Category: ENG 110 Blog Posts

10/4

Scheuer explains why liberal arts education is necessary and how STEM education is taking over. He explains basically a lot of the core curriculum. The University of New England’s model of a liberal arts education encompasses all aspects of life, which I guess is the point of a liberal arts education. It states that from this type of learning, students will develop critical thinking skills and foundational knowledge that will help them to take their roles in their environments. Core courses are meant to develop or improve students’ abilities and skills in social and cultural literacy. This includes the arts and languages, being able to write effectively, sciences, environmental awareness, environmental literacy, and civic understanding. After taking courses within the core curriculum, students should be prepared for caring for the wellbeing of individuals, our planet, and society. They can demonstrate skills such as application, integration of knowledge, and synthesis. The core themes of a liberal arts education are environmental awareness, social and global awareness, critical thinking: human responses to problems and challenges, citizenship and civic engagement. These themes allow students to explore themes from multiple perspectives and disciplines. The themes let students explore all aspects of study while still studying their discipline. The main objective of a liberal arts education is to prepare students to enter the real world as local, national, and global citizens and professionals. Core curriculum uses integrated learning to make students use self-directed and ongoing learning. 

My ENG 110 course fits into the english composition section of the curriculum. According to the handbook, “English Composition introduces students to writing as a conscious and developmental activity… learn to read, think, and write in response to a variety of texts, to integrate their ideas with those of others, and to treat writing as recursive process… students are exposed to a range of reading and writing techniques… and are introduced to fundamental skills of information literacy… work individually and collaboratively, participate in peer review, and learn to take more responsibility for their writing development.” This course fits this description, given I do have the department head as my teacher. The class uses a daily class discussion, reading and annotating articles, along with using peer review.

My PSY 105 course fits into the explorations section of the curriculum. According to the handbook, “”Explorations courses introduce a humanities or social science discipline as a way of knowing. By exploring a topic, issue, or theme within the framework of a particular discipline… provide an introduction to the assumptions, methods, and terminology of that discipline.” Since I am not a psychology major, PSY 105 fits into my credits as an exploratory course. It is considered a social science exploration course.

My ASL 101 class doesn’t seem to fit into the core curriculum. No where in the handbook does it talk about the importance of taking or learning other languages. It also does not include topics such as learning about disabilities or impairments or the hardships in life.

10/7

1. Out of my three courses I chose to look into for this activity, I think all three can fit into Scheuer’s description of ensuring critical thinking and citizenship. One of the main goals in the ENG 110 course is to better critical thinking and integrate ideas, new and old, into everyday life. With that being said, this course clearly fits Scheuer’s description. In class we work in pairs of groups and have class discussions. We also have projects and lengthy homework assignments that allow us to think in different ways. PSY 105 also can fit Scheuer’s description of ensuring critical thinking and citizenship. This class works mainly by teaching oneself, which makes us use different types of thinking as well as collaborating with my peers. Lastly, my ASL 101 class allows me to use a different way of thinking as I am learning a new language with a deaf teacher. The rest of my class also does not know the language and we have been able to work together to succeed thus far. We collaborate to communicate and learn through this class.
2. Revised paragraph below from October 4ths assignment.

Scheuer explains why liberal arts education is necessary and how STEM education is taking over. He explains basically a lot of the core curriculum described in the CAS Handbook. The University of New England’s model of a liberal arts education encompasses all aspects of life, which I guess is the point of a liberal arts education. It states that from this type of learning, students will develop critical thinking skills and foundational knowledge that will help them to take their roles in their environments. Core courses are meant to develop or improve students’ abilities and skills in social and cultural literacy. This includes the arts and languages, being able to write effectively, sciences, environmental awareness, environmental literacy, and civic understanding. Scheuer talks about how this concept of a liberal arts education has worked for nearly two thousand years and should continue to be used. He also states that “liberal arts [are] also a complicated and antiquated term, yolking together two words that don’t obviously belong in harness and may not be ideally suited for hauling their intellectual load into the twenty-first century.” This quote subtly goes against the aspect of pro liberal arts, but gives some of the hesitance by some people. Many people think that “liberal” arts brings politics into it, but it is just a different way of learning.  

After taking courses within the core curriculum, students should be prepared for caring for the wellbeing of individuals, our planet, and society. Students should be able to demonstrate skills such as application, integration of knowledge, and synthesis. The core themes of a liberal arts education according to the CAS Handbook are environmental awareness, social and global awareness, critical thinking: human responses to problems and challenges, citizenship and civic engagement. According to Scheuer, the core themes of a liberal arts education are grammar, rhetoric, logic, medieval quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy, and arts. Although they seem to be a little different, these themes all allow students to explore themes from multiple perspectives and disciplines. The themes let students explore all aspects of study while still studying their discipline. The main objective of a liberal arts education is to prepare students to enter the real world as local, national, and global citizens and professionals. Core curriculum uses integrated learning to make students use self-directed and ongoing learning. 

Our experience making this podcast was a little difficult. We both tend to be fast talkers and don’t necessarily know how to correctly use this software. Neither of us are very technological. I think for what our skill was and the amount of time we spent on it, the podcast came our pretty well. Although the editing is a little funky, it is easy to listen to and decipher. Podbean doesn’t work when trying to embed a link in the portfolio page so we used Soundcloud instead. Overall, our ideas worked well together after a long conversation before hand and some planning. We also made sure to look at both our our papers to include both of our ideas from the paper.

A common misconception is that a liberal art degree is a luxury that not all can afford, so the idea of a “career education” should be the main focus. “Yet one could argue that the traditional, well-rounded preparation that the liberal arts offer is a better investment than ever—that the future demands of citizenship will require not narrow technical or job-focused training, but rather a subtle understanding of the complex influences that shape the world we live in.” (Ungar, Para 1) Ungar seems to value a liberal arts degree since it is one that shapes the ideas of the world and all areas of thinking. “One typified by America’s liberal arts colleges, embraces the ideal of the integrated curriculum, encompassing virtually all nonprofessional higher learning, from the natural and social sciences to the humanities and the performing arts.” (Scheuer, Para 9) Scheuer explains what a liberal arts education entails and gives a brief definition of it. Both authors’ ideas seem to show the importance of how a liberal arts education is well rounded, therefore is a good form of education.

Another common misconception is that liberal arts are irrelevant for those from low income families or first generation college students. Ungar combats this idea with an example of how America is the place where a mixed-race child raised overseas by just his mother has almost impossible odds, but he can grow up to be president. “It is precisely a liberal education that allowed him to catch up and move ahead.” (Ungar, Para 3) Both Scheuer and Ungar have similar ideas as to how people think is how likely they are to succeed in a higher level of education. “Free minds are flexible minds…” (Scheuer, Para 10) This quote gives hope to anyone with a free mind to be able to think in different ways and adapt to new ways of thinking.

Pre-Reading

I’m not really sure what to think about this article just form the 6 word title. I think it will probably define what liberal arts is and why colleges use this concept.. Because we read about growth vs fixed mindsets, I think this article may mention some of these concepts since it will talk about critical thinking. The article title also says “We neglect them at our peril.” Because of the way this is worded I think the article will be lot of agreeing with the concept of liberal arts institutions.

What Are the Liberal Arts?

“The idea of the liberal arts has a nearly two-thousand-year history…” (Para 1) If this term / idea has been used for so long, why is it becoming less common? Of course as the economy changes so does everyone’s perspectives on jobs and careers, but I feel like it shouldn’t have changed that much to the point of it becoming uncommon.

Why Do We Need the Liberal Arts?

“The overall goal is to foster vibrant and prosperous communities with broad and deep participation, in public conversations marked by fairness, inclusion, and (where critical thinking comes in) intellectual rigor.” (Para 6) Again, if this concept is so important and has been working so long, why is it becoming so uncommon? I don’t see any real downsides or bad impacts to the use of this concept. Is it mainly due to the need for trades? Or the rising tuition bills?

What Is Critical Thinking?

“Critical thinking is the intellectual engine of a functional democracy: the set of mental practices that lends breadth, depth, clarity, and consistency to public discourse.” (Para 1) This I feel is a very broad definition. The later paragraphs do describe this term more in depth, but cross over to talking about critical inquiry. “In fact, critical inquiry is the bridge between basic critical thinking and philosophy, and it’s where most higher learning takes place.” (Para 5) I think this section focused more on critical inquiry rather than critical thinking, although inquiry is involved within thinking.

The Importance of Critical Inquiry

“The STEM disciplines are obviously important to economic productivity, but so is the entire rainbow of human knowledge and the ability to think critically. That’s why nations around the world are beginning to embrace the liberal arts ideas American education has done so much to promote, even as we question it.” (Para 5)

Sample 1 Original

My favorite quote from Roth is: “Like families, campus cultures are different, but all should promote a basic sense of inclusion and respect that enables students to learn and grow – to be open to ideas and perspectives so that the differences they encounter are educational.”

Sample 1 Revised

“Like families, campus cultures are different, but all should promote a basic sense of inclusion and respect that enables students to learn and grow – to be open to ideas and perspectives so that the differences they encounter are educational.” (Roth) Roth shows his understanding of a basic sense of safety, but also how students and young people need to be exposed to the things around them. Students need to be able to grow from their experiences, whether they are good or bad, and be educated about the issues around them.

This improves my writing because it takes out the unnecessary “My favorite quote from Roth is,” and gives more of an explanation to why I chose this quote in general.

Sample 2 Original

In this reading, Lukianoff and Haidt give examples of what Dweck calls a fixed mindset. Dweck says that these people “..run from the error. They don’t engage with it.”  In “The Coddling of the American Mind,” the authors talk about the ‘solutions’ to the fixed mindset people.

Sample 2 Revised

Lukianoff and Haidt give examples of what Dweck calls a fixed mindset, saying that these people “run from the error. [and] They don’t engage with it.”  In Lukianoff and Hiadt talk about the ‘solutions’ to these people with fixed mindsets.

This improves my writing because it joins the two sentences together to make one strong statement instead of two weaker ones. The quote is now in between the sentence instead of in an awkward spot in between.

**The format is off due to how Portfolio formats it**

Works Cited

Dweck, Carol. “Transcript of ‘The Power of Believing That You Can Improve.’” TED, www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve/transcript.

Haidt, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan. “How Trigger Warnings Are Hurting Mental Health on Campus.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 31 July 2017, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/.

Roth, Michael S. “Don’t Dismiss ‘Safe Spaces’.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 Aug. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/opinion/safe-spaces-campus.html.

Signal Phrasing

During her TED Talk, you can tell Dweck is a big advocate for spreading the concept of having a growth mindset since she gives examples of phrases like “I love a challenge” and “You know, I was hoping this would be informative.” 

Dweck says that these people “…run from the error. They don’t engage with it.”

One with an Ellipses and one with a Bracket

Dweck says that these people “…run from the error. They don’t engage with it.”

During her TED Talk, you can tell Dweck is a big advocate for spreading the concept of having a growth mindset since she gives examples of phrases like “I love a challenge” and “You know, I was hoping this [lesson] would be informative.” 

These tools allow you to cut out unnecessary information and also add words in brackets to make the quote make sense in the context you’re writing in.

Two Quotes in my Draft

Dweck says that these people “..run from the error. They don’t engage with it.”

My favorite quote from Roth is: “Like families, campus cultures are different, but all should promote a basic sense of inclusion and respect that enables students to learn and grow – to be open to ideas and perspectives so that the differences they encounter are educational.”

Revise the Setup

?? not sure how else to lead into this : Dweck says that these people “..run from the error. They don’t engage with it.”

I think this is an important quote from Roth, “Like families, campus cultures are different, but all should promote a basic sense of inclusion and respect that enables students to learn and grow – to be open to ideas and perspectives so that the differences they encounter are educational.”

For this revision, I mainly focused on what my peers told me may help to benefit my paper. My paragraphs definitely are still a work in progress and are a little long and may be better off split up. I did split Paragraph 1 into two, but there may still need to be some tweaking to that.

Paragraph 1 Before

For class, we have read multiple articles and watched a TED Talk discussing what a fixed mindset is versus what a growth mindset is. Both the speaker, Carol Dweck, and the authors who wrote “The Coddling of the American Mind,”(don’t forget to cite all quotes correctly) Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, make points and give examples about a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. Dweck is a big advocate for spreading the concept of having a growth mindset. In her TED Talk, Dweck says that phrases like “I love a challenge” and “You know, I was hoping this would be informative,” are examples of what she calls a growth mindset. She believes when one changes their mindset and looks at different perspectives, it can change a lot about how a person acts and how they can succeed in life.  Dweck encourages people to engage, process, learn, and correct their mistakes. Her ideas about a fixed mindset come into play when reading “The Coddling of the American Mind.” In this reading, Lukianoff and Haidt give examples of what Dweck calls a fixed mindset. Dweck says that these people “..run from the error. They don’t engage with it.” In “The Coddling of the American Mind,” the authors talk about the ‘solutions’ to the fixed mindset people. These ‘solutions’ include using trigger warnings, which may be helpful in some cases but can prove unhelpful in many. Many trigger warnings used recently are unnecessary, but are used due to the sensitivity of many closed-minded closed minded people, or people with a fixed mindset. The authors describe these people as trying to “…. scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense.” Many students and people in that generation now are very closed- minded to the real world issues around them, which is not a good thing. These two readings work very well together in my opinion because they show the differences with examples of both fixed and growth mindsets. 

Paragraph 1 After

For class, we have read multiple articles and watched a TED Talk discussing what a fixed mindset is versus what a growth mindset is. “The Coddling of the American Mind”  explains the growing sensitivity in the current generational shifts, relating to a fixed mindset, and offers a few solutions throughout the article. Both the speaker, Carol Dweck, and the authors who wrote “The Coddling of the American Mind,” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, make points and give examples about a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. During her TED Talk, you can tell Dweck is a big advocate for spreading the concept of having a growth mindset since she gives examples of phrases like “I love a challenge” and “You know, I was hoping this would be informative.”  She believes when one changes their mindset and looks at different perspectives, it can change a lot about how a person acts and how they can succeed in life. Dweck encourages people to engage, process, learn, and correct their mistakes.

Her ideas about a fixed mindset come into play when reading “The Coddling of the American Mind.” In this reading, Lukianoff and Haidt give examples of what Dweck calls a fixed mindset. Dweck says that these people “..run from the error. They don’t engage with it.” In “The Coddling of the American Mind,” the authors talk about the ‘solutions’ to the fixed mindset people. The problem with these people is that they are not open to new ideas or beliefs, and shut themselves out or are ‘oversensitive’ to some information. These ‘solutions’ include using trigger warnings, which may be helpful in some cases but can prove unhelpful in many. The use of trigger warnings is meant for people who have PTSD or have had other harmful events occur in their lives to prevent them from any further suffering. Many trigger warnings used recently are unnecessary, but are used due to the sensitivity of many closed minded people, or people with a fixed mindset. The authors of “The Coddling of the American Mind” describe these people as trying to “…scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense.” Many students and people in that generation now are very closed minded to the real world issues around them, which is not a good thing. These two readings work very well together in my opinion because they show the differences with examples of both fixed and growth mindsets.  

Paragraph 2 Before

The readings and the TED Talk discussed in class also talk about how our society contributes to the current generations’ use of both mindsets and the things that come along with that. Trigger warnings were mentioned in the previous paragraph, but trigger warnings are not the only preventative measure being used to guard people with fixed mindsets from real- world issues. My favorite article we read was, “The Differences Between Coddling and Safe Spaces” by Michael S. Roth. He talks about the differences between keeping people safe and exposing people to live’slife’s hardships and real- world issues. The purpose of a safe space is to allow all students or people to feel welcome in the community in which they are in. The main problem with this is coddling. Many people and students in the current generation are over coddled and not exposed to things that they should be exposed to. For example, in “The Coddling of the American Mind,” a law student asked her professors not to teach rape law because of how it might be discomforting to her peers. Although rape is a very scary topic and may not be easy to talk about, it is a real issue and it does need to be talked about. Keeping large issues like this in the dark won’t do any good for anyone. People should be trying to bring horrible things like rape into awareness in order to educate young people and to try to prevent it. My favorite quote from Roth is: “Like families, campus cultures are different, but all should promote a basic sense of inclusion and respect that enables students to learn and grow – to be open to ideas and perspectives so that the differences they encounter are educational.” He shows his understanding of a basic sense of safety but also how students and young people need to be exposed to the things around them. 

Paragraph 2 After

“The Coddling of the American Mind,” “The Differences Between Coddling and Safe Spaces,” and the TED Talk discussed in class talk about how our society contributes to the current generations’ use of both mindsets and the effects that come along with that. Trigger warnings were mentioned in the previous paragraph, but trigger warnings are not the only preventative measure being used to guard people with fixed mindsets from real world issues. My favorite article we read was, “The Differences Between Coddling and Safe Spaces” by Michael S. Roth. He talks about the differences between keeping people safe and exposing people to live’s hardships and real world issues. The purpose of a safe space is to allow all students or people to feel welcome in the community in which they are in. The main problem with this is coddling. Many people and students in the current generation are over coddled and not exposed to things that they should be exposed to. For example, in “The Coddling of the American Mind,” a law student asked her professors not to teach rape law because of how it might be discomforting to her peers. Although rape is a very scary topic and may not be easy to talk about, it is a real issue and it does need to be talked about. Keeping large issues like this in the dark won’t do any good for anyone. In my opinion, sheltering young adults from the hardships that are part of life does not prepare them, but may harm them in the long run. If these ‘stressful’ topics are not talked about and are not being taught, it may cause more issues to rise. People should be trying to bring horrible things like rape into awareness in order to educate young people and to try to prevent it. My favorite quote from Roth is: “Like families, campus cultures are different, but all should promote a basic sense of inclusion and respect that enables students to learn and grow – to be open to ideas and perspectives so that the differences they encounter are educational.” He shows his understanding of a basic sense of safety but also how students and young people need to be exposed to the things around them.

https://kmidolo.podbean.com/mf/play/hnd62q/Podcast_1_MP3.mp3

I am sorry in advance for the horrible quality and editing. I hate listening to my voice and recording it so this definitely has not been one of my favorite projects. I have learned the basic use of Audacity. Unfortunately, I could not find any good, free music so I used a sound effect. I also could not figure out how to use the sound throughout the podcast without it messing up my talking. I did not do very well with this project but I am planning to make an appointment in SASC to learn more about this for the future. There were no open slots that worked well with my schedule for this time around.

Rough script

Sunday night around 11:30 pm, I was in bed and my roommates were getting ready for bed and all of the fire alarms start to go off. I grab shoes and a sweatshirt, I open the door. My friend had fell out of her bed and left her room without shoes and her key and people were in the showers and came out in robes and towels. So we walked downstairs to the smell of burnt popcorn. We all go outside and everyone is super mad, it was late at night and it’s a Sunday and a lot of people had early classes the next day. We stood outside until like midnight and the firetrucks took like 15 minutes to come, which we were all mad about because if it was a worse situation than just burnt popcorn it probably would have been bad. After we all walked back in, we were all covered in bug-bites and tired and cold and we were all ready for bed so we could all go to class the next day.

The sounds used in this recording is called ‘hard shoes’ by Daniel Simion from the website sound bible.

As I completed my first draft I was concerned about the length of it and my use of Barclay’s Formula. After writing two paragraphs, I feel like I got the hang of it though. My peers, Justin and Cullen, liked how I started my paper the most. I started off explaining what a fixed vs growth mindset was and had a hook in the intro paragraph. With Dweck, I am working best with the idea of a growth mindset and how it is a good skill to have. I am told by Justin that I could find a better or more convincing quote to explain what a growth mindset is. I am working best with Lukianoff/Haidt’s examples of what a fixed mindset is and how they explain these types of people. Justin liked my idea of using the example of teaching rape law in classes and how some people were sensitive to this topic and how this could be an idea of a fixed mindset. My two biggest challenges in my work with the texts according to my peers are to organize my ideas a little better and to proofread again. I can address these challenges by going through my essay, revising it, and adding length as well as structure. My overall perspective is in agreement with the authors. I will help my reader to get my perspective by using supporting quotes and by making my opinion clear.