Transmedia Publishing & Taking Charge (3rd edition)
Posted: March 27, 2012 Filed under: QR codes, textbooks | Tags: college success, digital textbooks, e-textbooks, personal development, student sucess, taking charge, textbooks, transmedia Leave a comment
The original impetus in creating the first edition of Taking Charge: Your Education, Your Career, Your Life in 2008 was to produce a college success guide that directly linked college success skills to both professional and personal development. That’s especially important with the increasing trend of community and technical college students entering the workforce upon graduation as opposed to immediately moving on to a four-year college. To that end, the writing and research skills of the co-authors, Karen Mitchell Smith and Katharine O’Moore-Klopf, proved to be invaluable through the first two editions of this book.
Since that first edition, however, feedback solicited from instructors around the country combined with advances in digital publishing has resulted in a dramatically revamped third edition to be published in September 2012.
What’s It All About, Alfie? Taking Charge (2nd edition)
Posted: August 24, 2010 Filed under: college success Leave a comment
The idea for Taking Charge: Your Education, Your Career, Your Life can be traced back to an experience I had toward the end of my previous incarnation as a college English teacher. Back then, I was required to have my students submit their papers to Turnitin.com, the anti-plagiarism website. In one class, I was surprised when one of my students turned in a twenty-four page paper when the required minimum length was only five pages. Surprise, however, turned into dismay when the Turnitin.com report showed that 95% of the paper had been plagiarized from no less than fourteen different websites. When I met with the student to explain this was not acceptable—after all, plagiarism is presenting someone else’s words and/or ideas as your own—without batting an eye she replied, “Well, I never said that I wrote the whole paper.”
Go Beyond What Is Expected
Posted: August 2, 2010 Filed under: career skills, time management | Tags: Community involvement, Goal setting, Hard work, Responsibility Leave a commentChapter 1 MCC: Goal Setting (Charting Your Future)
Johnette McKown, McLennan Community College President
McLennan Community College President Johnette McKown believes in pouring herself into everything she does. “I have always believed in doing more than was requested — not expecting compensation for the extra,” she said. “I love to look at the details and make sure I have prepared well.”
Life Goals
Posted: July 20, 2010 Filed under: career skills, Editorial Interns, Research, time management | Tags: Education, Life goals, Planning, SMART Leave a commentLife goals
When you get into your car in the morning, you know the destination you’re driving to, right? If there happens to be a road block as you’re driving, you will need to take a detour But since you know your destination, you’ll be able to get where you’re going even if you have to go a different way. Going to college is very much like driving your car. Some of you know the eventual destination you want to get to and you have a path you can take to get to where you want to go. But just like driving without a destination, going to college without a goal means it will take you longer to go where you aren’t sure you wanted to go.
Critical Thinking: A Life Skill
Posted: July 5, 2010 Filed under: career skills, Research | Tags: critical thinking, life skills, making decisions, problem solving Leave a comment
Critical thinking is a necessary skill to develop if you are to do well in the world. And by well, I mean survive. Critical thinking is making decisions based fully on logic; this means thinking beyond instincts and considering all the information and the consequences and effects the decisions would have.
Taking Charge 