Learning requires good practices by both faculty and students. Arthur Chickering identified 7 principles for good practice in education. He suggests that faculty provide students with prompt feedback on their work. Just as importantly, students should actively seek and use the feedback they receive from peers and faculty. Do you learn from the feedback you receive? Specifically, how often do you:

• Review the comments you receive from your professors on exams, papers, or other classwork to assess your own strengths and weaknesses?

• Talk with your instructors when you don't understand their comments on exams, papers, and other classwork?

• Revise your papers and seek feedback from your professors to guide your revisions?

• Consult with your classmates or instructor when you have questions from class or from class readings?

• Consider the feedback from your peers and then consciously decide how to use it?

• Keep a journal in which you reflect on what you are learning?

• Think about your learning and discuss it with your classmates, professors, and advisor?

Do you Facebook? Facebook is a great way to stay connected with friends, make new friends, renew old acquaintances, or 'check out' the cute resident down the hall. It's also a good way to announce an event or fundraiser. Facebook, however, really is a public website. Truman faculty and staff can easily see the photographs you post or the photographs others post of you. Employers can gain access to Facebook through students or alumni and use that information to determine whether your personal life will positively reflect the professional standards of the company. Do you really want your professor or future employer to see that photo of you holding a beer?

While we can and should debate the ethics of using Facebook to learn about your personal life, remember, you can't control how others will use the information you post about yourself. Enjoy using Facebook, but always keep in mind that everything you post about yourself or others post about you is public information. Assume anyone with a connection to the Internet will have access to the information. So if you don't want the whole world to know it, don't post it.

If you still think Facebook is just a fun and completely safe activity, USA Today recently reported, "In the past few months, college, high school and even middle school students across the USA have been suspended or expelled, thrown off athletic teams, passed over for jobs and even arrested based on their online postings." (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/internetprivacy/2006-03-08-facebook-myspace_x.htm)

Resource of the Week: The SERVE Center

Do you want to make a difference? Are you looking for some volunteer opportunities? Are you looking for ways to meet other students, staff, and faculty while learning more about the surrounding Kirksville community and yourself? If so, check out the SERVE Center. The Center acts as a liaison between Truman students and the surrounding Kirksville community.  The Center is a way for students to learn what volunteer opportunities are available within the community.  Each year the Center organizes the Big Event which is a way for the Truman community to say thanks to the Kirksville community through service activities such as raking leaves, washing windows, painting, and much more. To learn more about the SERVE Center or the Big Event check out their website at http://serve.truman.edu/

Quote of the Week

--From William Cronon, "'Only Connect' The Goals of a Liberal Education" in Liberal Education, Winter 1999.

From a Truman IP address, you can find the article at http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=afh&an=1696631