BLOG #8

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I missed last week’s class as I was unable to attend.

This weeks reading were emphasized on socioeconomic the article “From homeless to college grad: Story of B-CU student inspires”. Joshua Williams’s story provides a lot hope despite the challenges he faced. Joshua story provides other students with inspirations who may be in the same shoes he was at one point. Unfortunately, some may not be able to overcome some of the challenge of being in the lower socioeconomic class. For me personally I can relate to this article my family came from low income; therefore, placing me in that category. I reached a point in life where I had to decide to feed my children or gas money. I no longer could live in these impoverished circumstances; therefore, I sought out higher education as a ticket to a better life. Although things are not perfect stories such as Joshua’s inspire me to continue my journey in education.

The last two articles both authors provided statistical information based upon economic stability to class attendance and completion of any higher education. Due to the fact the students in lower economic status are not inspired to pursue a higher education; on the other hand, their biggest inspirations are to complete high school. Many times graduating high school is not accomplished either as they are not provided with adequate resources.

GREG’s AWESOME GROUP COMM ASSIGNMENT IDEA

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Gregory Moss

Group D

Title Greg’s Awesome Project Idea AKA: Country Government Project

Description: Groups will create fictional countries and governments within those countries, and will need to deal will a series of events thoughout the semester in which they will need to solve as the government of that country. Presentation of the history of the country at the end of the semester.

 

Instructions: Ok this is my idea for a project for a future Jaimie Group Comm Class. The groups will be randomly selected in a similar fashion as our groups were selected this semester. Each group will be responsible for creating a fictional country, which must include a name, flag, national bird, ect. Each country can either be assigned a government type, or can create their own type of government based on what Jaimie thinks would be best. For example: Democracy, Monarchy, Militaristic. Based on their countries type of government each country will be given a set of postions of government within their own countries and will need to decide, vote or if given a form of government that is not a type of government where people get to choose then the group will be pre assigned positions in the group. Each position has roles in which the group member must fill. Example: King, President, Vice President, Prime Minister, Generalissimo, Senator of State, Chancellor of Economy, Ect. After the first assignment where countries are established and group are set up, and these would be reflective on a google doc similar to the one we have now,  and groups would be responsible for connecting these roles to the book. Following that assignment thoughout the semester the group will be given a set of events that happened in their country, similar to SCAP breakup, these events can be the same across countries or be different for fun. Conflict events like earthquakes, tidal waves, volcancos erupting, groups will need to be able to solve these issues using strategies from the book and reporting on a google doc. More types of events could be: financial crisis, riots, war, unions, and to deal with these issues they must honor the roles in which they are held too, based on whatever role they have the must connect their roles responsibility to the event and how they should react individually and as a group. After each historical event, each group member must perform a “Job Evaluation” on how their government and members of government did through said event. You could even throw a wrench in half way through the semester and enforce possible role changes exp: another election, hostile. takeover, etc. At the end of the semester each group must present the history of their country as it happened throughout the class. The End.

Objectives: This project will be applied to course work because each event that will happen will need to be connected to a chapter within the book on how their governments will respond to the issue. The emphasis of this project would be group roles, and could put people in roles that they would not normally connect with and would get the opportunity to adapt that that role. As the country changes so will the group, allowing them to grow and expand.

Evaluation: As mentioned an evaluation of the group members and government as a whole will be turned in after every event, and following the last project should there have been a role changing event that took place.

This is just a general idea, I could possibly brainstorm more ideas for events, but it should be realitivly easy to borrow from things that have happened throughout history.

Blog Post #8

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I appreciated learning about all the club on campus, I didn’t realize their were so many. I enjoyed our discussion in class (as I always do). I’m glad we brought up the situation with Chick-fil-a. After class I wondered a lot about why the principal did what she did, everyone in class had a really good opinion. I mean I am all free for freedom of speech, but as far as I’m concerned, if your speaking in a negative way I wouldn’t allow that near anyone I cared about.

This weeks readings is something I had actually been recently thinking about. Did anyone hear about how the UC’s are raising their tuition? I saw it on the news the other day. In the article that asks “where are the poor students?” it’s hard to say. It points out how the increasing tuition is making it difficult for them to even attend. I’m not poor, but I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for those of a low socioeconomic status. I have financial aid and I work and to be honest I find it hard as heck to save my money, I chose between putting gas and getting food sometime because I live in LA. I commute everyday out to Camarillo and Oxnard. Luckily, I have a roof over my head, but not many are as lucky. Reading the article about Williams really moved me because you can possibly walk past someone in a hallway and you would never know that they were poor. You should really try to think twice of how lucky you are.

Survivor Blog Post #8

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In episode 9 of survivor, members begin to use leadership roles to their own personal advantage. At the beginning of the episode, it is clear that both Jeremy and John are the players with the most power. After winning the first challenge, Jeremy and Natalie decide to make a strategic move by switching places with John and Jacklyn who were on the losing team. Their tactical move is most accurately identified as an example of servant/functional leadership. Jeremy and Natalie gave up a meal and trip on a yacht to thank Jon and Jacklyn for their loyalty. They believed their selfless actions would be to the benefit of the group in that it would better unite them as a whole, ultimately strengthening their alliance.

However, after Jeremy is sent to Exile Island and realizes that Jon has been withholding an idol, Jon uses leader-member relations in order to promote his own plan. Jon chooses to confess to Missy that he has idol and reveals that he is fearful Jeremy will use it to plot everyone against him later in the competition. By confiding in Missy, a member of his own alliance, he tries to mobilize his plan and attempt to recruit others to execute a main goal. In the end, it appears his idea was successful when Jeremy was unexpectedly blindsided and voted out.

5 Essential Elements in CI Learn

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While the current semester is coming to an end, the new semester’s courses in CI Learn are available and before you know it it’ll be time to get those courses ready for students. Moving forward with successful course design in mind, here are 5 essential elements in a CI Learn course.

blog post 8

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In last weeks class Julian talked about the variety of clubs offered at ci,I thought It was good way to start class.The presentation got my attention ,and also got me thinking about maybe joining a club in the future. For the rest of the class we focused on gender inequality and  eventually we got into groups and shared ideas on the article The new approach for non conforming youth. We also focused on the Chik-fil-a and why the principle of the Ventura high school decided to ban chik fil a was it because of her personal feelings because she herself is part of the LGBT community or other unknown reasons,.I think if I was in her position I would have done the same because  a company like chik fil a is well known and the owner was very open about being  against LGBT and since they were going to be with high school students they might think its o to think that way because they are on campus selling their product. But I can also see why people were outraged as well because even though the chik fil a owner has his opinion they would  not actually be talking about LGBT communities in the actual fundraising  and also because this may have helped the school financially because of this people thought she was being selfish.

This weeks readings we  focused on students with low socioeconomic status it was interesting to learn the reality some people face when they are faced with not only being poor but being homeless and trying to pursue a higher education. The article about josh Williams was inspirational because we never really stop and think about students that may be actually going through this situation, I for example never thought a homeless person would even think about education when they don’t have basic needs. Williams was committed not only was he homeless but most incredibly almost no one knew what was actually going on. The fact that in the long run he succeed it really proves anything is possible if you believe in it, now he only has the memories of those days when he used to walk down the bridge all night as a homeless college student. In the article Homeless: How residential instability complies students lives I was really amazed to learn that their is 3.5 million people experiencing homelessness each year, sadly we choose to look away or don’t know how to help. The article talked about he challenges homeless students face because partly of the Vento homeless assistance act that focuses mainly on younger children and few protections for students attending postsecondary institutions. For this reason it is imperative for schools to partner with organizations that support homeless students. Another article that I found was interesting was the article called College access for the working poor I learned that the working poor adults face financial challenges but most importantly they never really had the knowledge about the steps needed to prepare academically  and financially for higher education.

 

 

Blog #8

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Last week we went over gender inequality. We talked about the different challenges that women, homosexual and transgender groups face in a day to day scenario. The class also discussed the chick-fil-a controversy about selling food at Ventura High School. Julian also gave us a presentation about the opportunities that CI provides for students such as getting involved on campus. I have been interested in joining a club but I had to postpone it because I wanted to get used to my upper-division classes. But hopefully next semester I am able to find a job on campus and join the CI community. I have to admit that I was disappointed when I found out that the club I was interested in joining lost its recognition on our campus a couple weeks ago.  :(

This week’s readings focused on the socioeconomic status among students. The first reading I did was titled, “Homeless How residential Instability Complicates Students’ Lives”. This reading introduced the topic of yet another minority group in the school system, the homeless. It also talked about the resources available to students such as schools providing enough money to live in residential halls. This is not always beneficial because students hit a wall once the semester is over and the funding stops.

The second reading was Classism. This reading explained how people become divided in society based on economic status. It was broken down from the top of the government all the way down to the individual. The author argues that everyone has some type of responsibility in reducing poverty. In the working report, I learned more about who is considered the working poor is and how this label affects their families and their education. The author also gave suggestions of what could be done to help. In the Howard-Levine reading, these men had a conversation about social class and College. In their conversation they discussed about how there are not many success stories happening in poor communities anymore. They discussed how some students who lacked opportunity, yet decided to pursue higher education, had someone who impacted their lives and motivated them to move forward.

Another topic covered was how many of the poor youth that goes to a university have a hard time relating to their peers because they do not share a common ground. One of the things that stood out to me in this article was that Levine mentioned that “we equate race and poverty”. He said this while giving an example of how some people use race and poverty as if they went hand in hand. One solution that they proposed was to create a conscious space on campus for these students. This might give them more confidence to open up and go out to look for resources that will help. While these kids try to better their lives through education, they still become conflicted with making money or continuing their studies. Poverty is an issue that many students have struggled with for a long time. Maybe if schools were to change the way on how they reach out to the youth who live in poverty, these young teenagers/adults could have a better chance of winning scholarships and grants that will lead them to better living conditions and also a better future.

LLM Module Work Due Tonight

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Class:

As a reminder, by tonight you need to have made changes to your portion of the leadership learning module as noted by your classmates.  Also, if you have not done the work due last night, it needs to be done tonight.  The lack of timeliness (not everyone) is causing me to seriously rethink our ability to effectively facilitate this module with these high school students; something like this requires 100% commitment since we are representing the University and educating youth.

Here is a review of the work that was/is due this week: http://ls490.jaimiehoffman.com/week-13-work-week/

Blog 8

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Last weeks class started with Julian explaining to us just how important it is to be involved here at CI. He showed us a PowerPoint of many different clubs that way we could see what they offered here on campus. I was really interested in the Ballet Folkclorico and the different services they offer at the Channel Islands Harbor. We then started talking about the Chik-fil-A issue at Ventura High School. I thought it was a very controversial issue and could have been solved in many different ways but no matter what people should have supported her decision. When we talked about how we probably did not know the whole story it made me realize how so many of us are quick to judge when in reality we only know part of the whole story. The new approach for Non-Conforming Youth article was revitalizing because I felt that everyone took the main points of that article that they thought were important and we got to compare just how many people had the same idea. We then broke up into groups to answer questions about gender differences it was great to be able to hear everyone’s opinion about this current controversy.

My favorite article so far has to be From Homeless to College Grad. I thought it was such an inspiring story and it made realize just how many people could be going through the same situation as him or maybe not even have a friends place to stow their clothes and other possessions. It really blows my mind that so many people could be going through these situations and we would not know unless they spoke out about it. I know how hard it is to pay for tuition and housing myself because I do live on campus and had a hard time paying for that I had to take out two loans because financial aid was not enough. It is a very stressful situation to be in and I cannot begin to imagine what he went through every single day juggling life and school. This is why I think it is such an inspiring story that gives many of us hope. The Where are the Poor Students? Is a conversation about social class and college attendance but the part that really struck me was that residents of his neighborhood are not convinced that education is worth their time. This reminded me of people that start school but do not put in the effort to continue even though they have all the resources to succeed. It is saddening to know that so many people with so much potential do not put in the effort to do something with the gifts and talents they have been given.  The Working Poor Report article was mostly statistics and facts and when I saw the areas of older adults trying to find work it reminded me of a time where my mom, dad, and older brother could not find a job. Neither young or old they were all denied a job when they would apply to so many places it was one of the lowest points for my family. This ties into the Individuals section of the Classism article. It says: “individuals must take responsibility for themselves and their families.” I can understand how this could be offensive because people are trying to do this but how can they achieve this if they do not have a job and people do not give them the opportunity to sustain their family and themselves. All in all I really enjoyed this weeks readings and found them to be inspiring to keep moving forward.

Group leadership

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True group leadership was shown in the award challenge. Natalie and Jeremy and their team won the challenge, but when it can to get the their award Natalie and Jeremy spoke up and gave their award to John and Jaclyn. They didn’t have to do that but they did and that shows great group leadership because John and Jaclyn both work hard in the group but haven’t been able to win an award challenge since the merge. Knowing that they work super hard in the group Natalie and John wanted to show their appreciation by giving them their award.

John and Jaclyn became leaders by power. They stuck together to show that they work together as a couple and as a team. They make decisions together which made them the leaders of the group. They are able to convince the other players to vote Jeremy off the show by telling them that he is the biggest threat in the group and taking him out now would be their biggest and best play right now.

When it came time to the immunity challenge Baylor won immunity. Jeremy was voted off because he showed lack of trust and the biggest threat within the group, because that is what John and Jaclyn told them, which caused the group to vote Jeremy off.