12I Writing Center

The writing center is a resource that many students should and do take advantage of. At the writing

center is where you have to make an appointment for a day that you are free and you go in and you have an instructor to help you. 

When I went to the writing center last week it was very helpful in knowing where to add more information and support in the paper and how to organize my thoughts. Going over this with the instructor was helpful in the way that when I went to write my final draft for this essay that it read so much smoother than my rough draft. They gave me ways on how to work on editing my own paper by re reading it out loud and carefully reading to myself over and over again trying to make sure that I have enough support to back up my arguments. 

It was definitely a nice experience to have and I recommend many students to take advantage of not only this resource provided for us, but many of the other ones like tutors or math centers where help is there just waiting for you to make take that step if you need help. 

12B How Are Innovation and Liberal Arts Education Related?

What is innovation and how does it relate to a liberal arts education?

Innovation is like a process of change or altering things. For example, you innovate a business if you think it in needs to be changed and altered for the businesses sake. Remodeling it or something like that can be an example of innovation. Or look at it like this; if I innovate a topic in class I have changed the subject or showed my opinion of the topic and altered what I think is the meaning of the topic and its strengths. 

Relating innovation and a liber arts education is very simple. A liberal arts education entails for a college students to become more innovated. This type of education provides the student to become more aware of thinking outside the box and to be more interesting because they have explored other areas in order to become more ware of other knowledge other than the one that pertains to their major. Students that come out from college with intrinsic motivation are more likely to be more innovated and think differently and possibly observe more than others who are not intrinsically motivated. Employers hiring and offering jobs are looking for a people that are innovated and know how to think on their feet. Without a liberal arts education it defeats the purpose of going to school unless you want to learn just about you’re major by attending technical schools or boarding schools. Many people may disagree with a liberal arts education, but to be a part of this type of education and leave as an innovated students then you have successfully taken in everything a liberal arts education can provide for you.

Learning how to ask and answer to inquiry questions in class definitely has helped me for all my classes. Applying what I have read from articles towards answers with support and evidence helps me become a better student. 

12A Benefits of A Liberal Arts Education

From the readings this week so far and the discussions we have had in class, a liberal arts education is what many and most universities have as their education as a foundation for the students. To me a liberal arts education contains a foundation for students to first obtain basic knowledge. With this it just refreshes the students mind of how college setting are going to be like and how to become critical thinkers for their own use as their academics progresses. Second, it helps us with our critical thinking skills as I mentioned before. Along with our communication, and problem solving skills, which is what everyone should have a good grasp on. Third, is to have a learning foundation to be able to specialize in what we are majoring in. Not only will this foundation help the way we learn, but it will also conform us into a different way of looking at things.

 Finally, this type of education lets us as students explore the different types of majors that the university has to offer to us. By doing this is gives us an opportunity to explore areas that we never thought of exploring and giving us possibilities to perhaps change our minds on our majors. It makes us more diverse and has more knowledge on things that we did not know about before. In the real world people with business and owners of companies are looking for diverse people who do not just know about they’re major, but are also aware of other areas and things happening around us. 

The qualities and the content that a liberal arts education provides to a student are magical. We get to learn so much and explore different areas in different majors that you never know can change your mind. Applying one of the reading this week, this provides for innovated students to be able to think on their feet and think outside the box in pressured situations. If you're an intrinsically motivated person than you will be able to obtain new knowledge and skills continually. Learning about just the facts is not enough and nor will it be so helpful, but learning about the concepts and the creativity part of it will be a lot more helpful. 

"The capacity to innovate — the ability to solve problems creatively or bring new possibilities to life — and skills like critical thinking, communication and collaboration are far more important than academic knowledge"

11B Comparing & Contrasting Questions

After analyzing different types of questions this week and going over what is a good question and what is not. I believe that it has helped me to be able to ask myself new and different questions when I study or at least to know what to expect what kind of questions there will be on some exams and quizzes. Going over the specifics of what an answer to a question should contain also helped this week. I feel that this spending time on this and doing group activities has helped so much too. An answer has to contain specific examples, evidence, support, a starting sentence, and ending sentence. If your answer had all of these then you have answered the question to the best of your ability, but also with evidence to back up your answer. For this blog we have to choose questions that stand out to that we think and us are great examples of good questions.

The blog that I thought had good questions was this blog, http://turnupthecountry.blogspot.com. In her blog she purposes great questions by asking two part questions. These questions allow the person answering the questions to answer an easy question, but then put into context. To show how it supports his answer to the question and gives evidence on why his answer should be supported. She also gives specific questions not vague which results in a broad answer and not really answering much of a question.

Knowing how to answer questions and ask questions will definitely help me in my future of academics!

11A What Are Good Questions?

Over this past week in class we have been analyzing what are and are not good inquiry questions. Talking about from being to vague or opinionated questions that would be questions for like blogs not quizzes. A few questions that I believe are good inquiry questions are:

A nurturing environment is important for thinking, so how is a nurturing environment important for creativity?

How does connectivity relate to having a nurturing environment and why is it important?

Innovation is a great way to add to creativity and the way we picture certain things. How does connectivity and innovation strengthen each other to make creative things even more creative?

What is connectivity? How does it affect when people get bored? 

I think these four questions are great inquiry questions because they all basically have two parts to them and are not vague. They ask straight to the point questions that make the person answering the question be able to relate different topics we have discovered in class. To answer the first question, a nurturing environment is important to creativity because if people are not allowing for kids to show their creative ways then the creativity they have inside will not be shown. By shunning the creativity some kids have backfires because without a nurturing environment then kids will not know how to show their creative ways. For example, the choreographer that was shunned because her mother did not allow expressing herself with dance and once allowing it, it has affected the dance world so much. She became to be professional and is known worldwide for all the choreographies she has done and how great they are. 

Having good questions and answers is important because it shows that you have comprehended what you have read. 

11V What New Ideas Do You Have?

When you think of altering and making changes to an idea or project it is called innovation. For example, when you own or work in a business you are innovating ideas and methods to the project you are working on. Or think of it like this, you innovate your house by changing the floors and redoing your kitchen. Innovation it a great way to be creative and come up with new ideas that can make better changes.

Two new words that I have learned this in my microbiology class are endemic disease and epidemic disease. Endemic disease is when a disease is constantly present in a population. Epidemic disease is when a disease acquired by many hosts in a given area in a short time. These two words are related to what we are in class considering we are learning about how diseases occur and travel.

Everyday is a day to learn so take advantage of that opportunity we have!

11I Hike Up West Rock

This week my roommates and I decided to go for a hike up West Rock. We all enjoy the outdoors and since it was not too bad of weather this week we went on Wednesday after our classes. Since one of my roommates has a car, we drove there and parked. When we got out we looked up and were amazed by the lovely view of how tall this rock was and that we were going to hike up it. My roommates wanted to back out, but I convinced them to keep on going. We did not hike up all the way, but it was a very good experience to be able to exercise and just talk with friends. I really enjoyed bonding with my roommates and on the way we all looked at each as if we wanted to give up, but did not. When we knew that we were all tired we headed back down the rock to get something to eat. Over all, this was great experience and would love to do it again!