Written Communication

"The learner will exchange ideas and information with others using written text in a manner effective and appropriate for the intended audience."

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Summary: Through the core skill of written communication, I will effectively learn how to communicate through writing and also build upon and utilize new writing skills that will assist me in spreading my ideas about problems, solutions, and overall events to the correct group of people and correct demographic.

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Goals:

1.) Build upon my writing skills already learned to develop a deeper understanding of proper communication through various styles of writing.

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2.) Become more adaptable in future writing situations in order to be more open-minded and prepared when it comes to new ways of writing.

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       For my Written Communication artifact, I have chosen to display my proposal written in my ENG-112 class in the spring of 2019. When this class first began, I became super nervous about the work that was being required for this class. I was accustomed to writing informative essays and argumentative ones, but this class presented a whole new challenge with planned projects that were going to involve me looking at real-world situations in disciplines and even solving the problems of a certain business. For the entirety of the class, I chose to write about the discipline of music because I have always been very passionate about music and what it does for humanity. The first paper I undertook wasn't too difficult in that it was basically an informative paper about the discipline of our choice. However, when it came time to start the proposal, I honestly did not know what to make of it or where to begin. We were being told that we were going to have to choose a discipline and then choose an area locally that had a problem pertaining to that discipline and create a solution for the problem. My professor, Mr. Calvin Jones explained to us that this is what a proposal was: taking a real-world problem and providing a solution to that problem while also providing feasible ways to get or obtain the solution. This meant that we also had to provide the implementation for the solution, such as the approximate monetary costs that would go with the solution. After hearing all this, my heart was racing, how could I possibly get through an assignment as complex as this. In the end, what it took was careful planning and strong research to really bring the project together; getting reputable sources in the SPCC database proved challenging, but it helped to strengthen my solution even further.

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       During the process of creating this assignment, I had two goals that I wanted to accomplish by the time I had finished the project. The first goal I had was to "build upon my writing skills already learned to develop a deeper understanding of proper communication through various styles of writing." Even though initially hearing about this assignment stressed me out completely, my knowledge gained about formatting papers, proper research, and writing skills from ENG-111 helped me immensely with the construction of my proposal. This strong foundation provided me with a way to get started on the proposal and allowed me to then take the skills from ENG-112 and apply those on top of the foundation that was already there. The outcome of this was extremely strong research and sources as well as a well-constructed delivery of those sources respectively.

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       The second goal that I wanted to achieve with this assignment was to "become more adaptable in future writing situations in order to be more open-minded and prepared when it comes to new ways of writing." This goal was met because of my increased understanding of the subject I was researching and through my newfound knowledge of how to create implementations and properly research things such as costs and overall financial effects of a solution. With this assignment having been completed, I can safely say I would feel much more confident in producing various types of writing assignments, even though the type of assignment might be something completely new.

 

       Although this class seemed extremely daunting when I first began, I can now look back and say that this was one of the most important classes I took during my time at SPCC. I entered this class with a strong sense of pride in my ability as a writer, and this class was able to take that ability and apply it to an entirely different area of English besides just normal essays and opinion papers. ENG-112 gave me a much-needed push out of my comfort zone that I had been used to for so long in previous classes; and I can truly say it helped to mold me into an even better writer, researcher, and analyzer as a whole. 

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Oral Communication

"The learner will exchange ideas and information with others using the spoken word in a manner effective and appropriate for the intended audience."

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Summary: Similar to written communication, I will express my ideas and beliefs, this time through oral means. I will consistently use speech to portray my thoughts, opinions, and overall stance on certain topics; all the while considering my audience and circumstances.

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Goals: 

1.) Be able to express my ideas and beliefs properly through a means of oral communication in order to reflect my ideals.

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2.) Be able to utilize foundational skills already learned and build upon them so that I can better address topics through different lenses and methods.

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       For my Oral Communication artifact, I have chosen to display my second speech from my public speaking class in the fall of 2020. This particular speech I chose was different from the first one in that it involves the persuasion of the audience on a particular topic of choice by the presenter. COM-231, like ENG-112, was also a class that I was particularly nervous about because of the fact that I would have to give speeches in front of my classmates while also being graded on factors such as fluidity of speech and a certain time requirement for each presentation. I remember thinking to myself, "there is no way that I am going to be able to make the time requirement and memorize all of the content and research that I have to convey to my audience." When the class began, thoughts like these were constantly circulating through my head and I often questioned how I was going to find a manageable way to make it through the course with a satisfactory grade. In the end, I of course made it through the class; and fortunately, I did so with an "A" and an invaluable amount of new knowledge of public speaking, presentation preparations, and things like outlines and annotated bibliographies. This assignment, in particular, was more difficult than the first informative speech that I presented but it was also easier to grasp because I had already put together all the parts of a speech before. Now I had to do it again, with a few changes made to the overall format and structure of delivery.

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       When I first started the steps to begin creating this assignment, I had two goals in mind that I wanted to achieve with the assignment itself. The first goal I had in mind was to "be able to express my ideas and beliefs properly through a means of oral communication in order to reflect my ideals." This goal was of the utmost importance in regard to this assignment because the speech was based on persuasion. Mrs. Gardner made it clear to the whole class before beginning the assignment that we needed to choose a persuasive topic that we were passionate about and would be interested in researching. Looking back, the fact that I chose a topic under these guidelines made the project much more manageable and interesting because I was spending my time researching and developing a topic that I had a personal interest in. I ended up deciding that I was going to persuade the audience why the Electoral College needs to be maintained and protected in the modern US election system; with the 2020 election close at hand at the time, this topic was also relevant to the time period and made it a logical choice as my topic. With a topic chosen that meant a lot to me and reflected some of the values that I believe in, I was then able to more easily persuade the audience of my position through an oral means. Looking back, the actual delivery of my speech could have been done with a little more confidence in my information and resources, but overall I was able to comfortably persuade my audience orally because of the comfort I had in the information I was discussing.

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       The second goal that I had when it came to the creation of this assignment was to "be able to utilize foundational skills already learned and build upon them so that I can better address topics through different lenses and methods." One of the advantages that I had going into this assignment was the fact that I already had an informative speech under my belt and had also done a reasonably good job on that assignment. Creating all the parts that went along with the persuasive speech such as the annotated bibliography, PowerPoint, and speech outline was a much smoother process this time around because I had the foundation laid from the first assignment I completed. Something that had to change this time was that the speech outline had to be written following the template of "Monroe's Motivated Sequence" which was the process used when creating persuasive speeches. It involved the steps of attention, need, satisfaction, visualization, and call to action. Lastly, during the final delivery of my speech, the foundation from my informative speech delivery helped me to remain calmer and communicate my topic in a way that would logically appeal to my audience.

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       Once again, the amount of new knowledge and skills that I was able to obtain from COM-231 is immeasurable and I am truly thankful to Mrs. Gardner for all the things she taught over the course of the class. I personally feel like I was able to greatly increase my ability to speak in front of people while also being able to pull a huge project together in a relatively short amount of time. Concepts like outlines and annotated bibliographies were completely new to me when this class began; but now, I would feel very comfortable with creating and formatting these documents as well as showing others how to do it as well.

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Critical Thinking

"The learner will identify, interpret, analyze, or synthesize problems before developing and implementing solutions in a manner effective and appropriate for the intended audience."

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Summary: I will be able to effectively make strong and accurate decisions about problems that may arise over the course of my education. The problems that I face will be analyzed and solved in a way that the solution can best represent the audience in question. The solution will also be able to be portrayed and showed in many different ways to increase the audience's understanding.

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Goals:

1.) I will exhibit my critical thinking through a variety of ways and methods. These skills will be demonstrated multiple times to exhibit my consistent high-level thinking and intuition.

 

2.) Be able to not only successfully solve problems, but also properly show my reasoning and explain how I came to my final conclusions; especially through the means of examination.

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       For my Critical Thinking artifact, I have chosen to display a select number of problems from the second test that I took in MAT-171. This class holds a special place in my journey at SPCC because it was the very first college class that I took on campus. The class involved pre-calculus algebra math, which is something that I did have experience within high school so I wasn't too worried about getting a good grade in the class. I took the class every Monday and Wednesday from 8:00 am - 10:20 am! This large amount of time did seem like a drag on some days but most of the time the class went by incredibly fast. We covered multiple lessons in one day since we only met two days out of the week, were assigned online homework in MyLab Math, and then were tested on our knowledge whenever we came to the end of a lesson. The setup of the class was fairly familiar, and I came to enjoy the schedule and how the class operated. I strived to do my best on the problems presented in this class in order to make sure I was properly prepared for the examination. This led to me being able to also show my skills on exams just as well as I could on homework. 

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       When working my way through problems and completing tests, I had two goals that I wanted to achieve just about every time I undertook a new homework assignment or began a new exam. The first of these goals was to "exhibit my critical thinking skills through a variety of ways and methods. These skills will be demonstrated multiple times to exhibit my consistent high-level thinking and intuition." In order to complete this goal properly, I had to make sure I looked at every new problem with a fresh mind so that I could effectively think about what the problem was itself and how I would arrive at the solution. Not only did I want to show my critical thinking, but I also wanted to do it in a variety of ways and methods which meant I had to become fluent in all kinds of problems that were brought to my attention. One of the examples where I feel as though I was able to show my critical thinking in a variety of ways was on the second test that I completed in the class. On the PDFs provided below, I was able to successfully solve problems that involved finding the difference quotient, solving by the means of synthetic division, and solving inequalities as well. These problems were also all solved correctly indicated by the red checkmark next to the answers given. Being able to use critical thinking skills through a variety of ways and methods is best shown on exams, due to the fact that a whole bunch of lessons and content must be performed altogether.

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       The second goal that I wanted to achieve when it came to Critical Thinking was to "be able to not only successfully solve problems but also properly show my reasoning and explain how I came to my final conclusions; especially through the means of examination. Using critical thinking in a variety of ways and methods is great within itself, but one also needs to be able to explain why specific critical thinking was used and show how they came to their solution rationally. This is also shown in the test examples provided through shown work on each and every one of the problems. What I strived to do when dealing with problems on an exam was to break it down as far as it needed to be in order to solve it and then clearing a circle or box my answer to make my conclusion clear to my instructor. Being able to explain my reasoning on paper also translated to other critical thinking skills needed in classes like biology and English; which I was also taking during the same semester. With this knowledge in mind, I would definitely say I was successfully able to demonstrate critical thinking while also being able to apply it in other situations around SPCC as well.

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       A great number of foundational skills for college-level learning were able to be picked up from this class, and I am very thankful that I was able to take part in a college math class so early on in my journey at SPCC because it allowed me to gain skills that I would need for almost every other class that I would take at the school. Looking back, I would not have been able to successfully complete a lot of the assignments that I did if I had not further developed my critical thinking skills to match the college level of thinking and intuition.

 

 

 

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Intercultural Competence

"The learner will demonstrate cultural awareness and objectivity through critical reflection."

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Summary: Aside from using oral and written communication, I will be able to effectively display my ideas, opinions, and research through digital means. As well as keeping the appropriate audience in mind when creating new websites, papers, and media.

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Goals:

1.) I will critically reflect on personal accounts of history and experience through a purely objective means.

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2.) Be able to show strong cultural awareness by looking at the similarities and differences between recent and past personal experiences.

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       For my Intercultural Competence artifact, I have chosen to display my oral history reflection, completed in my American History II class (HIS-132) during the fall of 2020. This was the second American history class that I took at SPCC and this particular assignment was given towards the end of the semester; in fact, I think it was one of the last ones that we had to do for the class because it was the ePortfolio project for the course. I took both American history classes completely online because of the COVID-19 pandemic being at some of its peak points at the time. Anyways, this assignment that was provided towards the end of HIS-132 was unlike any American history assignment that had been given before. This one involved taking three examples of oral history interviews from a website and then providing a brief summary on what was discussed, and a section that compared it to other points in history that were either similar or different in nature. This process had to be completed for all three interviews so the assignment ended up being close to a paper in terms of length. Regular sources and obtaining research through reading was out of the question here, our instructor wanted us to hear personal accounts and experiences from the mouths of those who had actually experienced it. The actual experiences that we had to discuss were left to us, as the website offered many examples of interviews that could be selected and analyzed. I ended up choosing a common theme of COVID-19 with my interviews; meaning I picked ones that had different stories and experiences, but they all mentioned something about COVID-19 and how it impacted what they were discussing.

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       When I started the process of gathering the interviews and putting together information, I had two goals that I wanted to accomplish by the time I finished my work. The first of these goals was to "critically reflect on personal accounts of history and experience through a purely objective means." One thing I wanted to make sure that I completely left out of my work was my opinion on the personal accounts given. The assignment did not call for it and I wanted to ensure that I put the stories of the interviewed people at the forefront of my priorities. With this in mind, I watched three interviews that included information about a man named Scott Macaulay who provided Thanksgiving dinner to random people every year, a woman named Jinny Savolainen who gave her own personal account about how COVID-19 impacted her life, as well as a story about the Quander family who could be traced back all the way to George Washington. After listening to all of the interviews, I strived to give a strong summary of what was discussed all the while leaving my opinion out of the matter. With this accomplished on all three interviews, I learned that opinion can be used to make some assignments or projects stronger; but sometimes just good old critical reflection and objectivity is what is needed in order to really understand a topic or piece of information. Because of this, I was really able to take the interviews for what they were, and determine their place in current history and how they compared to other accounts like them.

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       The second goal that I wanted to accomplish with this assignment was to "be able to show strong cultural awareness by looking at the similarities and differences between recent and past personal experiences." Being able to write a strong summary about what I heard from the interviews was one thing, but I also wanted to be able to use some critical thinking skills along with some critical reflection in order to figure out how these stories can be compared to other events in history. This skill was obtained through the second part of the assignment that I completed. After completing the summaries, our instructor also asked us to compare what was talked about in the interview to other moments in history. Similarities were very abundant, simply due to the fact that we were going through a global pandemic at the time. Therefore, an event like COVID-19 could be easily connected to things like World War II and the Great Depression. While COVID-19 isn't anywhere near as dire as the events mentioned, some similarities can be drawn as far as what people went through and how people also gave personal accounts during those times. Due to this part of the assignment, I was really able to connect people's personal experiences of today to things in the past; and I realized that oral history will always remain a crucial factor in remembering our history.

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      HIS-132 succeeded in not only teaching me about the ins and outs of American history but also in showing me how I can appreciate where that history comes from; whether by written documents or word of mouth. By providing me with an assignment that was different than the norm, I was able to open my eyes to the importance of personal accounts and reflections of history. This made me remember how impactful first-hand accounts can be when heard in person and around the world as well. I feel like we can easily forget the impact of personal communication by word of mouth as opposed to constantly communicating by means of the digital world. Sometimes a little critical reflection can not only help you succeed in an assignment but also open your eyes to the wonders of real-life experiences.

 

 

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Information Literacy

"The learner will locate, identify, evaluate, use, and disseminate information ethically and responsibly."

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Summary: I will learn how to properly interpret and understand different cultural situations and react accordingly to certain cultural aspects and outcomes. My overall understanding of different cultures will deepen greatly while I as a person will create a clearer picture as to how different cultures live and operate. 

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Goals:

1.) To be able to properly identify, analyze, and interpret various forms of source material and research.

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2.) Ensure to gather information and sources on an ethical basis to promote credibility.

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       For my Information Literacy artifact, I have chosen to display my annotated bibliography created as a part of my persuasive speech in my COM-231 class. As mentioned above with my Oral Communication artifact, I took this class in the fall of 2020; and it provided me with a multitudinous amount of new valuable skills that I will be able to take with me even after my journey at SPCC has come to an end. This class is worth mentioning twice because there was so much in this class in terms of assignments and objectives that were completely new to me at the time. Not only was I nervous about speaking in front of people (which I ended up doing on zoom because of COVID-19) but I had to learn many new formats of assignments such as a speech outline, and of course an annotated bibliography. In the beginning, it was very easy to get overwhelmed because we were hearing about all of these pieces that would be needed in order for our speech to be successful. This included the outline itself, an annotated bibliography, a presentation on the speech, and flashcards so that one could more easily rehearse the speech and commit it to memory. This made preparing for a speech quite a long process, but once everything was broken down and completed individually; it became much easier to put everything together. Especially when we started getting into the second and third speeches for the class. The annotated bibliography itself though was very helpful, and it involved citing one's resources in a proper format than writing about things like the main point of the source, what audience the source was intended for, as well as how one would use the source in their speech. This sort of self-reflection on each source allowed one to really understand the impact of each source individually and also make sure that the sources were actually going to be beneficial to the speech itself.

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       When creating this annotated bibliography, I had two goals that I wanted to accomplish with this assignment in particular. The first of these goals was to "be able to properly identify, analyze, and interpret various forms of source material and research." This goal was also a big part of the annotated bibliography itself because we had to use the SPCC database to get credible and scholarly sources that would be appropriate for something like a speech. The speech required at least seven sources, and when picking which ones I was to use, I had to identify which of the ones I looked at would have the most valuable information for me based on what I was trying to get across. My topic for the persuasive speech was about convincing my audience that the Electoral College should be maintained and protected so I had a little guidance on what I should research, but ultimately I had to divide my speech into topics that I wanted to speak on in order to set me on the right path of research. This is what helped me to identify my sources, the analysis came later when I wrote on the actual sources themselves; providing information about why I picked the source for my paper, what the main point of the source was, and who the intended audience for the source was. The sources were also varied in that some were newspaper articles while others were scholarly journals and essays about the Electoral College. This helped me learn how to look at each one differently as well as determine where each kind of source would fit into my speech. With a total of seven sources gathered, analyzed, and interpreted I was successfully able to gather sufficient research for my speech and learned how to properly distinguish between strong and weak sources.

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       The second goal that I wanted to achieve when it came to the annotated bibliography was to "gather information and sources on an ethical basis to promote credibility." The requirements set for this assignment made it easier to complete this goal because a majority of the sources had to be found using the SPCC database, which is known for more credible and scholarly sources than just searching the internet. While using the SPCC database, I made sure to double-check that the information I found was true in more than just one source; this ensured that I was using the right information in my speech, making me appear more credible. Credibility was at the forefront of my priorities while creating the annotated bibliography, because if it was lacking, then I would not be able to properly persuade my audience of the topic in question. My past experiences with source gathering for papers and other assignments also assisted me with gathering the sources for my persuasive speech; which in turn made it easier for me to properly format my research and use it ethically. The last part in making sure that I gathered and used my sources ethically, was to reflect on the information within each source while also orally citing each source within my actual speech presentation. With this accomplished, I am able to safely say that I gathered and presented my sources for my persuasive speech in an ethical and responsible way. This type of source gathering has taught me how to view all kinds of sources in a different light, to ensure that I do not plagiarize or take information that is not credible or accurate to what I am trying to do with my assignment.

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       To say I learned a lot from my COM-231 class is a major understatement. As I mentioned before, so many new skills were acquired from this class due to the multitudinous amount of new assignments that had to be completed and the difference in style that each of those assignments brought along with it. But the assignments weren't just there for busywork, they each held a specific purpose in the bigger picture which of course was the speeches themselves. Each part had within it a lesson to be learned about public speaking; and it wasn't until recently that I can look back and appreciate what each of those assignments did for my overall success on my public speaking projects, including the annotated bibliography.

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