actually learning in school

In school, I’ve always been in classes with 30+ students…in college many of my classes had 300+ kids. The classes I took for the Spanish major were a little better at having smaller class sizes…until they turned many of our upper-division Spanish classes into lecture courses, aka turning our previous 30 student class into a 90 person class…virtually eliminating the conversational portion and replacing this with a lecture from the professor. (and how does this help us learn Spanish…?)

At this point, I became really good at memorizing answers for the multiple choice tests given to these massive language classes…but I’m pretty sure memorizing answers with completely unrelated mnemonic devices isn’t the proper path to language acquisition.

Oh, and at this point too, I’m pretty sure the native speakers were loving the Spanish major because they have been practicing speaking / hearing Spanish at home since day 1, so…for example…the “listening” portion of tests…well, this was a piece of cake for them because they’ve grown up hearing and speaking Spanish so it’s like second nature. However, for those of us who did not grow up with the language…well, let’s just say, by having such huge class sizes and not having the opportunity to converse and practice speaking…well, let’s just say, it was a challenge.

Oh, and let me also say…I hands down learned 100% more Spanish in the semester I spent studying abroad in Mexico, than in the 8 years of Spanish I took in high school and college. Perhaps this is because I had about an average of 5 students in all of my upper-division courses in Mexico and the structure of the program was very much an experiential one. Instead of being talked at, we conversed and did many hands on projects, took field trips, etc. I’ll also note that I earned 2x as many upper division credits during the time I was gone than I would have earned taking classes at UO (I earned ~28 credits abroad and 12 credits is considered a full-time student at UO). I feel safe to say that if I spent 1 year, maybe 2 in that type of environment, I would have Spanish down, backward and forward. But no, I spent 1 semester learning the way kids should be taught, and the other 7 1/2 years…well…still trying to figure out what I got from that.

Anyway, I am digressing…and quickly…the education system is something I could certainly go off on…so yes, let’s end it there for now.

The point I’m trying to make is this. I’ve been taking a Greek class since September. There are four students in my class. I have learned more Greek in the 4 1/2 months (no class in Dec!) than Spanish I learned in the first four years in high school. Perhaps rather than cramming 3 classes into one (like my Spanish classes), we could take one class, divide it by 3, and have kids go to school for 1/2 the time, but actually learn and benefit from the smaller class sizes.

Anyway, this is what we did last class. It’s probably all Greek to you (ha ha ha I’m so funny) BUT, the stuff in this picture is a little story about a classroom and a teacher. And the teacher is learning all the kids names. And one kid forgot his pencil and the teacher became angry with him. And the kid said: well, it’s not like I forgot EVERYTHING, just a pencil!

Oregon Blount’s freak-out = great opp. for citizen journalism. and graph making.

As much as I say I hate social media, at times it can be a source of some pretty great insights. Courtesy of LeGarette Blount’s disgustingly repugnant, immature and flat out embarrassing display of incredibly poor sportsmanship during last night’s Duck game, I was provided with content for this post. So…thanks LeGarette!

Insight #1 is brought to you by my cartographic skills:

One of my favorite quotations (and not ‘quotes’…bc to quote is a verb, a quotation is the actual thing that was said…thank you Duncan McDonald and Grammar 101) about Blount’s shameful behavior: “General rule of thumb: When your night ends with you being restrained by an ad hoc coalition of authority figures and security guards, you have had a very, very bad night.”

Insight #2 has been provided by my Facebook feed:

Of course Twitter exploded too. Perhaps my favorite tweet I found in my “Oregon” search:

Takeaway #1: Citizen journalism is actually pretty sweet.

Takeaway #2: At least Duck fans are still classy.

Takeaway #3: It’s amazing how the actions of just one person can have such a powerful impact on a brand. In less than a minute, Blount did wonders of damage to the wonderful and once respected brand Oregon had spent so much time to build.

Conclusion: If Blount gets kicked out, can I have his scholarship money? I don’t punch people and I think I could be a far classier brand advocate for Oregon. Just throwing it out there. (=

AHA’s sustainability account rocks

Our sustainability account in AHA made a video…they rock – check it out:

a day in the life of a student run ad. agency

I always seem to be talking about AHA and NVC, but I don’t think I have done a great job explaining these crazy acronyms.  

AHA stands for Allen Hall Advertising. AHA is not pronounced as A.H.A…it’s AHA! As in…Eureka!  We are a student run “ad” agency…or communications agency…or how about idea agency?  We have three accounts, UO Sustainability, Talk, and NVC.

NVC is an international MBA business plan competition hosted by the UO Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship.  Through a generous endowment from Tim Boyle/Columbia Sportswear, the AHA NVC account runs the branding and communications campaign.

This year…Kristin and I are co-managing the account – Kristin as the “external liaison,” serving as the Account Coordinator and myself as the “internal liaison,” serving as the Account Planner/Strategist.  It’s been quite the journey with a steep learning curve, plenty of trials, tribulations, sleepless nights, overflowing email inboxes and of course F.U.N. FUN. (=

So without further adieu, I thought it might be fun to show a little of a day in the life of AHA and NVC:

One of our first meetings back in Sept. – we began to brainstorm for our campaign by drawing.  Thinking abstractly of a business plan competition is actually quite helpful. 

If NVC was a mode of transit, what would it be?

Our team conducted about 30 in person interviews as well as data from an online survey.  This is during an interview Anna and I gave:

Team bonding is very important for good work:

Working on the press kit at 3 am is a must: 

Again, a solid team comprises people you would want to see outside of work!

Last week AHA brainstormed past failures and successes of AHA accounts…and how we can use these as learning experiences:

here’s one of the successes – Sustainability’s garbage monsters as a UO campus awareness piece:

Here’s another success – from last year’s NVC team – the NVC idea elevator which also served to raise awareness at UO:

ah, watching the NVC magic happen:

hhmm sometimes odd things turn up around the j. school; however, that’s what keeps things…interesting…and to be interesting we have to be interested, right?

Our team, as drawn by Evan:

Exploring Eugene

I took my camera on a walk I took around the South University neighborhood this past Saturday:

Installation art, or just someone with an intense front yard memorabilia collection…?  I’ll let you be the judge:

standard:

…WHY???  Is the first and only thing that really comes to mind…