Contribution to My Learning
Key Contributions
What worked for me during these two courses is the collaboration group I have built throughout this program. Stacie and Lola are more than just classmates or collaborators in this program; we have become friends. We were a strong collaboration group because we respected our time, opinions, and choices. Primarily we used Stacie’s personal zoom link; we set dates and times, remembering each other’s schedules and activities. For example, Wednesday is a day that our zoom meeting starts much later in the evening, like 8:30 p.m. central time, because Lola goes to church, Stacie stays after school with her students, and I go to the gym to work out. The other semesters we would remain on zoom past 10:00 p.m., but we have ended all our meetings by 10:00 p.m. central time this semester. I do not know if it is because we are getting older and need rest or we were setting boundaries. Maybe it was a combination of both because if I am not working on school assignments, I am in bed by 9:30 p.m.
As we learned in this course, we are not perfect, and there is always room for improvement, so what can we do better? We can do many things better; for me, that is organization, time management, and finding quality family time. If I am organized, my time management will improve, and the quality of family time will increase. Now that I am older, I have realized that family time is valuable and should not be taken for granted. I have learned to treasure every day and make the most of it.
I always knew I would do great on an assignment if I felt good turning it in and checking the page on my e-portfolio. I would go back and look at the page with a sense of pride. I did not feel accomplished in 5318 after turning in the second assignment, the implementation video, because the video had to be between eight and ten minutes, and I kept going over the time limit. I spent two days trying to cut down the time, but I wanted to keep all the good qualities in my course. I did a script, and with a script, I was at fifteen minutes. This assignment was the assignment that I had the most points taken off, and the feedback was that I needed to address all the questions listed on the assignment. I used a checklist to ensure everything that was required was in my course and that I mentioned in my implementation video. I am part of a chat on GroupMe, which has over 50 students who said they were given similar feedforward; not all questions from the assignment were addressed. Although I received feedforward from my collaboration group and made the necessary adjustments like always, my score was lower than usual. While I notice that some questions are worded differently but are asking the same question, I answer all the questions and then move the sentences around so that there is a flow in my writing. I was feeling down but decided to move on to the following assignments.
I also completed all my assignments and turned them in on time. I do not remember if I did all the discussions before class, but I did complete all my discussions with ample time to allow classmates to respond to me. One of my goals from the previous semesters was to do class discussions before class and reply to anyone responding to my discussion posts. I did go back and reply to anyone that replied to me. Someone mentioned using Quizlet, which I did, and I found it a great resource to add to my digital toolbox. Although I have my go-to technological applications, I like to use different ones to keep student engagement.
Supporting Contrubutions
If we had to pick a leader for our collaboration group, I would choose Stacie. She reads the emails, class announcements, and GroupMe messages before Lola and me. She will text us immediately if it is something urgent like grades are in. Since there are 50 other people in GroupMe, many messages can arrive at a time, and I am only sometimes available to view them. I participated in class discussions, not as much as other students, attended all the meetings, and took notes. I would make it a point to comment in every class meeting.
It is a bittersweet moment, I am overjoyed the program is ending and using all the tools I have learned in the ADL program but I am saddened that I will no longer meet with the ladies every day as I have for the past year. We are planning on meeting next Tuesday, March 7, to celebrate our conferred date of graduation.
