This post reflects my contributions to my learning and the learning community for 5315 and 5320. As I reflect on my time in both courses, my self-assessment is as follows:
5315 Assessing Digital Learning and Instruction: 94/100
5320 Synthesis Digital Learn/Leader: 95/100
Fun fact: Teenage me spent three years as the drum major of my high school's marching band. I loved every minute and still proudly wave my "band nerd" banner. This means many hours leading, playing, and listening to the song, "The Final Countdown" by Europe.
This song lives in my mental jukebox, and gets selected anytime something epic is happening in my world. It's like my internal exit music and I'm sure my core collaboration group is quite happy I haven't busted out in song although I've wanted to on several occassions. Please enjoy the video below as you read about my contributions to my learning and that of my learning community.
Reflection on how I contributed to, helped build, and provided feedback to my core collaboration group:
Another fun fact: I adore my core collaboration group.
We were placed into this program for such a time as this, and I can't imagine this year without them. We noted often that our group, Lauren, Matthieu, Shaneigh and I were present at most Live classes, with cameras on and ready to participate, clarify, and/or ask questions and contribute. During office hours, we always made sure to have a representative from our team, and I was happy to take that role several times for both 5315 & 5320. When I was traveling for work, I knew I could count on my teammates to share the knowledge they'd gained and ask our wonderings. The group approach was something none of us expected to enjoy, and need, as much as we did! Over the course of this program, we've collaborated in many ways with Mattheiu's Google Doc keeping us on track and our GroupMe chat keeping us all in line. Our routines were a bit crazy with summer schedules and Hurricume Beryl coming to Houston and taking away power, internet, and cell service for millions. Yet, one of us was always there to offer help, advice, examples, and ideas. What's also been beneficial and fun is our support has gone well beyond classwork as we share fun family times, work experiences, and life beyond ADL. Shaneigh and I have met, but I'm excited to meet Lauren and Mattheiu when we don our caps and gowns at commencement on August 3rd! (Photo coming soon!)
Reflection on what is working:
The format of these two classes worked well for me along with the pacing. I had my reading material with plenty of time and greatly enjoyed reading and learning all about Active Reasearch in 5315. I enjoyed getting to revisit my Lit Review and expand on the measurement and assessment piece of it. In 5320, we were excited and thankful to get to wrap up the program with Dr. Dwayne Harapnuik, since he'd guided us through out first class, what seems like eons ago. I am happy to have had a chance to connect with several classmates outside my core group and help clarify assignment expectations, especially for two classmates for whom English is a 2nd language. While I am English/Spanish bilingual, I am, by far, more comfortable in English. Even with that, I found myself needing to review, reread, and remind myself of expectations and vocabulary. I have tremendous respect for their willingness to jump into such a challenging program knowing language discomfort might occur.
Reflection on what I could have done better:
I could have helped my bilingual classmates earlier in the program. I was so bogged down in my work and personal deadlines that I didn't stop to consider the needs of our greater group. This revelation led me to thinking about professional tunnel vision and who I can support differently moving forward. In terms of coursework, I know my ePortfolio needs better structure. I know the basic elements are present and my work is all represented with a touch of my personality, but it feels more like a scrapbook to show friends, and less of a professional piece to display. I've yet to master how to embed documents despite exhausting every resource, video, and person I know. I considered switching platforms at one point, but was too far in, with too little time, to attempt that move. I'm actually happy with it, though, and so proud of how it's turned out.
I also knew my work and family needs for the summer, so I worked to have discussion posts done early, but I didn't always have other posts to which I could offer a reply. My core group/accountability group reminded me earlier that two of my posts were done, but I still needed to reply. I didn't always get back to the discussion pages to do this, so I know that was an area in which I could have done better. I'm happy to say my posts and replies are back on track.
Overall, I feel I was a strong contributor at a time when life was more hectic for my group, just as they'd done for me throughout my heavy travel seasons at work. I enjoyed getting to know additional classmates and supporting them as I could, including sharing my 5320 visual representation video for their reference. I attended classes and even rewatched 5315 recordings just for greater clarification. When I was offered the opportunity to do better on an assignment in 5320, I did so happily. Well, maybe not exactly happily, but grateful to have an opportunity to accept feedforward and act on it. I am also grateful that our professors are not animals and understood that Hurricune Beryl disrupted life for many in our program. Both Dr. Meeuwse and Dr. H took mercy on our souls and mental faculties, allowing extentions on our due dates and course activitites, when Shaneigh, Lauren, and I asked.
It's been quite a ride and I'm so excited that we can finally say, or belt out...with air guitar, "It's the Final Countdown, do do do doo doo!"
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