Blog posts are my commentaries about a topic in higher education. Subscribe to the blog to have new posts delivered directly to your email.
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In my previous blog post, I wrote about a reflective essay assignment for a first-semester English Composition class. The assignment asks students to explain how a personal object symbolizes them. Students often write a about a valuable object such as their laptop, cell phone, or pickup truck, or they write about an emotionally-meaningful object such
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Reflective writing is a major component of how I teach a first-semester English Composition course – two other major components are rhetorical analysis and argumentation. Students actually write several reflection assignments in my class, as both major assignments and daily writing and reading activities. In this blog post, I am going to describe the English
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The beginning of the semester is often the time instructors put together the course syllabus. What should go in a syllabus? Here is a description of the most common components in a college course syllabus. I have grouped the components into categories. Instructor Contact Information and Availability The instructor’s contact information and their availability for
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2024 was a great year for me because of the many state-wide educational projects I was involved with. These included Early Childhood Education, College & Career Pathways, Developmental Education Reform, Dual Credit, the Illinois Success Network, Transitional English, Academic Assessment, and the Council of Community College Administrators. Here is a summary. Early Childhood Education In
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Early College programs – including Dual Credit and Advanced Placement (AP) courses – have become a major component of the high school and college experience, and these course types are fundamentally changing how students experience college. Dual Credit is when a high school student takes a college course (either at the high school or at
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Many Learning Management Systems (LMS) for online courses – such as Canvas, D2L Brightspace, Blackboard, and Moodle – have “Availability Dates” and “Due Dates” for assignments, quizzes, and discussions. These dates can control when students are able to submit assignments and whether they are able to earn full credit. This post will describe the difference
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Developmental Education is coursework students complete “below” the college level. These are often courses that don’t count towards a college degree. Traditionally, students may be required to take two to four developmental courses – especially in English, Reading, or Math – before beginning their college-level courses in English Composition or College Algebra. In recent years,
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Lord Byron is most prominently known and celebrated as a poet and cultural icon. His long poems (Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Don Juan, The Giaour) helped define the British Romantic movement, and he inspired generations of writers, including Mary and Percy Shelley, Letitia Landon, Tennyson, the Bronte sisters, and many others. He was also personally involved
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Tax season often inspires people to think about their financial status and to explore financial investments for the future. Fortunately, educators often qualify for many tax-free or tax-deferred investment plans. (Traditionally, educators have said that the retirement benefits are worth pursuing a career in education.) These plans allow educators to grow their investments without paying
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The beginning of the year is a great time to reflect on the previous year’s goals and to start planning for the next year’s annual plan. An annual plan is a document that lists goals, strategies, action items, deadlines, and metrics for success. As a college administrator, I regularly create goals and strategies for my
Lirim Neziroski 