obtain their research.

The upper level class is working on their scholarly research papers (that will be submitted for publication) and this class met in the computer lab as well. They are using GOOGLE DOCUMENTS to write their papers and to analyze their data. This has been a great process, but I will write about this in ANOTHER blog entry (and a scholarly paper).

So, after my 1pm class and three cups of coffee AND tea, I was exhausted. When I arrived home around 5pm, I had a bite to eat and took a quick nap. The husband arrived home and I had this GREAT idea to mow the front and back lawn AND to put our raised bed kits together. So, we accomplished all of this, and here is the result....

Millennial Professor
Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.