After skimming through my previous blog posts, I’m not sure
if there are particular themes that I could point out that would tie all my
posts together. One similarity between my posts, however, is that I have always
used personal experiences to explain the prompts. I think that in a way the
prompts have been set up in a way that encourages each student to talk about
personal experiences and tie them back to course themes.
When I first saw the title of this course and learned about what this class was going to be teaching us, I was confused, but by being able to relate real life experiences to the prompts and class discussions it has made everything easier to learn. I think the one prompt that I struggled the most with in terms of knowing exactly what the prompt was asking for and what experience in my life I could relate it to was the “opportunism” post. I will say, however, that after looking at your comments on my post, reading some posts of my peers and participating in the class discussion, I think I have been able to understand the prompt and theme much more.
Trying to think of connections to course themes aside from addressing the prompts that have clearly already been answered was a more difficult task, kind of how I felt when I was trying to think of an experience for the “opportunism” post that I just explained. I think that the themes that I personally was able to connect more obviously with my posts were the ones that I felt I had already had exposure to, which isn’t really a surprise. In the “opportunism” post, I had difficulty defining the term, which lead to me taking a long time to complete my post. In subsequent posts, including the team structure and “Illinibucks” ones, I was able to write the entire post fairly early and have the chance to go back to it and make edits, due to the fact I felt like I connected more with the theme in the posts.
I think overall, however, being able to write my post early, step away from it and come back is one of the ways I have evolved as a writer for this course. I have become a freer writer in that aspect. During the first couple of posts, I was pretty scared felt uncertain of the expectations and how I would be able to meet them, something I believe hindered my writing. Due to this, I felt like I became a much more tense writer, and would make an outline for what I wanted to write about the post. All this planning in the outline took time away from my actual writing, which meant I would write my post closer to the deadline which wouldn’t give me the opportunity to step away from the post and go back to it with a fresher perspective. Composing my posts with time to spare has also afforded me the chance to try and look at the post from a perspective other than my own in attempt to answer more questions.
In the future, I personally would like to see more posts like the “Illinibucks” one. I think that while at first it seemed like a very broad post, the terms were something that everyone was aware with. The fact that we were talking about the university, a commonality between all of us, allowed me to focus more on the prompt and class content instead of focusing on explaining the background of the personal experience I use in said prompt. By this, I mean that in the “Illinibucks” prompt I didn’t have to explain how things such as class registration works because it’s assumed we all know, while in a prompt like the organization or team structure one, I was very focused on explaining aspects of the organization or team as oppose to the course themes. Overall, I think that the comments about our posts have helped me personally evolve as a writer and made me more prepared for future prompts.
When I first saw the title of this course and learned about what this class was going to be teaching us, I was confused, but by being able to relate real life experiences to the prompts and class discussions it has made everything easier to learn. I think the one prompt that I struggled the most with in terms of knowing exactly what the prompt was asking for and what experience in my life I could relate it to was the “opportunism” post. I will say, however, that after looking at your comments on my post, reading some posts of my peers and participating in the class discussion, I think I have been able to understand the prompt and theme much more.
Trying to think of connections to course themes aside from addressing the prompts that have clearly already been answered was a more difficult task, kind of how I felt when I was trying to think of an experience for the “opportunism” post that I just explained. I think that the themes that I personally was able to connect more obviously with my posts were the ones that I felt I had already had exposure to, which isn’t really a surprise. In the “opportunism” post, I had difficulty defining the term, which lead to me taking a long time to complete my post. In subsequent posts, including the team structure and “Illinibucks” ones, I was able to write the entire post fairly early and have the chance to go back to it and make edits, due to the fact I felt like I connected more with the theme in the posts.
I think overall, however, being able to write my post early, step away from it and come back is one of the ways I have evolved as a writer for this course. I have become a freer writer in that aspect. During the first couple of posts, I was pretty scared felt uncertain of the expectations and how I would be able to meet them, something I believe hindered my writing. Due to this, I felt like I became a much more tense writer, and would make an outline for what I wanted to write about the post. All this planning in the outline took time away from my actual writing, which meant I would write my post closer to the deadline which wouldn’t give me the opportunity to step away from the post and go back to it with a fresher perspective. Composing my posts with time to spare has also afforded me the chance to try and look at the post from a perspective other than my own in attempt to answer more questions.
In the future, I personally would like to see more posts like the “Illinibucks” one. I think that while at first it seemed like a very broad post, the terms were something that everyone was aware with. The fact that we were talking about the university, a commonality between all of us, allowed me to focus more on the prompt and class content instead of focusing on explaining the background of the personal experience I use in said prompt. By this, I mean that in the “Illinibucks” prompt I didn’t have to explain how things such as class registration works because it’s assumed we all know, while in a prompt like the organization or team structure one, I was very focused on explaining aspects of the organization or team as oppose to the course themes. Overall, I think that the comments about our posts have helped me personally evolve as a writer and made me more prepared for future prompts.
I am going to zero in on something you said in your very first sentence - that you skimmed your posts - and respond to that because it may be a part of the process that you might reconsider. You've used the word skim elsewhere in communicating with me - when I asked whether you had read the piece about mindful learning.
ReplyDeleteSo the question/issue is when to skim, when to read deeply, and when not to even look at the piece at all. I don't have a rule for this in my own behavior other than on pieces I don't read - if somebody sends me something and I don't know the person and I was not expecting to receives it ahead of time, I will not read it unless the title grabs me.
I suspect that you skim in cases where I would read more deeply. So the question is why. Skimming obviously is a time saver. But also suggests that you either already know what is in the piece or you only need to have a vague idea about what you are reading. I'm afraid that current technology (particularly smartphones) encourages skimming. So you might make an effort to counteract that some, reading some things in more depth.
Your comments about being up tight about the blogging early on in the course match my experience in teaching with blogging. It happened even when I taught a class of campus honors students. As you said, you were unsure of the expectations and it is frightening to write under that circumstance. Truthfully, I don't think I could convey those expectations to you in advance. You had to experience it. I sense you have relaxed some in the writing since, perhaps as a consequence of our chat.
As to having prompts that produce familiar or alien concepts and scenarios, do know that I am trying to tie the post to course themes. For better or worse, opportunism is a quite important idea in our class and helps to explain why certain transactions happen within organizations rather than in a market. If I had written the prompt to consider cheating on exams, I'm guessing you would have had some experience with friends or classmates that would have been more apropos. The issue of whether the experience is appropriate or not is precisely the type of mindful thinking that I am trying to encourage in students. My sense is that you would do that more readily if you read some things more deeply on a regular basis. The deep reading encourages the making of these sort of connections.
There is, of course, only a certain number of hours in the day and there is an overwhelming amount of things that that you might read. You definitely can't read everything this way. So some choices need to be made.
I agree that reading more mindfully as oppose to skimming through things would lead to learning topics more in depth. In this scenario when I used the term "skim," I personally feel like it was an appropriate term because I was the one that wrote these post. I felt that I didn't need to necessarily read mindfully through my own posts, because I feel like I wrote them mindfully and simply skimming through them would jog my memory on the posts and how to relate them to this week's prompt, a similar practice to a suggestion you made in the third paragraph of your response.
DeleteI would agree that the increase in technology, particularly smartphones as you mentioned, does indeed encourage skimming. When reading certain articles on a smartphone, readers often times have the option to click a button to shorten the article to only the most important pieces, which wouldn't be the most mindful reading.
I appreciate all of your comments and have been mindful with them and hope it shows in future posts.
I think it is really good that you have grown as a writer to where you write it and then go back and make edits. I always write my post and re-read it a few times afterwards to see if any new thoughts come to my mind. Maybe I should come back a few hours after posting and do this, it could open my mind to new thoughts since I would be in a different mindset.
DeleteI also wanted to note that both you and Dale Mortensen both enjoyed the Illinibucks prompt the most. I also enjoyed this post, as it was different then all the others, it prosed an idea that was possible and interesting. I thought it did a good job of opening our minds to the concepts and made us think about them through a fun and intellectual way.