Category Archives: Unit Reflections

May 5 2016

Independent vs Dependent Learning

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After reflecting on the year as a whole, I realized how my Ole Miss experiences have differed from those of my high school years. More importantly, I have seen an increased amount of personal growth in myself than I have in high school. In fact, I feel that I have become a more independent learner and person compared to high school.

Take a look at my Weekly Artifact: NEVER LOFT YOUR BED ALONE . My head got ahead of my capabilities and there wasn’t a soul there to talk me out of it. I made up a list of why would it be a good idea to loft my bed rather than why it is not a good idea to loft my bed. When I look back on this moment, all I can think is “Only Madelyn Moments”. This simple example demonstrates how I have begun to think independently about life decisions. Although I think this was a huge learning moment for my personal life, I believe that this is dramatically different from how I would have acted in high school. During those four short years of my life, I had to have permission from my parents before I did something. This prevented me from making the bad decision or not thinking something through entirely. In college, I don’t have to have parental consent. If you had asked me a year ago if I would decide to do something without asking my parents first, I would laugh in your face. Now I am making all kinds of decisions on my own, whether it be about personal matters such as what I am going to eat for lunch to educational decisions about doing my homework. Therefore, I believe that through out my first year at Ole Miss, I have become more of an actively independent person in my life actions.

My independent thinking was not limited to the personal life experiences. In my educational opportunities, I have become more independent than my high school self. If you consider my Weekly Artifact: Math Master , it becomes more clear how I have begun to have to think and learn independently. This post highlights how I have developed many perspectives on how to solve a math problem. I was presented with a problem from a class I have never taken and was able to solve it because of what I have learned from another math course. In high school, I can guarantee that if I was presented with a problem like that, I would have gone straight to the teacher and they would have showed me how to solve it. Absolutely no outside problem solving. I think this example really goes to show how I have begun to further my knowledge and be less dependent on a teacher spoon feeding me the information. This idea of independent problem solving becoming one of my strengths in college is evident in other classes as well. I believe that this really demonstrates who this one skill is not only new, but one that can help me in life and other educational obstacles.

In my Classroom Ideas post, I mentioned how I hated group projects. What I have realized during my first year in college is that I absolutely hate having to rely on other people doing work that will affect my grade. I guess this labels me not only as a person comfortable with doing things independently (even if it means more work on my behalf), but it also classifies me as a control freak. I am a perfectionist and have come to the conclusion that I work better by myself than with other people. In high school, I absolutely dreaded independent projects. Anytime I had the opportunity to work with my friends, I did it. I believe that my high school self would also rely on other people to do the work for me. I absolutely hated research, writing/composing the final project. Oh my how times have changed through out this first year at Ole Miss. I think a lot of this stems from the fact that I was a very lazy learner and relied on people more than I did on myself. I also believe this demonstrates how I have grown as an individual with one year of being out of high school.

So what changed within this last year that made me such an independent person? I believe that my attitude towards my grades and reputation in college is way more important than it was in high school. During grade school, your grades were important to your teachers’ reputations, thus your grade was a reflection of how the teacher wanted to be represented. At Ole Miss, your grades represent nothing more but yourself and your work ethic. I truly realized this when I posted my Weekly Artifact: History or Theology . I talked about how in my history class I read a book that paralleled and contradicted beliefs/parts of the Bible. As I was commenting, I realized that not only did I view myself as an independent learner, but I learned how to conform to be independently different from class to class. Since my teacher was a nonbeliever, I had to conform my personal thoughts into a manner that the opposing viewpoint would at least respect. I think this post and comment really demonstrates how college has uniquely shaped me into the learner I am today. In high school, I would have easily just written the paper or assignment in the exact manner that my teacher would want, even if this meant putting my personal beliefs aside. With this new concept of my grades representing me, I want them to be the best they can be which required me to learn how to individualize my courses.

I think on a much larger scale, being independent from parental control, high school “babying” and collaborative work has better prepared me for future classes and moments in my career. This first year of college has been nothing more than a “trial-and-error” year. I have made the spontaneous decisions and learned. I have been presented with a problem without teacher assistance and learned. I have failed many assignments across all my courses and learned. Time and time again, I have begun to develop into a well rounded learner who does more than copies down notes, regurgitates it on tests and assignments, then forgets about it. With each experience in college, I realized how independent of a student and individual I have become compared to the high school version I once was.

Apr 25 2016

Multimodal Reflection

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To my surprise, I actually really enjoyed this assignment. Ever since I was a little girl, I have always loved a good challenge. So this project was exactly that!

For starters, I am computer challenged. I don’t know why, but sometimes I just have the hardest time with doing more than the bare minimum on the computer. When I saw this assignment was a website and immediately panicked. Once I understood the assignment, I went and made a “trial website” with a different email and web address. I did this so I had another place to work on becoming familiar with the website and if I messed up or accidently deleted something, it didn’t really matter. I think this was very beneficial for myself. I was able to remain more calm and motivated through out the project unlike in projects in the past (aka Powtoon).

The next obstacle that was at hand was reducing the amount of words and turning them into visuals. I think this was one of my stronger areas, because I had made an outline before writing the paper, so I was able just to use the wording on my outline. I also did a little extra reading and researching in order to obtain more visual elements to get my point across. Overall, I feel that this was the part of the project where I felt most confident.

This process really reminded me of the synthesis essay. I didn’t necessarily have to include visuals in that particular paper, but I had to juggle many different elements into one project. For example, in the synthesis essay, I had multiple texts, an audience and a different type of structure to consider. Likewise, the multimodal assignment had the same set of issues plus a few more. With careful planning and self pacing, I was able to grasp the project and complete it with only one meltdown. I think that just like how I learned from the Powtoon how to address this project, I learned from this project how to tackle a future assignment. A part from actually composing the paper/multimodal, I think I finally understand how to arrange evidence and stay organized in my papers. In addition, I believe that I have a better handle on how to address the different audiences I may have to conform my paper to entertaining.

I say all of this to come to the final point that it is important to have an element of creative writing through out academic papers. Time and time again, I read over my friends’ essays (I’ve been titled editor of the friend group) and think man this is just so traditional. I really have strived to add a since of my personality to my papers, without it being to evident and non academic. I think about what I would want to read if I wasn’t writing the paper and in what way would I like to read it. All of this, I feel, is what has helped me grow as a writer and become a pro at the computer.

Mar 11 2016

Annotated Bibliography with Cause and Effect Argument Proposal Reflection

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I was extremely intrigued, fascinated and awakened by this particular research project. In fact, I think that the research for this project has changed my perception of my choice of major the most out of my time here at Ole Miss. I have always known that there were obstacles and challenges that special education students and teachers endure daily. This is part of the reason I chose the field. I want to be the voice and representation for those students who may not have a voice or a family that cares. With this being said, after researching, I realized that I have a much bigger battle than I originally had thought. What really surprised and changed my point of view was the amount of people that are constantly influenced, yet all in different and sometimes unequal ways. From the very beginning of my research, the article in Re-reading America, I knew that the education system was more flawed than I had assumed. The author’s personal experiences and connections to other statistics really allowed me to have a better understanding of the issues that are in need of improvement. In addition to this wider understanding, I think I have learned a lot about how the special education department works within the United States. More particularly, I have learned how the finances are divided, processed and handled for special education programs and resources. If you would have asked me at the beginning of the project if I would be interested in looking at the financial aspect of the educational system, I would have laughed in your face. I have never, until this point, had much of a care about the finances of the school districts. I now have learned that these components of money are extremely important to understanding why the systems and programs are the way they are. I think that this knew connection between financial relationships and the quality of education has impacted the projects I have worked on in the past. Within these prior assignments, I was always quick to point the finger at the teachers and administration for not doing more for these kids. In reality, my accusations and place of blame were in the wrong direction. After completing my research, I learned that national lawmakers and school district officials are the ones to blame. Ultimately, they produce and enforce the laws and restrictions that puts teachers and administrators in a bind. In conclusion, all of this change of perspective, better understanding, and new attention to the laws comes down to a single turning point moment of my research: when I learned how special education students in my new and old hometown are being treated unequally. This particular moment made all of my research more personal and increased my passion for this field of work. With all of this noted, I think this research moment could easily be titled my favorite and most thought provoking event this semester. Overall, I loved the research and new knowledge from this assignment and can’t wait to turn all of this into a paper.

Nov 19 2015

PowToon Unit Reflection

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While composing my PowToon, I succeeded and was challenged in many aspects. One of these aspects are the sound and images within the PowToon. The first thing I realized was how different composing the cartoon was in comparison to the academic paper. More particularly, there were so many elements that make up a single second in the PowToon. When writing my paper, I had a complete lay out of what was to be said/written for every sentence. With the PowToon, in one second you must think of the timing of the audio, music, visual and what/how the visual would appear. With this being said, I was not the most comfortable with the voice over at first. I felt my voice was too high pitched and too fast. I couldn’t get myself to take the necessary brakes when reading the script. At this point, I decided to record my voice in Garage Band in order to add “fake” pauses. I feel this was a large learning moment for me and one of my strengths. I was able to really problem solve and get creative with each individual slide. I loved creating my academic paper into an entertaining video. At the same time, I feel that initial attempt to record and time the slides with the voice over was my weaknesses. Even though the sound track was not my strength, my favorite part was the clever remarks. I think these remarks really added the personality of my PowToon. On the other hand, my favorite part of the visual track was all the blank slides where I got to really be creative. Overall, I feel I really learned a lot about me as a writer through many different modes.

Prior to this PowToon, I had very little experience in designing a visual presentation. With this being said, many of the designing process was enjoyable and difficult. I really enjoyed creating the blank screens. It felt like it was an empty canvas where I could create whatever I wanted. I was able to choose the colors and the location of each picture as to where with the templet screens I was more limited. In opposition, the hardest part was having the images appear in sync with the sound track. Therefore, there were several decisions that I had to make that I was not initially anticipating. I had drawn out on paper what I originally wanted with the script, but once I got on the website I realized that my character and visual options were limited. I had to rethink several ideas but I believe in the end it worked out for the best. For example, I really wanted to have younger and teenaged students at one point in my slides. The only issue was there wasn’t teenage aged animations in PowToon. On the other hand, I think that my favorite design choice was choosing the classroom theme. It really helped create and further express the topic of my argument. In conclusion, I found that I liked using the electronic environment more than I anticipated.

I believe that remixing my initial paper into a cartoon was both good and bad. For starters, by having a written paper I already had my actual argument planned out for me. The down side to this advantage was that some of the academic evidence that I had used in my paper was harder to express through visuals. Therefore, in reaction, I prefer the essay over the PowToon to express my argument. I think that I liked the essay better for the sole purpose of being able to build strong creditability to my argument. Yes, it was possible to add creditability with the PowToon, but I was able to analyze and expand on my sources more with the written paper. In opposition, I feel that with my topic being standardized testing, taken by children and young adults, the animated visual was more effected in reaching the audience the topic refers to. The students that take these test addressed in my paper, are more inclined to watch a cartoon than read a lengthy essay. In addition, I feel that one of the advantages to using the visual animation was that the words were easier to compose because they were short and more relaxed. On the contrary, I couldn’t use many of the credible quotes from my original paper. At the end of the day, I enjoyed composing the visual medium but I could better explain my argument through the academic paper.

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Nov 4 2015

Argumentative Unit Reflection

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  1. Through out this project, I learned many things about editing, information on my topic and composing an argumentative paper. The most valuable thing that I learned was how to edit my paper in a more efficient and beneficial way. Looking at each sentence and deleting the unnecessary words really helped improve my paper. I feel that I become repetitive and extremely wordy at some points in my paper. I plan to use this technique of editing a sentence one at a time in my future papers. Another learning moment was when reading the other forums in the debate. I tend to be a closed minded thinker on controversial topics I’m passionate about. This paper really forced me to listen and take into account other perspectives and experiences on a particular topic. For example, my topic was based around whether or not standardized testing was a good measurement of our education system. I have always been against testing, but when researching the benefits of these tests for some individuals, I was more open minded. In opposition, some of the arguments proposed further pushed my perspective of the story and helped me expand my original stance on the debate. Lastly, I learned a lot about how to organize and compose an argumentative paper. In the past, I wrote argumentative papers that were scattered and unorganized. I was never aware that there was a certain structure to the paper. I used to think that every paragraph looked at both the positives and negatives of the situation. Therefore, I have never written a rebuttal paragraph. I found that learning the layout of the paper really helped me in developing my thoughts and ideas. Overall, this project was very full of numerous learning opportunities.

 

  1. After completing the paper, I had several questions that remained unanswered. One question is how do I add more personality to my paper? I feel that I make good points supported by effective evidence, but it lacks in voice and personality. When referring back to the example paper on excelsior OWL, I admired the way his paper flowed and was filled with personality. While I feel I am improving on adding voice, I still would like some more tips on how to add voice effectively. In addition to this, I had a question in regards to the topic itself. As a future educator, I want nothing more than to know that my students will be successful in everything they do under my supervision. With this being said, I wonder what will become of standardized testing by the time I become a teacher. Will the government take away some test and add others? Will they get rid of testing all together? Will states continue to add more testing requirements in addition to those of the nation? I understand the point of view of the students because I personally experienced the tests first hand. I am very curious and optimistic about what will happen to my future students and if they will endure the test like me or if they will have new standards.

 

  1. I think my opinion after completing this project is about how important argumentative writing will be in the future. As much as I hate to say it, we will need the knowledge of this particular writing style no matter what profession we chose. In the business world, one may need it with proposing new ideas and changes to major corporations. Educators will need it when fighting for something for their students whether its within their school or district. Lawyers and politicians will constantly be using argumentative writing for various ways of completing their jobs. In conclusion, argumentative writing techniques was a very important and valuable thing to learn for the future.
Oct 11 2015

Op- Doc Analysis Unit Reflection

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Screen Shot 2015-10-09 at 10.11.56 AMThis picture represents the scene where his parents receive the phone call from the school saying that his son was being suspended for hitting another child then lying about it. In reality, he never hit the boy and the school failed to research into the report more. They assumed that because the confrontation happened between both white and African American boys, Idris had done it. The reason I think this scene had the largest impact on my paper is because it was the first time the viewer understood in reality what his personal struggles were. At this point in the story the viewer is able to see a specific example and better understand the purpose of this video. I was able to really expand on this particular example in my analysis because it was the first time I personally experienced emotion by the film. When watching the video for the first time, this was the scene that caught my attention and helped me decide how to analysis the rest of the film. Overall, I felt this initial scene that depicts his personal struggled helped me put into perspective the rest of my analysis.

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I feel this picture best describes the activity that helped me the most in writing my paper. During my conference, I had good body paragraphs but failed to have a clear and organized introduction, thesis and conclusion. When we discussed that I could rearrange the last part of my thesis into the conclusion, I was able to clarify my purpose of the introduction.  When I left the conference, I moved the “so what” piece of my thesis into the topic sentence of the conclusion. In addition, I went back and added a few sentences in my body paragraphs to help build up to my conclusion’s purpose. Another helpful organization tip I gained from my conference was how to show the complexity of my video’s issue. Being too broad about the racial tension in the education system was hindering my flow of the paper. I found myself bouncing back and forth between the different pieces of the complex issue. I was advised in my conference to look at all the issues I discussed in my paper and move them around within the paragraph so the overall message was more concise. This reorganization of my middle paragraphs helped the fluency of my concluding paragraph. In conclusion, I found my conference to be the activity that impacted my final paper.

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The image above really pin points the complex issues that my Op-Doc Video depicts. The image above shows a typical school building but with a large set of diverse kids within it. Generally speaking, the range of ethnicities in the education system is the main topic of both the paper and the video. Where I found the real issues of the racial struggles in the picture was by how the school is being stretched. I thought of this as representing the elements of my thesis that articulate the social issues piling up within the education system. In my thesis I talk about the complexity of race and how it effected Idris over time. When I think of how his life was portrayed in the film, I thought of each struggle as something that was piling up on him and personally affecting him to the point where he may “pop”. In total, I feel the picture above expresses the complexity of my thesis.

Sep 21 2015

Literacy Guide Unit Reflection

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I learned many valuable writing techniques, development skills and analysis strategies through out the literacy guide assignment. I started by organizing my ideas and dividing the “must-haves” into each category. Once that was complete, I was able to refer to the previous homework activities in order to find examples to implement in my guide. For example, I used the three charts as a starting point for exploring The New York Times. The most helpful chart in particular, was where we used the “most popular” page to find three articles. I had a whole section of my guide dedicated to using the “most popular” page as a tool for navigating through the newspaper. I was able to use my previous analysis from the chart to expand on my new thoughts with the examples I used in the guide. This showed me the value of taking a specific idea and elaborating. I feel that analysis has been one of my weaknesses when writing so this technique of using my previous work was extremely valuable. While implementing the analysis to my examples, I realized that I was having a hard time covering all the “must-haves”. I had no problem with hyperlinking articles, clarifying a voice, and analyzing the different styles and preferences. What I did struggle with was finding the different article forms and modes that would cover each of the topics I had assigned to topic prior to writing. I found that I would continue to use news reports and multimedia pieces repetitively. I had to rewrite sections multiple times and spend a lot of time searching for the perfect example in something other than news reports and videos. Like with the “most popular” chart homework, I used my previous work, “One topic three ways”, to get a better idea of the different article types out there. At first this chart was helpful, but then I realized it was still lacking the elements I needed. It is at this point in my writing of the guide, I happened to stumble across the times topic page. During my search for the perfect example, this page within the newspaper was able to have multiple modes of information with a click of a button. This initial frustration led to this new discovery within The New York Times. In reaction to this valuable and helpful tool, I was able to create the last section of my guide. This moment was extremely valuable to me because I was able to learn a valuable organization skill through my own mistakes. Out of the entire project, this was my personal favorite learning moment. I learned an important lesson and was able in return to use it to complete the assignment. With this being said, I believe that my advice to myself from this particular writing task would be don’t be afraid to make mistakes and implement these struggles into a unique way in which can be used to complete the task at hand or in the future. Practice makes perfect and rewriting is not a sign of organizational or developmental weakness.

Sep 3 2015

Common Reading Unit Reflection

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Through out this unit, I learned a lot of valuable skills and strategies that will help improve my writing in the future. One of the most important skills I learned was the extreme need to come to class prepared. I had finished the book, The Education of a Lifetime, before the beginning of school which was instrumental through out the entire first unit. I was able to use the homework and class assignments to strengthen my understanding of the book. This in return would help with the very little experience I had with timed writing assignments. I used many new techniques in order to prepare and complete my essay. For example, at my high school we wrote timed essays but we got the prompt the day before and were able to gather our ideas and organize our essay that night. With this writing, I was unable to prepare on the exact prompt but I was able to do some “prep-work” in a similar fashion. I spent the night before the essay gathering evidence and ideas from the previous assignments we had done in class and for homework. I made sure to include a wide variety of examples and multiple ways to use each piece of evidence. With creating different ways to use a single quote, I was able to create a wider range of analysis which could be used for different prompts. With my notes and ideas in hand, I then read each provided prompt. I picked the first prompt because I had the most examples and prior knowledge on that particular question. I felt that having that list prepared prior to class time was significantly helpful. I didn’t have to spend time searching through the book to find the quotes and I was able to chose a prompt quicker and more efficiently. Although this strategy was extremely useful to my writing process, I think creating an outline prior to writing my essay was the most beneficial strategy. I organized the evidence in the order I wanted the paper to flow along with creating a strong thesis. It only took about five minutes to complete and it kept me focused as I wrote my assignment. I felt I had good supporting evidence and my ideas were clear and appropriate for the topic. However, my weakness during the in-class writing essay was forming those ideas into a concise paragraph and fluent essay within the time restraint. I feel I struggle with rambling and re-writing the same idea repetitively. With this being said I also have extreme test anxiety. I found myself getting frustrated and discouraged when I didn’t have the words to articulate a particular idea. In the future, I plan on creating sentences ahead of time to use in my essay. I also will create a time limit per section in order to prevent me from spending all my time on a specific paragraph. Overall I learned many lessons from the mistakes and struggles within this one writing assignment. I hope to use these to improve my timed essays throughout my college experience.