For my project I would like to create a visual presentation tailored for companies and schools that could use improvement on their guidelines regarding minority students. So many environments lack the proper knowledge on how to elevate and incorporate the minority individuals and fail to make these communities supportive towards their success. With my presentation I would provide a list of ways to incorporate minority voices and use their backgrounds and individual skills as valuable assets. I would make them more aware of how to make each space more friendly and what actions should be taken when a minority feels misrepresented or undervalued in the workplace. In a school environment I would provide methods on how to forgo racial profiling and stereotypes against minority students. New methods should be laid out for recruiting minority students into the gifted programs and they should feel encouraged, not deterred from completing school. Minority students should be challenged to succeed in school and they should have more resources for reaching out to individuals when they feel they are being discriminated against. I did some research on companies that provide learning opportunities to minorities with specific interests and I feel incorporating some of that into my project will provide establishments with organizations tailored towards minority success.
Project Proposal
I want to create a presentation for my unit 3 project targeted towards juniors and seniors in college that are making their way into the workplace. I choose a presentation as the genre because I think it is a great way to get the audience, especially young adults, to pay attention to the topic. By adding graphs and images in my presentation I hope to engage with the younger audience, making the topic more exciting and interesting to learn about. This presentation will be based on and conclude research from my unit 2 research portfolio which focused on perspective and empathy in relation to diversity and inclusion. The presentation will touch on that topic and how important it is to think of other’s perspectives and to have empathy towards people and their situations. It will also connect to how they can leave college and go into the workplace with an inclusive attitude that will help support a diverse environment. Think of it as diversity training before going into the workplace, so they can enter expecting to be in a culture that is inclusive. As more and more young people enter the workplace I find it important to have them shape the environment, this presentation would teach them that even though they will be new, their attitudes can rub off on those who have been working at a company and help open people up to new views.
Project Proposal – Samantha Danylchuk
For my unit 3 project, the specific audience I want to write for are the two newest generations, Millennials and Gen Z. The issue I am examining is this conflict between generations in the workplace and my purpose is to guide these two generations about what they should know headed into the workforce. I hope to accomplish a text that provides all the relative information about the current working generations, such as descriptive characteristics, habits, and what needs to be changed among companies to bring employee compatibility success to this environment. I also aim to ease those who are Millennials and Gen Z into having a successful time working with their peers. The argument I want to make is that more action needs to be done within companies and working organizations in order to bridge this generational gap. The type of text I plan to produce is a social media article. Because most Millennials and Gen Z are so used to technology and social media has taken over our lives, I think an article produced by Instagram would catch the attention of these users. I decided to choose a text relating to social media because Instagram is also fairly used as a networking tool aside from LinkedIn, and the Direct Message feature would benefit me. If you’re a Millennial or Gen Z with a job lined up to start in a few weeks, months, etc. and see that Instagram produced an informative article relating to this issue of how to solve the generational gap in the workplace, I think it would be sent among that user’s friends and so on.
Project Proposal
For my unit 3 project, I am going to create a news article that highlights both the problems and benefits of the screening process in schools. I want to show how diversity in education is essential I feel like a news article can cover all aspects that I want to address with the use of quotes, pictures, and diagrams. I have a template that I can use which will use subheadings and showcase all different aspects of the educational system and how screening is being used. To do this, I am going to use sources that I have used for my unit 2 assignment, as well as additional primary sources that focus on the students and parents personal experiences with screening. The audience that this kind of writing will appeal to most I believe is the students and the parents who have to apply to schools and will eventually be affected by the selection process . Another group that can benefit from this are school administrators and faculty. Identifying both the problems and solutions this process has, will be very helpful for these educators so they know how to deal with it in the classroom.
Ultimately, the goal of this news article is to show why diversity and inclusion in the classroom is important and what screening. can do to help. I am going to use statistics from certain schools diversity and inclusion numbers, and show how some students have been affected in a major way. This will create more awareness to the process and schools can see whether or not they would want to implement it in some way.
Project Proposal
After intensely researching the hardships and discrimination that those in the LGBTQ community face, I want to further focus my research on the issue at hand. This kind of gender discrimination is not experienced by the masses, it is something that can be seen in plain sight, and to learn how this underlying discrimination continues was heartbreaking. Gender identity is not necessarily a physical aspect of an individual, there is no “dress-code” or “look” to someone who identifies as LGBTQ, although there are plenty of stereotypes embellished by the media. For the purpose of my research, I want to start a conversation educating others on the daily situations LGBTQ members find themselves in time and time again. This would be a conversational piece, something casual but that is also direct and brings different questions and thoughts to mind to further continue this long awaited discussion. With this text I want to share stories from LGBTQ members, as it is through experience where us humans learn best, from our mistakes we can re-evaluate what occurred and only grow from there. I hope with this text to not only accomplishing kickstarting this chat but also sharing some intimate stories of those just screaming to be heard. Social media is huge nowadays, and I think stories from advocates for or with the LGBTQ community is who I want the information to come from, so then from this post those who strongly connect to a story can go and follow that author and become an ally with the LGBTQ community.
Project Proposal
For my final project I will be creating a research paper that tackles the question: How common is bias in education, and does it have an effect on students learning outcomes? To do this effectively I am using sources that are vary from citations of books, journal entries (mostly from psychology related publications and education journals, and also trade journals that use the perspective of educators that are active in their profession). My goal is to help show the reader that while they may aware of racial, cultural, gender biases, to peel back the curtain and show them just how widespread this sort of behavior is.
My targeted audience consists of two main groups of people: The first would be educators and school administrators. The second would be university students (just like this class), people who are taking a course in diversity and inclusion studies. I would like this to be part of the canon of a course like this so that students can read this and want to go further with it and develop their own questions and answers about issues in diversity in education, and how it effects different populations of people.
Project Proposal – Dominique Van Gilst
For my unit 3 project, I have decided to research inclusion in education further in order to educate people. I think that the best audience for my project would be parents of students who are in inclusive classrooms, or are about to be in an inclusive classroom. This is because a lot of parents of children with and without disabilities worry that their children will not receive the best education possible if they are in an inclusive classroom. I think that it would also be important to include resources that parents can use to explain inclusion to their children in my presentation. This will allow the students to understand differences and acceptance before they begin their new experiences in an inclusive classroom. It would also help students who already in an inclusive classroom learn more about working together with other students. I want my audience to understand that inclusion has benefits for students with and without disabilities, and that they can be sure that their children will be getting the most they possibly can out of an inclusive education. I think that the best format for this project would be a powerpoint because it can be as if I am a teacher presenting my ideas to the parents/guardians of the students in my class. A powerpoint will be useful because I can embed videos, articles, etc. as well as write bullet points and sentences for important information.
Project Proposal, Bryan
For my final project I’m looking to create a graphic and media news article. Similar to how magazines present the content they hold in an easy-to-read fashion, I’m wanting my media project to be ‘picked up’ and clearly layout relevant background, ongoing research, significant case-studies, and direct quotes from first-hand accounts. The main objective I’m looking to examine here is to inform audiences of a form of diversity (language/ linguistic) typically not addressed or made aware of to the public. Overall while my intent is to appeal to a ‘broad audience’, my main focus would be tailoring the project to university students and professors. I recall a former classmate’s post who was interested in researching generational diversity because she knew that upon graduation and entering the workforce, she would be exposed to a widely diverse age-population. With trends in globalization and transnational mobility continuing to increase, I find it critical for those in an academic setting to realize the impact the consequences, advantages, and skills this can have on their developing career. Similarly, sharing this information amongst colleagues and professors I think would be an effective way in encouraging discussions whether that be in a classroom, organizational meeting, or informal gathering (it also makes sense in Syracuse since we have a large international student population coming from very diverse language backgrounds). I’m happy to have found valuable sources throughout my research ranging from TEDTalks and academic studies to teacher-based web platforms. It’ll be useful in creating the visual narrative I’m looking to create.
Project Proposal – Mike
As I hinted to in my Week of 7/20 Discussion post, I’m going to create a PowerPoint presentation about the power of consumer activism.
Having sat through countless web-conferences and meetings filled with mind-numbing PowerPoint slide decks, I feel I have a good sense of what not to do. My biggest pet peeve is when the presenter simply reads the text directly off of the slides. I could do that myself! Why am I having to sit here and listen to you read it to me? Tell me what you want me to take away from this information. Why did you think it was important to include? What do you want me to do with what you’ve shared?
To that end, I did some Google searching. Using the term “powerful powerpoint presentations”, I came across an article from SlideModel.com called “23 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Creating Engaging and Interactive Presentations”. I felt immediately vindicated when, about three paragraphs in, I saw the following sentence highlighted in bold: “The key thing to remember is your presentation is there to compliment your speech, not be the focus of it.”
With all of this in mind, what I’ll end up sharing with everyone is not only the slide deck itself, but also my speaker’s notes. As I mentioned earlier this week, my intended audience is a company or organization’s executives. The deck will be no more than ten slides and will feature graphics which support the text and vice versa. My speaker’s notes will expand on the concepts presented on the slides, include some additional details or perhaps a quote from one of my resources. This is to help add context to what I’m presenting, and to increase the likelihood that my message is being understood by my audience.
So, what do I hope to achieve with this presentation?
I’m going into this “meeting” with the intent of highlighting the changing habits of consumers, focusing on the shift away from direct involvement in the political process to engagement via their pocketbooks. Once I’ve set the scene, I’ll demonstrate examples of successful companies who are attracting and retaining customers and creating loyalty because of actions and initiatives they’ve taken to be socially and environmentally conscious. Combining the two, I’m hopeful the executives will recognize the value and potential positive return on investment to be had by taking such steps.
Thanks to the research I did in Unit 2, I have plenty of material from which to draw. The key will be picking the right ones to resonate with the audience. I have a feeling Jessica Stewart’s essay from Shopping For Change will be particularly powerful. In comparing consumer attitudes toward Wal-Mart and Target, Stewart points out that both businesses are nearly identical in how they’re run, with a few key distinctions which have affected public opinion of the two for years.
I recognize I’ve got my work cut out here. With Arsenal in the FA Cup Final next Saturday, and my birthday the following day, I’ll want to have my draft finished well before next weekend! Seems like a busy week is in store!