And the winners are ...

We recently announced two winners in the Win Dean Manderscheid’s Money contest by showing up in their classrooms and we will soon announce our final runner-up. Congratulations again to Benjamin Kantack and Sara Schroeder!

This year we asked students what I could learn from their favorite assignment. We received many great entries. They were so good that the selection of our three winners (one grand prize winner and two runners-up) was incredibly difficult.

The easy part was announcing our winners. With the help of our “Prize Patrol” (other representatives from the Dean’s Office) we made a surprise appearance in the winning students’ classrooms and presented their cash prizes. Check out their reactions in the video we captured here: http://ascweb.unl.edu.

Benjamin’s entry described an assignment from his 300-level political science course to interview an immigrant to the United States and about that person’s experience. “What I learned — and what Dean Manderscheid could learn — is to never forget that our actions, opinions, and policies have real-world consequences and should be considered carefully, not carelessly," Benjamin wrote.

Sara wrote about writing declamations in her 300-level English class that has taught her the importance of rhetoric. “He would learn the art of persuasion and be trained to align his skills with the great historical rhetoricians such as Socrates and Plato. Lastly, he would know how to effectively analyze and navigate an argument to his own advantage,” Sara wrote.

Making the announcement was a treat for me because I always like going into the classroom and seeing students learning. Fundamentally, I’m a teacher and I love to do that.

I’m looking forward to our third and final classroom visit next week. Where will we show up? Stay tuned.