Sep

25

“Freshbloggers”

September 25, 2009 | by Mikhail Gershovich | 8 Comments

The Schwartz Communication Institute’s Luke Waltzer just posted to cac.ophony an interesting discussion of one of our most ambitious projects to date, the introduction of student blogging into every section of Freshman Seminar. In Luke’s words, “every Freshman Seminar at Baruch currently is blogging. That’s roughly 60 sections, populated by over 1200 students. Yowser.”
The [...]

Jul

21

VOCAT and the Question of Openness

July 21, 2009 | by Mikhail Gershovich | 6 Comments

x-posted from cac.ophony.org
It recently occurred to me that very little has been written about the Schwartz Communication Institute’s most ambitious and potentially most promising project, our Video Oral Communication Assessment Tool, or VOCAT. I have presented on VOCAT a number of times over the years (most recently at the 2009 Computers and Writing conference in [...]

Jun

16

Citing Sources in Slide Presentation

June 16, 2009 | by Stephen Francoeur | 9 Comments

A student I was helping at the reference desk recently asked me to examine a slide presentation he and a classmate were working on for an assignment. On one slide, there appeared a bulletted item that was clearly not written by the students. When I mentioned to the student that she should consider putting quote [...]

Mar

11

A+ . . . Despite Heavy Accent

March 11, 2009 | by Elisabeth Gareis | 10 Comments

Question: A student gives a presentation. He has a heavy foreign accent and is at times incomprehensible. Overall, the speech seems well researched and on target. What do you do?
a. Give him an A.
b. Subtract points for incomprehensibility and give him a B.
c. Tell him that the presentation was unacceptable and that he should improve [...]

Oct

30

Increasing Student Participation – the Response Sheet

October 30, 2008 | by Leah Schanke | 8 Comments

For those of us who were painfully shy as children – “painful” really is the right word – we recall our teachers telling us that we must participate in class discussions. I still have my high school report cards – the most frequent comment is “needs to participate more.” I remember even being very shy [...]

Oct

16

Getting a Grip on Traditions

October 16, 2008 | by Leah Schanke | 1 Comment

Dennis Slavin, Associate Provost, is to be credited for this blog post’s title. We would like to direct you to a conversation between Dennis Slavin and Mikhail Gershovich, Director of the Bernard L. Schwartz Communication Institute at Baruch College, about teaching traditional essay structures at:
http://cac.ophony.org/2008/10/15/the-deadly-grip-of-tradition/
Below is a link to information on Student Writing at Baruch [...]