What helped your learning? What would have helped your learning more? What hindered your learning? What got in the way of your learning? How did you feel? And, how do you feel now?
I found this course to be the most learning I’ve done in quite a long time. What I found most valuable during the course was the opportunity for trial and error. Really, working on my course and receiving feedback both from Alex and from my peers was the most helpful part of my course development. An awesome article I read on Behaviourist Theory showed the value of trial and error as represented by research from E.L Thorndike, an American psychologist from the early 20th century. The idea is that with drive and a goal, a person can successfully work through trial and error to find a solution that works. I felt the same way, relative to both content and structure of my course. Through my own self-evaluations using the rubrics we were provided, and from the feedback of my peers and Alex, I was able to find ways to best model my course. And I have to say, I’m proud of the way it turned out.
Really, what hindered me the most was my over-commitment during the time frame of this course. I took on far too much this summer, and should have paced myself better. I think that I was able to recover well considering I was really bombing during the first few weeks of the course, but if I would have had more forethought and not tried to accomplish everything this summer, I might have had an easier time of it all. A study by Brown University on Stress gave the advice to its students, “Know and accept your limits. Don’t over-commit – learn to say no.” I truly need to follow this more in my own life, because on top of all of the coursework, I continued to accept more responsibilities at work. This is a personal development, but really, it will help me in the long run. In the advice we gave to students for next year, I made sure to warn them of the time commitment this course requires. On its own, this course would have been hard work, but manageable – on top of other commitments, it was absolutely stressful.
As I finish this last required blog post, I am feeling an immense sense of relief and pride in the work I’ve done. I have really grown a lot as both an educator and a student this semester, so right now, I’m feeling grateful. Throughout the semester, I often felt stressed, overwhelmed, and panicked. But now that it is over, I am definitely enforcing strategies and never letting myself get into such a deep hole of procrastination again!
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