Nationwide Foundation donates $15,000 for seminar series Nationwide Foundation donates $15,000 for seminar series "We are pleased to have Nationwide as a sponsor of the school's professional development programs," said Charles Edwards, dean of the College of Business and Public Administration and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. "Nationwide's gift complements our mission of bringing the real world into the classroom. Our students look forward to the professional expertise Nationwide representatives will share in the upcoming year." In the Nationwide Career Seminar Series, students will have the opportunity to get hands-on experience by writing resumes and cover letters, developing their interview skills and more. Students also will learn the importance of getting launched professionally into the business world. Dates for the Nationwide Career Seminar Series are as follows: On Wednesday, July 19, Drake University and several neighborhood groups will celebrate Drake JAM (Jazz and Art at the Market) as part of the Metro Arts Jazz in July concert series. The festivities will feature an art show, children's activities, two live bands, local and ethnic food and ethnic dances. The Drake campus and Drake Neighborhood Farmers' Market will be humming with activity as Drake-area groups join together to celebrate the cultural diversity of the neighborhood. The multicultural festival will begin with a display of works by local artists sponsored by Metro Arts Alliance as well as children's games and face painting along with local and ethnic food vendors at the Drake Neighborhood Farmer's Market, which is open from 4 to 7 p.m. each Wednesday in the parking lot of First Christian Church. At 6 p.m. the Drake campus will swing into action with a festival of music and dance on the lawn in front of Old Main. The festival will first showcase emerging artist jazz band Galactic Assault - just back from a tour of Europe. Then at 6:45 p.m. Gateway Dance Theatre youth will perform three ethnic dances to the sounds of percussion ranging from Afro-Cuban drums to Indian percussive sticks. The festivities will conclude with a performance by Thelonius Assault, a locally renowned jazz band featuring trumpeter Andy Classen, director of jazz studies at Drake. In case of rain, the concert, which starts at 6 p.m., will take place in the Performing Arts Hall in the Harmon Fine Arts Center. The multicultural festival is sponsored by Drake University, Friends of Drake Arts, Drake Neighborhood Association, Drake Area Business Association, Drake Neighborhood Farmers' Market, Metro Arts Alliance and Gateway Dance Theatre. Netflix and Blockbuster have got nothing on Drake's very own Cowles Library. The library hosts a growing collection of DVDs available to faculty and staff for a weeklong checkout period - with no rental fees. That's $0. Not even the Des Moines Public Library can beat that. The library also has a great collection of leisure reading books, music CDs and, for the "old school" types, VHS tapes. Francine Griffith, an experienced music instructor, will introduce music from around the world and take youngsters on indoor and outdoor listening walks. In addition, a violinist will play for the group. Class participants will receive a copy of Griffith's book "Music is All Around." "Music is All Around" Camp will meet from 10 to 10:45 a.m. Aug. 7 through Aug. 10 on the Drake campus. The class is open to children age 3 (by Sept. 15, 2005) through age 6 (completed kindergarten this past year). A responsible adult must accompany all children. Tuition is $65. For more information and registration, call Christine Schneider at the Drake University Community School of Music at x4011. Their goal: build a boat that floats the most marbles. But the result is much greater - their efforts serve as a reminder that hands-on science is more engaging than textbooks and lectures. The activity is part of the first leg of the Science Pioneers Professional Development Program, a succession of three-week camps designed to keep science afloat in Iowa schools. Drake University professor Jack Gerlovich leads the project. He watches as the groups build boats that hold up to 120 marbles and fiddle with the concept of buoyancy. The teachers are so engrossed by the activity that they're reluctant to quit when time is called by Gerlovich, the Ellis and Nelle Levitt professor of education and science safety at Drake. This summer, Gerlovich is showing 20 teachers how mystery and fascination promote enthusiasm for learning. After two weeks of training, the teachers will put their new skills to use next month as they conduct inquiry-based lessons for 200 elementary students from four school districts in south-central Iowa. Gerlovich says the lessons are invaluable in a time when test scores in science are falling nationwide and precious class time is being lifted from science to accommodate reading and mathematics. Also, many elementary teachers lack the science content background and successful techniques for keeping students interested. "Research shows that most kids are turned off to science by sixth grade," Gerlovich said. "To reverse that, we've first got to change how teachers teach science." Inquiry-based science is a "hands-on, minds-on" approach that whets youngsters' appetites for knowledge by allowing them to investigate scientific phenomena before learning the textbook explanations behind them. Instead of lecturing about buoyancy, for example, teachers might have kids perform the boat-building exercise. Student training camps, where teachers will present inquiry-based lessons to students from Corning, Central Decatur, Mormon Trail and Murray elementary schools, are scheduled from Tuesday, Aug. 8, through Friday, Aug. 11 at Corning and Central Decatur Elementary schools. This summer, Drake University professors are finding new ways to use Internet technology in the classroom and beyond. Delaney Kirk, professor of management, created a blog - that's Web lingo for an online diary - where she posted news stories, projects and lecture notes for her graduate-level managing diversity class. She also posted questions on the site three times a week and required student responses. Kirk's blog is more dynamic than other technological tools available to teachers. She customized her blog to meet the educational needs of the course. She helped students link RSS feeds that captured news stories. The site also displayed related photographs and hosted a discussion forum. The blog increased student interest in the course. "What I found is that I had participation from all 22 students," Kirk said about her students' use of the blog, "while in class I might only have five or six people actually talk." HeeRa Heaser, a graduate student in Kirk's class, said that although some members of her class were originally apprehensive about operating the blog, "You don't have to be super technical or super computer-savvy" to use it. Heaser's classmates were more willing to share personal experiences online than they were in the classroom, she said. Also, online arguments don't disrupt the entire class during the limited classroom time. Students discovered the blog added value to their learning experience. "Not only did I enjoy reading everyone's posts but I also learned from other classmates' experiences and thoughts," said Keely Baade, a grad student. "The blog postings got much more in-depth than I originally assumed they would be. It seemed to be a safe environment for us to share our feelings and stories." Some students joked about being addicted to reading and writing on the blog and they frequently read it at work as well as at home, Kirk said. All of her students reported shring blog comments and information with family members, friends and coworkers. The professor said: "Blogs are the teaching tools of the future. I have been very pleased with the way the class blog allowed students to bond and feel comfortable sharing their experiences, questions, concerns and feelings." The blog is available to the public at Drake staff members showed their creativity while designing their holes. Some of the challenges included ramps and water hazards. Obstacles were made of historical Drake mascots, pictures of administrators and mouse traps. This year's course even included a virtual golf game developed by the Drake Telemedia Center. More than 80 faculty and staff members participated in the event and showed off their mini-golf skills. Each hole had a contest for golfers to participate in as well. The contests varied from most Drake memorabilia to longest putt. Now that the event is over, faculty and staff members have one year to practice before next year's mini-golf event. |
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