• What did you learn this semester about how college and universities function, how to be a better higher education professional, and how to be a successful graduate students?
Coming into this class I really had no clue how institutions functioned. I only had my personal experience as a student at a university, and my time in the study abroad office, which both brought very little knowledge about an institution as a whole. One thing I feel is important, that I learned, is that although a university has so many levels and divisions, if those departments are unable to work together and collaborate then it will be extremely difficult to achieve the mission and goals of the institution. There are so many challenges that colleges and universities
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I need to be able to work well with each and every department for both the success of my office but also theirs as well. It’s this collaboration for the overall good of the institution, not just one field, which will create a successful university.
As a graduate student I can start working towards this goal of understanding and collaboration. I can not only research and learn about my field but also branch out and learn about the other departments at a university. By doing so I can see how the different fields can benefit each other and work well together.
• What questions do you still have about our topics/what would you like to learn more about?
I still feel that I need to study more about the structure of an institution. I never knew just how detailed and complicated it could be and how the organization could change depending on institution. I think having a solid understanding of the structure of an institution is important.
• How would you assess your effort in this course, including preparation, attendance, and,
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I feel that Katherine provided effective participation contributions to the class discussion. She was able to contribute to the discussion consistently and tied in her own personal experiences both during undergrad and now during her assistantship. Also, every time she spoke it wasn’t just to get a word in, she made sure to provide relevant comments that were beneficial to the discussion.
• On what assignment(s) do you think you performed the strongest? The weakest? Why?
I think I performed my strongest on the site visit. I was so proud of this assignment because it was my first venture away from my comfort zone of international education. Not only did I learn a lot from visiting and researching an HBCU, but also I was able to see first hand the campus, the faculty/staff, and the students. It was an extremely positive experience and I think that greatly benefited from the work on this
Two professors of different backgrounds, Mike Rose of California, and Gerald Graff, of Illinois, discuss the problems college students face today in America. Though similar in slight variations, both professors view the problem in different regards and prepare solutions that solve what they feel to be the heart of this academic problem.
Returning to College as an Adult Coming to college as an adult, we have many expectations and preconceptions of what college will or will not be. The expectations we have can influence our college life for the better or the worse. My experience since starting college has been an interesting one. People have misconceptions about college because they do not know what to expect. After doing some research, I have concluded that there are three major factors that are often misunderstood about college life.
...understand the benefits of working together toward a common goal, setting aside the traditional roles of manager and subordinate and hopefully opening up the workplace as a creative outlet for all who work there.
This shift in university life has caused the emergence of a more focused and hard-working student body. There are those from past generations who will look at the happenings of colleges today and ridicule this change. And even after moving through the nostalgic haze that surrounds the memories of the past, the differences can still be seen, but it should be known that today's students are just adapting to the system that has already been established for them. This systematic change is to be expected. Considering that the world is not the same as it was in the 1960s, why would we assume that an institution would be exactly the same as it was
Schloss, P. J., & Cragg, K. M. (Eds.). (2013). Organization and administration in Higher Education. New York, NY: Routledge.
Without a doubt the lessons and exercises on time management were the most meaningful to me. They brought insight into why I seemed to be constantly working yet still never really got anything I wanted to accomplish throughout the day finished. I realized the majority of the activities I had been spending the most time on didn’t reflect my values of hard work and self discipline and long term academic goals to be successful in college. This motivated to completely change the way I managed my time by effectively striking a balance between my maintenance, committed, and free time.
One example of organized anarchy can be found in university systems. Their framework has most of the elements found in a garbage can model organization. Institutional goals are vague, conflicting and rarely understood. Organizational processes are familiar, but not understood. The major participants in the organization, the faculty and students, wander in and out of the process, participating in organizational activities and decision-making opportunities only until they find something better to do with their time. (Giesecke, 1991) Individual schools within an organization have their separate goals and strategic plans independent of the university-wide goals.
One of the disadvantages of a multidisciplinary team is that problems can be encountered when different professionals work together, there can be unclear goals, lack of direction and poor leadership (D...
Reflecting back on the all the information learned this semester, I am amazed at how much I learned. Working in healthcare makes you aware of a lot of the topics that were covered, however, when you apply it to yourself, in a personal relationship, it becomes much more powerful what the impact of each topic is.
To conclude I’d like to say that something I’ll remember from this class years from now would be the great class experience. Everyone was very accepting and non-judgmental during the course of our class. Even when having to present in front of the class (one of my least favorite things to do) I didn’t feel that nervous, which is rare. I’ll forever be changed by the knowledge I’ve gain from this class because before I would have never imagined so many therapeutic accomplishments could become of group work. I plan to use this course quite a bit in my future career and hopefully help many people by the means of group work.
Looking back over the course of the semester, I feel that I learned many new and interesting uses for technology within the classroom – both for classrooms that have a lot of technology and for classrooms that are limited with technology. For the majority of the class, we utilized William Kists’ book The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age (2010), which provided multiple modes of instruction that both utilized and/or created technology. One of the first things that I remember, and consequently that stuck with me through the course’s entirety, is that individuals must treat everything as a text. Even a garden is a text. The statement made me change the way that I traditionally viewed Language Arts both as a student and as a teacher, as I very narrowly saw literature and works of the like as texts only; however, by considering nearly anything as a text, one can analyze, study, and even expand his/her knowledge. Kist (2010) states that society is “experiencing a vast transformation of the way we “read” and “write,” and a broadening of the way we conceptualize “literacy” (p. 2). In order to begin to experience and learn with the modern classroom and technologically advanced students, individuals must begin to see new things as literature and analyze those things in a similar manner.
Over the course of the semester, I have learned a few things about myself. I have learned that I can be independent, I always knew myself as someone who could do mostly everything on their own. This semester really made me realize how independent I could actually be. Not only have I learned how independent I am I have also realized the importance of time management. With not having a strict class schedule it was a lot different than what I was originally used to. After a few weeks, I learned ways that would work best for me, for example writing down that I needed to get done. I learned that I need to focus on what 's ahead of me to accomplish what I want to succeed in, to manage what needs to be done ahead of time to stay caught up.
Was there information or insights that helped you that you didn’t expect to learn at the outset of the course?
There was a significant amount of knowledge given in this course, involving concepts that in our teaching career will be extremely important. From this course I have gained a significant amount of learning experiences. I had the pleasure learning about how the educational system has come to be what it is today and who were the important people in the creation of the public education, like Horace Mann. Watching the videos and reading the chapters required has opened my eyes more of how a teacher should respond to different situations involving a student, For example when we read the chapter on the laws that revolve around the educators and the students. I had absolutely no clue that students had rights while in school property. Another learning
Thinking about the role you play in your company or organizations, discuss how your might or have used what you know from the ALD program to break down some of the silos that get created in organizations separating departments and often creating miscommunication and distrust.