The term "capstone" refers to an apex or crowning achievement. In architecture, a capstone may literally be a stone, such as a stone carving atop a main doorway or special window. It also refers to the topmost part of a structure, as in the capstone of the Washington Monument, depicted in the etching from 1885 when the capstone was set.
The General Education Capstone, therefore, is designed to be the apex or crowning achievement of your Gen Ed studies. As described in the syllabus, GE 490 is designed to "cap" your academic career by creating a final project that represents reflection and analysis of three components: A) your educational experience at Ai, B) your career plans after graduation, and C) your ideas about what makes a meaningful.
As you prepare the first draft of Assignment A, in which you examine your educational experience so far, this week's blog might address a Gen Ed class that immediately comes to mind...either because it was a good experience, or because it wasn't.
You've already given this some thought in your double-entry entry into your Writer's Notebook and the group chart work you did. Try building on those ideas. For example, the discussion today included lots of references to getting students to interact with each other and with the information from the class. Try writing more in your notebook about activities that made this happen. What specifically did Steve Overbey do to encourage discussion? What was one of the activities that Sarah Vincent used to reinforce key points in a class? How did Russ Kennedy help build self-confidence in students?
Consider using some sensory description: what did you see, hear, feel/touch, smell, and maybe even taste? What kind of learning styles did a specific activity address: auditory (hearing), visual, and/or auditory/tactile. If you don't know what learning style you prefer, here is a link to an online inventory that can help determine how you access information. There are many theories on learning styles, but this trio of styles is the one most often discussed by instructors.
For the first week's blog, you might react to our first class. What did you think of the activities we did in class? What questions do you have after reading the syllabus and looking through eCompanion? Have you done a blog before or is this your first experience? Did you try the learning styles inventory and what is your reaction to it?
Remember that you can include images, link to a URL or upload a video to your blog. (By the way, this post is more than 300 words. Yours only need to be a few paragraphs.)
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