Scholarship: Forest County Potawatomi Foundation Lois Crowe Scholarship

Scholarship: The Farm Kids for College Scholarship

Application Deadline: April 13, 2017

Link: http://usascholarships.com/farm-kids-college-scholarship/

Biological Laboratory at Agricultural and Mechanical College in Greensboro, circa 1899.

via reddit

Scholarship: Nordson BUILDS Scholarship Program

Application Deadline: May 15, 2017

Link: http://usascholarships.com/nordson-builds-scholarship-program/

I Lie About My Teaching

Here is an interesting article I came across in The Atlantic. 

The story of a Teacher and how we portray our lives to others in the field. What are your thoughts? 

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I liked Devon. We were all first and second-year teachers in that seminar—peers, in theory—but my colleague Devon struck me as a cut above. I’d gripe about a classroom problem, and without judgment or rebuke, he’d outline a thoughtful, inventive solution, as if my blundering incompetence was perhaps a matter of personal taste, and he didn’t wish to impose his own sensibilities. When it fell upon us each to share a four-minute video of our teaching, I looked forward to Devon’s. I expected a model classroom, his students as pious and well-behaved as churchgoers.

Instead, the first half of Devon’s four-minute clip showed him fiddling with an overhead projector; in the second half, he was trotting blandly through homework corrections. The kids rocked side to side, listless. For all his genuine wisdom, Devon looked a little green, a little lost.

He looked, in short, like me.

Teachers self-promote. In that, we’re no different than everyone else: proudly framing our breakthroughs, hiding our blunders in locked drawers, forever perfecting our oral résumés. This isn’t all bad. My colleagues probably have more to learn from my good habits (like the way I use pair work) than my bad ones (like my sloppy system of homework corrections), so I might as well share what’s useful. In an often-frustrating profession, we’re nourished by tales of triumph. A little positivity is healthy.

But sometimes, the classrooms we describe bear little resemblance to the classrooms where we actually teach, and that gap serves no one.

Any honest discussion between teachers must begin with the understanding that each of us mingles the good with the bad. One student may experience the epiphany of a lifetime, while her neighbor drifts quietly off to sleep. In the classroom, it’s never pure gold or pure tin; we’re all muddled alloys.

I taught once alongside a first-year teacher, Lauren, who didn’t grasp this. As a result, she compared herself unfavorably to everyone else. Every Friday, when we adjourned to the bar down the street, she’d decry her own flaws, meticulously documenting her mistakes for us, castigating herself to no end. The kids liked her. The teachers liked her. From what I’d seen, she taught as well as any first-year could. But she saw her own shortcomings too vividly and couldn’t help reporting them to anyone who’d listen.

She was fired three months into the year. You talk enough dirt about yourself and people will start to believe it.

Omission is the nature of storytelling; describing a complex space—like a classroom—requires a certain amount of simplification. Most of us prefer to leave out the failures, the mishaps, the wrong turns. Some, perhaps as a defensive posture, do the opposite: Instead of overlooking their flaws and miscues, they dwell on them, as Lauren did. The result is that two classes, equally well taught, may come across like wine and vinegar, depending on how their stories are told.

Take the first year I taught psychology. I taught one section; my colleague Erin taught the other.

When I talked to Erin that semester, she’d glow about her class. Kids often approached her in the afternoons to follow up on questions, and to thank her for teaching their favorite course. Her students kept illustrated vocab journals totaling hundreds of words. They drew posters of neurons, crafted behaviorist training regimes, and designed imaginative “sixth senses” for the human body. Erin’s mentor teacher visited monthly and dubbed it an “amazing class” with “incredible teaching.”

Catch me in an honest mood, and I’ll admit that I bombed the semester. I lectured every day from text-filled overhead slides. Several of my strongest students told me that they hated the class and begged for alternative work. I wasted three weeks on a narrow, confining research assignment, demanding heavy work with little payoff. One student openly plagiarized another. I wound up failing several students who, in hindsight, I should have passed. Yet I know that this apparent train wreck of a class was, in truth, no worse than Erin’s.

That’s because I made Erin up. The two classes described above were the same class: mine. Each description is true, and neither, of course, is wholly honest.

I’m as guilty as anyone of distorting my teaching. When talking to other teachers, I often play up the progressive elements: Student-led discussions. Creative projects. Guided discovery activities. I mumble through the minor, inconvenient fact that my pedagogy is, at its core, deeply traditional. I let my walk and my talk drift apart. Not only does this thwart other teachers in their attempts to honestly evaluate my approach, but it blocks my own self-evaluation. I can’t grow properly unless I see my own work with eyes that are sympathetic, but clear and unyielding.

I had a private theme song my first year teaching: “Wear and Tear,” by Pete Yorn. It was my alarm in the mornings, my iPod jam on the commute home. The chorus ended with a simple line that spun through my head in idle moments and captured the essence of a year I spent making mistake after rookie mistake: Can I say what I do?

It’s no easy task for teachers. But I think we owe it, to ourselves if to no one else, to tell the most honest stories that we can. I’ll only advance as a teacher, and offer something of value to those around me, if I’m able to say what I do.

Source: The Atlantic

Share some feedback. What are your thoughts of the article? 

Scholarship: SAWE Scholarship / Frank Fong Memorial Scholarship

Application Deadline: April 1, 2017

Link: http://usascholarships.com/sawe-scholarship-frank-fong-memorial-scholarship/

I had an 11 hour school day today. so.. yeah no.

Scholarship: SAWE Scholarship / Frank Fong Memorial Scholarship

Application Deadline: April 1, 2017

Link: http://usascholarships.com/sawe-scholarship-frank-fong-memorial-scholarship/

since we are talking about uni, do you know BTS's majors and which uni they are attending? sorry if this is bothering you

Their majors are not fully known except jin’s, but they did talk about their majors (in a joking manner) on vlive, so I can tell you ones that I feel is actual depending on their tone. please take it with a grain of salt.

Jin: konkuk university undergraduate, graduated yesterday with a acting major.

Yoongi: Global Cyber University, he joked about another major, then mumbled something in liberal arts. 

Hoseok: Global Cyber University, major not known. 

Namjoon: Global Cyber University (this is not sure btw, coz namjoon wasnt clear), he said electrical engineering but was joking as far as we know as of feb. 2017

Jimin: Global Cyber University, possibly majoring in acting, I feel like he was being serious as far as his tone and way of speaking but then again….he could be really good at acting.

Taehyung: Global Cyber University, possibly majoring in english, In my opinion he was being serious because he has been practicing english and he was the new student for ‘1 minute english’ so….

Jungkook:  (edit: okay people told me that he was joking so) Global Cyber University, he just joined after graduating from SOPA. major not known.

yeah…idk if that was helpful….i mean…you can just watch the vlive and get the info.

Scholarship: Accenture Student Veterans Scholarship

Application Deadline: March 31, 2017

Link: http://usascholarships.com/accenture-student-veterans-scholarship/

The first weekend

After the intense 9 month wait to begin school, my three day weekend was spent in equal parts study, play, and rest. In an attempt to get some sleep for week two, insomnia strikes once again, ensuring a cranky, unmotivated morning to come. Thus, this blog was born. I hope to generate an accurate record of my uneasy transition from military to civilian to student, so keep tuned in for the adventures to come.

Scholarship: The Farm Kids for College Scholarship

Application Deadline: April 13, 2017

Link: http://usascholarships.com/farm-kids-college-scholarship/

Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University

Scholarship: SAWE Scholarship / Frank Fong Memorial Scholarship

Application Deadline: April 1, 2017

Link: http://usascholarships.com/sawe-scholarship-frank-fong-memorial-scholarship/

It was such a sunny day at home I couldn’t resist the chance to take the train along the coast. I’ve taken my dissertation reading and I’m heading to Brighton. ☀️📖🚃

Scholarship: The Farm Kids for College Scholarship

Application Deadline: April 13, 2017

Link: http://usascholarships.com/farm-kids-college-scholarship/

Bouyant and beautiful

Residents of Laurel, Delaware, will have a new water feature to check out this year - a floating wetlands structure designed to improve water quality in the town park.

The device was designed by five University of Delaware engineering students - Danielle Gerstman of Chalfont, Pa., Sarah Hartman of Wilmington, Del., Erica Loudermilk of Lothian, Md., Mark White of Wilmington, Del., and recent graduate Megan Doyle - and can be placed in rivers, ponds and areas that are not part of a natural structure.

Plantings for the six-sided structure are chosen for the way they interact with water - removing nitrogen and phosphorus with both high efficiency and beauty.

The team worked with faculty advisors Dustyn Roberts and Kurt Manal, with participation from UD’s Sustainable Coastal Communities Initiative and Delaware Sea Grant, Andrew Hayes and landscape design expert Jules Bruck of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

“I am excited about the floating wetland project because of the potential it has to improve water quality both locally and around the world,” Sarah said. “This novel approach to surface water treatment is aesthetically appealing and educational by nature, allowing the community where it is deployed to learn the value of clean water and the science behind how natural wetlands treat water.”

CIA Scholarship Program

Application Deadline is April 1, 2017.

http://usascholarships.com/cia-scholarship-program/

CMC Electronics Inc. Scholarship

Value $2,500. Awarded annually, on the recommendation of the Faculty of Engineering and Design, to a student proceeding from one year to another of the Aerospace, Electrical or Computer Systems Engineering program who is enrolled in the co-operative education option. Donor: CMC Electronics Inc.. Established 2000.

Scholarship: Nordson BUILDS Scholarship Program

Application Deadline: May 15, 2017

Link: http://usascholarships.com/nordson-builds-scholarship-program/

found on Pitzer College campus in Claremont, California