ABOUT
The Junior Seminar
Stetson University’s Junior Seminars bring together students from a broad range of majors at the upper-division level. Although they may be situated within a discipline, they challenge students (and faculty) to think broadly, beyond the paradigms of any one disciplinary approach. They provide students with opportunities to synthesize, integrate, and build upon what they’ve learned in previous courses as they engage with important questions of personal and/or social responsibility. They foster advanced skills in critical thinking, coherent reasoning, problem-solving, and effective expression.
Navigating the Site
To post or upload documents, click on “Site Admin” under the META heading on the sidebar. A “dashboard” will come up with various options (quick links on a drop-down menu on the top heading bar). JS instructors have a few extra privileges: we can select “private” when creating a post, if we want only JS instructors to be able to see or respond to that post. In order to publish any post, be sure to click the “update” button on the right side of the dashboard page–otherwise it will remain in the system as a draft only.
The bluish gray bar beneath the title above gives a general idea of how the site is organized: there is a section devoted to “Course Materials,” for example, where we can upload and view assignments, syllabi, and the like. Under “Readings/Resources” there are various pages for articles/links, organized by such topics as Critical Thinking, Integrated Learning, Interdisciplinary Thinking, Seminars, and Writing.
Conversing Online
There is a page for “Discussions.” The discussion page is where all “posts” will appear, where posts can be tagged or categorized for indexing purposes, and where others can respond to posts. This is the page to share ideas, suggestions, questions, etc. To post, just click on “New Post” in the top (black) menu bar that will appear when you’re logged into the site. To comment on someone else’s post, click on the post title. I have created two posts here for JS instructors to respond to–I set the “visibility” (for now) to “private”–so only those faculty designated as “editors” (JS instructors + the writing program director + reps from SoM and SoBA) will be able to see these discussions.
I strongly encourage us to choose (or create) appropriate “categories” or tags for our posts, so that those interested in a particular topic can later access everything filed under that category with a single click.
It is even possible to “subscribe” to feeds of new entries and comments by clicking on the appropriate link under META on the sidebar.
I’m relatively new at this, so I am still learning how some of it works. I’ve included links to WordPress help pages at the bottom of the sidebar (for you as well as for me), and I’m happy to help others (to the degree I am able!) understand how to navigate and use the site. If you have any suggestions on how the site might be better organized or managed, be sure to let me know!
