Profile Comparison
Read the three attached profiles and answer the questions in the Profile Comparison Activity document (also attached). You can type your responses into the document and then submit the document here when you are finished.
Profiles
Profile A Pam Jackson
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Profile B Rhea Fix
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Profile C Jenny Sheppard x
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Profile Comparison Activity: Profile Comparison Activity Fa20 x
Profile Comparison Activity
To get more awareness for the characteristics of newsletter profiles, this activity requires you will read and compare three different profiles from newsletters from different departments at SDSU. After reading the profiles, you will answer the questions below and upload your responses to the Profile Comparison Activity assignment on Canvas.
1. What is similar/different about the ways the profiles open? Review Sample Profile Activity for a list of some possible ways to open a profile. Which ways do these profiles use? Which way do you think you want to use in your profile? Why do you want to use this way?
2. What is similar/different about the ways the profiles are organized? Does one profile use a different method of organizing the information than the others? Explain.
3. What verb tense is used to set up/integrate quotes in the profiles? Identify which ones use the present and which one uses the past. How do you think the verb tense affects the feel of the profile? Why would a writer use the present instead of the past to set up the quotes?
4. What jargon do you notice being used in each of the profiles? Provide a couple examples from each profile.
5. Which profile uses the most quotes? Do you think you should use a lot of quotes in your own profile? Why or why not? Think about the number of quotes you encountered in the other profiles we read before you answer the question.
6. What are the features of design that are similar/different between the profile? Make a list of the similar ones and a list of the different ones. Which features do you think you want to use in your own profile? Why?
Similar
Different
h t t p : / / i n f o d o m e . s d s u . e d u4
The Dome
Pam Jackson is wired. Not only is she energetic and technologically
savvy, but since becoming information literacy librarian in June 2005,
she has built an impressive network of contacts both online and among
SDSU faculty, staff, and students. It’s no surprise, therefore, that she’s this
year’s recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Contribution (Monty) Award
for the library.
Pam is active in the development of interactive Web-based instruction
tools. She has been working to produce more multimedia content in the
form of online information literacy instructional tutorials, complete with
quizzes. She created the plagiarism tutorial and the library video tour,
and she is currently developing modules that will introduce students to
basic library resources and services.
“As more SDSU classes become hybridized or go fully online, librarians need to find new ways to teach
students when instruction is not always linked to a physical classroom,” Pam said.
Social media sites are fast-growing online tools for creating community and reaching the public, especially
students, and Pam was an early participant. Much of the library’s social media presence (Facebook, MySpace,
Second Life) was established by Pam. She recently received a research grant from the SDSU University
Grant Program to explore “Creating a 3D Library Learning Commons in Second Life: Information Literacy
Instruction Goes Virtual.”
Not all of Pam’s activities take place online. She’s a familiar face on many library committees, especially those
pertaining to instruction and technology. She has been a member of the Collaboration of Information Literacy
and Instructional Services; the Ad Hoc Online Learning Group; and the Library Assessment Group, to name a
few. She also serves as the library’s liaison to the Center for Teaching and Learning; Instructional Technology
Services; and the People, Information, and Communication Technologies Program.
“I also facilitate the inclusion of the library as a partner and active participant in the SDSU Course Design
Institute, which assists faculty in creating hybrid and fully online classes,” Pam said.
She is involved with numerous committees and organizations both on campus and within the larger library
community as well. Pam is a member of the Senate Student Learning Outcomes Committee and is a peer
reviewer for College & Research Libraries. She also has authored a number of scholarly articles and presentations
covering instruction, social media, and online technologies. In addition to receiving the Monty this year, Pam
also was awarded the Associated Students Aztec Achievement Award, Best Retention Practices 2009.
Pam isn’t resting on her laurels; she continues to broaden her networks at SDSU and in cyberspace. She’s
currently exploring virtual worlds for teaching and learning, developing “anytime, anywhere” customizable
resources, and engaging in additional teaching and learning collaborations.
Monty Recipient Pam Jackson: A Collaborator in Real and
Virtual Worlds
Kristin Arola speaks on multimodality in the classroom. Participants try creating multimodal projects and discuss
assessment practices.
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Faculty and Staff Profiles
Dr. Jenny Sheppard
Dr. Jenny Sheppard was planning to be an elementary school teacher before accidentally happening upon the field of rhetoric. While waiting for her credential program to begin, Dr. Sheppard took a graduate class in literacy that she says “changed everything.” “The class was so much more challenging and engaging than my other coursework and helped me to see that what we traditionally think of as literacy was, in fact, much more complex,” Dr. Sheppard reflects. She joined SDSU’s RWS department as a lecturer in 2014 and recently received the 2018–2019 College of Arts and Letters Excellence in Teaching Award in the Humanities and Social Sciences (for tenure or tenure-track faculty).
Starting in fall 2019, she became a tenure-track faculty member.
Of the 12 different classes Dr. Sheppard has taught in RWS so far—ranging from first-year writing courses to a graduate course in digital rhetoric and literacy—one of her favorites has been RWS 414, Rhetoric in Visual Culture. In the class, she has students examine visual texts such as monuments, photographs, advertising, and visual identity. “Most students come into the course with a lot of experience reading words from a rhetorical perspective,” Dr. Sheppard comments, “but they haven’t usually had the opportunity and tools to think about how the visual also works to inform and persuade, so it’s exciting to see those skills develop.”
Students describe Dr. Sheppard’s teaching style as flexible, as she encourages students to write on their own interests, and as accessible and invested in their success and growth. Dr. Sheppard explains her approach to teaching as “engaged but laidback.” While she is interested in sharing a lot of material with her students and expects them to work hard in the class, she purposefully “shape[s]…classes around activities that give students the chance to test out ideas and to apply course concepts to topics of interest to them.” She wishes that she had known as an undergraduate that it’s okay to “ask faculty about pushing the boundaries of class projects” in order to better fit personal interests. One of her
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Department of Rhetoric and Writing Studies, San Diego State University
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professors at Chico State, Tom Fox, was influential to her current pedagogical philosophy; he helped her understand that it is important not to take a single approach to cultivate student learning but to constantly look for multiple ways to ensure students’ success. The New London Group is another influence that Dr. Sheppard cites—these literary scholars support a pedagogical framework that combines direct instruction, hands-on practice, and reflection.
For Dr. Sheppard, one of the best parts of working at SDSU is the diversity of the students she gets to work with. As the department’s classes are relatively small and the field of rhetoric permits students to pursue topics of their own choice, she enjoys getting to know her students, their backgrounds, and their interests—and she values learning from them throughout the class as well. The biggest challenge is finding time to give detailed feedback on student work, which is an integral aspect of her teaching style.
Research topics that are of special interest to Dr. Sheppard include the study of digital and multimodal rhetorics and their integration in the classroom. Currently, she is working on one project about infographics as a multimodal genre that can be useful in teaching digital composition; the genre incorporates literacies and rhetorical practices relevant to communication in the 21st century, which makes it an ideal learning tool for students. Another study she is engaged in is an examination of “tactical communication practices in online social media medical support groups that help users assert more agency in navigating their treatment.”
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The Master’s Page
Page 3 Volume 4, Issue 2
Rhea Fix
Alumni interview
What will EDTEC 590 about? The plan
is to explore the art and science of pro-
gram and product evaluation. In this
class, you’ll serve as a performance
technologist who assists a community-
based client with a pressing evaluation
need. To complete your task, you’ll con-
ceptualize an evaluation study, conduct
a brief review of relevant literature,
design tools for collecting key data
(surveys, observation guides, interview
protocols, action plans), analyze that
data, and produce an interpretive report.
As important, you’ll also have an oppor-
tunity to meet evaluators in the field
(both internal and external), research hot
topics in the discipline, and work with
high-end technologies that are rapidly
affecting how evaluation unfolds and
whom it involves.
To learn more about the course, point
your browser to: http://edweb.sdsu.edu/
courses/EDTEC590/ — or email Jim or
Marcie. They can be reached at: mar-
shall@mail.sdsu.edu or
bober@mail.sdsu.edu.
Evaluation
Continued from Pg. 2
“There will always be a warm place in
my heart for San Diego State,” says
Rhea Fix of Little Rock, Arkansas who
one of the first online master’s candi-
dates to graduate in spring 2005. While
completing the program, Rhea worked
as an Instructional Designer for a Little
Rock-based telecommunications com-
pany. In 2001, she made the decision to
leave the corporate training department
to open her own consulting firm. “I
spent so many long hours at work, then
spent evenings and weekends working
on my degree. My family got the left-
overs. So, I decided to make a change.”
Influenced by a Covey course, Rhea
decided to align her life with her priori-
ties. She reflects, “I always said family
and education were important priorities,
but every day I made decisions that said
otherwise. So, I gave my boss six
months’ notice, and took the first steps
towards starting my own design com-
pany.” She ended 2001 by leaving her
staff job and started 2002 as an inde-
pendent consultant and president of Red
Pepper Consulting, Inc.
Reflecting on her first five years in busi-
ness, Rhea states, “Your first years are
focused on survival, break even, and
growth. There are many lessons learned
from good years and bad years and all
the surprises that come with failure and
success.” Her degree program contrib-
uted heavily by providing new knowl-
edge, skills, and experiences to apply to
new client relationships and projects. “I
found myself using information from
courses on projects the same week I’d
received it. Everything applied and
transferred to what I was doing regularly
in the field. I also found that I was pick-
economy, she shares what’s on her
horizon. “After years of planning, my
husband and I decided we were ready
for two big steps: having a second
child and getting my husband through
his master’s degree in engineering.”
As a result of these changes (Rhea’s
second child was born in May) Rhea
now focuses on training and products
for small to medium businesses. She
explains, “Trends show that small
businesses generate an increasing vol-
ume of revenue for our economy.
Small companies are interested in in-
creasing revenue and efficiency, but
they’re lass likely to look to training as
a means of doing that. So, I have to be
bottom-line focused in the solutions I
present. They have to be affordable
and provide direct impact to the busi-
ness.”
Her new marketing campaign stresses
performance improvement through
increased profitability: “‘Training
Tapas: Small Bites for Big Impact,'” is
her latest slogan. “We’re focusing on
coaching, off the shelf products com-
bined with custom job aids that focus
on core business tasks and business
support products that aid in building
the business and retaining employees.”
Rhea also co-teaches the online sec-
tion of EDTEC 685 in SDSU’s online
program.
When asked what the future holds,
Rhea is optimistic. “I’m interested in
building my firm and attracting tal-
ented designers and consultants.” She’s
contracted and partnered with SDSU
grads in other states, “My online edu-
cation at SDSU really contributed to
my desire to build a virtual corpora-
tion. We don’t need brick and mortar
buildings to build quality work prod-
ucts and team with others. SDSU
grads know this, because they success-
fully work and collaborate in cyber-
space. I’m always looking for students
who bring this savvy to their design
skill sets.”
ing up things that graduates of other
programs didn’t necessarily have, like
performance technology skills and
online development experience.”
Those skills combined well with her
radio/TV/film and writing back-
ground.
As Red Pepper Consulting approaches
its sixth year in business and a tough