Month: January 2015

Oral Presentation Journal

 

For our first oral presentation, the assignment is to work in a group with peers and give a presentation to inform the class of a facility on campus. Once a facility is decided on amongst the group, we must visit the facility if necessary and gather the proper research. My group agreed to present the Student Recreation Center. The Student Recreation Center or “SRC” is located in the quads between England and France House. Students, teachers and locals are welcome to use the center to work out in the weight area, participate in exercise classes, or play club and recreation sports. This assignment was generally simply because I live in England and go to the center every day.

My group decided to make a list of all the activities that can be participated in, divide the list up and research. Once we individually did our research, we submitted our pieces on a google doc for our outline. The next step was to transfer the gathered information and turn it into an informative power point. The power point is also located on google docs so we each have access to it and help each other if need be. Once the power point is done and reviewed, we give our presentation.

Overall, the assignment was fairly easy. In the past, I usually don’t like working in groups because everyone does not do their part. Luckily, my group was amazing. Everyone participated and communicated with each other. The Student Recreation Center was a facility that everyone in the group was pretty knowledgeable about before researching which was also helpful. This assignment was a great way to connect with my classmates and learn more about this facility.

Journal One

 

The feedback given from my peers on my rough draft was very helpful. They bought to light header, grammatical, and paragraph errors. From the reviews, I discovered that I must first state and enhance my thesis statement. The topic sentences need to be clearly stated as well as divide my paragraphs. Grammar and punctuation needs to be fixed such as commas, indentations and proper use of spacing. Aribi001 commented that my essay was good but I had one or two mistakes. A space should be placed after a comma, before I continued a sentence in the second paragraph. She also commented that I need to correct a grammatical error from “it our responsibility” to “it’s our responsibility”.

Michael commented that I needed to identify and indent my paragraphs. He also identified my spacing a comma dilemma once again in my second paragraph. He suggested that I stay away from proper nouns and change “Our” to “Students” in the second paragraph. He also mentioned that I should not say like as much in as used in my last paragraph. These peer reviews helped me identify my errors before submitting it. I will correct these errors and make additional adjustments where need be.

I also helped my peers by reviewing their essays. As I reviewed nluce001’s essay, I discovered two grammatical errors. The first was to change fell to felt too fell in the second paragraph. My second suggestion was to re word a sentence only because it sounded like a run on sentence. Overall this peer review process was extremely helpful. It pointed out my errors and because of this I can make the proper corrections for my final draft.

Essay One

 

When I began my first semester here at Old Dominion University, I quickly discovered high school may share some similarities, it does not get you mentally ready for college. In High School there is authority, security and plenty of second chances handed out. One might say that we are often “babied” in high school which does not aid us at all for a college career. There is always someone there to wake us up in the morning and make us go to class. There is always a teacher around to make sure that we are doing our work and to answer any questions if needed.

We have plenty of opportunities to complete assignments after a due date as well as obtain extra credit. Although most high schools do offer college level courses, they are still in a high school setting. Teachers are there offering help and giving class time to complete assignments. In college, one quickly learns that college is nothing to play with. From the moment our guardians drop us off on move in day, to checking blackboard and obtaining our syllabus before the first day of class, it becomes clear that things are about to change drastically. In college there is no one to wake us up in the morning to attend class. It’s our responsibility to wake up and if we don’t it is up to us to follow the syllabus and keep up with the material and assignments provided.

Most classes if not all, are only fifty minute lectures. These lectures are purely for introducing new material and reviewing the old. This setting is a lot different from the typical 90 minutes offered in high school to learn new material as well as complete the assignments for that material. In college it is critical to stay self-motivated. It is fully up to us to read, learn and study material on a daily basis without that authority figure making us do so. If there is something that is not clear about the material, it is our responsibility to ask a peer, research or email our teacher to obtain the best solution. If an assignment is missed or late, rarely will there be given an opportunity to make up the assignment. There is also a rare chance that extra credit will be given to make up for points lost on that assignment.

Overall, High school does not mentally prepare us for college. There are some similarities when it comes to course work, joining clubs and organizations, paying for books and materials needed throughout the year and meeting new people. None of these however help us experience a college atmosphere. It is fully up to us to be independent, self-motivated and stay on the right track to obtain our degree without that sense of authority, security, or opportunity of second chances being there if we get off track. The transition from high school to college is a big part in our lives simply because it teaches us that we are no longer being “babied”. That at some point we have to become our own authority figure and keep our eyes on the prize at all times.

 

 

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