November Monthly Summary

Jessica commented on group 1 and

Charlene commented on groups 2 and 4
Becky commented on groups 1 and 4

November Monthly Summary

                Group 3 has continued to work really well together as we put together some of our final group projects. At the beginning of the semester, we decided to meet on Tuesday evenings on Blackboard Messenger to discuss our assignments and how we wanted to proceed. We continued that throughout the month of November, and we found it to be quite successful. Our meetings allowed us to talk about each assignment and plan out how we wanted to approach them. It seemed that as we were more proactive in our communication, we were more effective completing the assignment.

                For the Important Adult/Community Education Organizations paper, we decided to split the assignment into thirds and then come together to edit and finalize the assignment. Charlene took charge of the introduction, Becky wrote the roles & responsibilities section, and I wrapped up the discussion. We decided to write about and do more research on the adult/community education organizations that sponsor the programs we researched for the previous assignment. Having something of a theme between the assignments allowed us to further explore those organizations and gain a deeper understanding of their impacts on the community.

                For our E-archive, we decided to create a website using wix.com. Becky had some experiencing using wix, so she took the lead designing the page. We then loaded our assignments to the webpage as well as short group member bios, headshots, links to resources related to our assignments, and a link to our blog. One of the challenges we faced creating this E-archive was that only Becky had much experience creating a webpage, so for Charlene and I there was a bit of a learning curve. However, the website we used to create our archive was very user friendly, and Becky was very helpful.  

                Ultimately, our group worked very well together. I think we each took something slightly different away from our group work experiences, but our assignments allowed us to gain a better understanding of the educational opportunities available to adults across the world. Our better understanding of these adult/community education programs and organizations will allow us to more effectively help adults who are seeking to learn. 

October Summary

Becky Commented on Groups 2 and 4.

Charlene commented on Groups 1 and 2

October has flown by and group 3 has been working hard while working well together! We have had a great working relationship from the beginning and it has been a blessing to be in this fantastic group!

Highlights           

                                                                    

We are working together very well! We have a nice system of meeting on Tuesdays via Blackboard IM to discuss progress and have live-time chat sessions. It has been great for brainstorming and building off of each other’s ideas. It’s also been a great check-in to make sure we are all on the same page and keeping pace with our goals for the upcoming project.

We did a great job of agreeing on the programs to be researched for our second paper as well as the splitting up of duties. Charlene took on the introduction, Becky tackled the comparison and Jessica brought it all together with the conclusion. Becky put the pieces together and Charlene and Jessica made the necessary editorial changes and Becky put the final touches on to complete the paper!

This paper was Adult and Community Education Programs. We chose to look at the Worker’s Education Association’s University Tutorial Classes as well as the Carnegie Corporation of New York's Pathways to Citizenship and Civic Integration Program. These two programs are very different but both provide great programs to adults to help make their communities better places to live.

Challenges                    

We struggled a little bit with deciding what programs to use. We had many ideas but discovered many of those ideas were organizations and less of just a program. Even when we decided on the University Tutorial Classes and the Pathways to Citizenship and Civic Integration Program, we still had times where we were focusing more on the organization than on the program. Charlene did a good job of reminding us the goal of the paper and not letting us get off track.

Our use of Blackboard IM as well as timely emails helped us to stay on track and make decisions about our programs. Also, by sending emails throughout the week, we were able to stay on course and make adjustments as needed. We worked well together, respected each other’s opinions and respected each other’s time. We set deadlines that none of us were able to meet within our own group and we communicated about that and worked together to re-set deadlines that we were able to work with and still submitted our paper early. Our communication has really helped us be successful in dealing with challenges.

Application

We did just a little research on just two programs. The opportunities for adult education are endless. This research and paper allows us to see that if there is something out there that someone is wanting to learn, or needing help with, there is probably a program available to help. It just takes a little time to research and find out where the program is located and what it offers. There is so much out there we were not aware of before this assignment. 

Plans for Next Month            

We will be working more on our organizations research for the next paper. I believe we are going to do more research on the Worker’s Education Association and the Carnegie Corporation, to build on the information we found in our last paper.  

Gained from Last Assignment

We found so much information on our programs and how the organizations do so much more than just that one particular program where we focused. That information fueled our desires to continue researching the organizations to find out more about what they do and how they benefit their communities.

September 2014 Monthly Summary

(Charlene commented on Group 2, 4, 5 blogs)

September has been a very busy month for the members of Group Three. Time is flying by so quickly and it is hard to believe that we are at the halfway mark for the class. We have been communicating primarily through Blackboard using the Group Discussion Boards as well as the Blackboard IM feature.

Getting Started

Things were a little hectic at first, but we are slowly getting into a groove as far as working together and planning our work. As is typical with group projects, finding the best time for everyone to meet was a challenge. We were able to coordinate our schedules and link up quickly on IM to discuss our progress. We have reviewed the syllabus countless times and it is usually the focus of our chat- making sure everyone is clear on what is expected, what should be done, due dates, assignment details etc.

The Blog Experience

Blogging is new to all members of Group Three. We are amateurs, but we’re enjoying every step of the learning process. Becky created the blog and gave us the coolest name: “The Best EDAC 631 Group 3!” Charlene added the template and labels. We all plan to continue working on the blog to make it more user-friendly and esthetically pleasing. Our blog is a work-in-progress, but we are determined to live up to our name as the BEST!

History of Adult/Community Education Paper

Each member researched a different decade: Charlene researched the 1860’s, Jessica the 1950’s, and Becky the 1980’s. Each paper is extremely diverse and we are finding ways to link our information and apply it to the remaining projects. The History assignment was helpful because it provided a lot of background information for our next assignment: Leading Adult/Community Educator Paper.

Leading Adult/Community Educators Paper

We each listed educators that we were interested in and decided to focus on Malcolm Knowles and Booker T. Washington. Our History paper research will be helpful for this project because Jessica wrote about Malcolm Knowles’ influence during the 1950’s in her paper and Charlene wrote about Booker T. Washington’s influence during the 1860’s in her paper. We were able to begin the project with valuable information because of the previous assignment.

The good thing about working in this group is that everyone is eager to work and very interested in the educators we selected. We decided to split up the responsibilities as follows:

Charlene – Background and Profiles of each educator

Becky – Perspectives and Contributions of each educator

Jessica – Impact and Implications of each educator’s work

Each group member will have the opportunity to learn about each educator and provide summaries for the final paper. Jessica will work on the Introduction and Conclusion sections, Charlene will organize each of the summaries and make them more cohesive for the paper, and Becky will bring everything together into one paper.

Monthly Summaries

Since there are only three members in our group we were able to easily split up the responsibility of posting each month’s summary. Charlene will handle September, Jessica will complete October, and Becky will complete November’s summary.

Next Steps

We have not determined which programs we want to focus on for the Unique Adult/Community Education Programs project. We will spend next month brainstorming and researching programs of interest. We will continue to link up to discuss our ideas and to determine each group member’s responsibilities. The blog will be continually updated as well. We plan to add pictures and color too so it is a bit easier on the eyes for our readers.