Colloquium...

As part of a requirement for a PhD, the school I attend requires you to participate in 3 colloquia that are held in different places in the U.S. This time it was held in Arizona. It was a intellectual nightmare....Now, a little background:

My university is an accredited online institution based in Minneapolis, MN. Not many people think that "online" is a way to earn a PhD, but I have done more work in my 3 years here than in my Masters program (which was an in-class situation). This being the case, ANYONE, and i mean anyone can sign-up to take courses and get a PhD (or atleast this is my opinion after the week in Arizona). One thing that put me at ease was that, regardless of the number of people in the PhD program, the end result is what matters. Many of the learners I became friends with quickly noticed the lack of intelligence, or I should say, lack of effort many of these learners put in to the program.

The Colloquium is set up like this:
One week in Arizona with a number of 1.5 hour seminars (from 9-6) broekn into different tracks, depending on where you are in the process. I am in Track 2...one more and I am finally a doctor. The seminars are meant to supplement what you have learned in your courses and to help you apply it to developing a dissertation topic. What I found was that of the hundreds of people that attended, less then 1/2 attended the workshops - could it be beacuse there is no check in and check out procedure except to check in on day 1 and check out on the last day?

What makes me laugh is, as a teacher, I hear complaints about students not "doing what they should", are we any different? Given the opportunity will teacher (or adults in general) do the same thing? It boggles the mind.

So, I went to my seminars and even sat in them even if it was not something that I would benefit from, but did attend the "Conversations with the Dean" seminar to give my six cents! (I spoke 3 times with suggestions). For me, it was not a complete waste of time...I was able to narrow down my dissertation topic and network with three facult members that would be helpful in my writing of the document.

I can't speak for the others, but I know that the end result of this will be to see how many of the learners that are at the Colloquia will ACTUALLY earn a PhD...by my guess, very few.

Finally...

Well since I last posted, I have moved, unpacked the entire house, attended two in-service meetings (both which were very informative) and have had time to sleep in. Now, it has also been 106 each day...but I am not complaining.

My new school is beautiful and the staff is young and full of energy; we had a blast at the in-service. Its nice to be back in my own house...my dogs don't know what to do with all the room.

Now for the work..I am two weeks behind in my graduate classes and the classes end tomorrow...I should be working but I am not; I made a promise to someone that I would blog as often as I can and I will keep that promise.

I'm off to write a paper...oh joy!

The email...

Below is an email from a student in regard to a project that is due this week. A project which students have had over TWO weeks to complete, were able to select their group, their topic and the method in which they were going to present the topic. Many selected to do a video/podcast, however, some enjoy waiting until the last minute to get moving.

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Dear Dr. Psych,

I realize this is last minute but my group is having problems getting together all at once. I am available for pretty much every time but they are very busy with SAT class, sports, etc. Is there any way we could do a powerpoint instead of the original choice we made, because that way if one person couldn't make it we could work around their schedule.

For instance Student X can not work on it tomorrow; but Wednesday he can and I believe Student Y can work on it tomorrow for a little but not the next day.

We would really appreciate it. Thank you for you time Dr. Psych

Sincerely,

Student W
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Please understand that the students have had 2 weeks to work on this assignment, in which 4 days were given to utilize the campus and facilities to get the assignment started, if not completed.

I can't wait until FRIDAY!!