Contemporary School

   

 Course Evaluation

    Course subjects

    I enjoyed having documentaries to watch in this class. This isn't something new to me, as this is a similar experience I had at Eco-Human Experience. However, if there's a video teaching me on a subject with firsthand encounters and experiences, I can't complain. It is easier to make an opinion when I get to see the story as it is, rather than it being an outsider's interpretation. The readings were fine. It was lengthy, but it did provide some knowledge on the subjects in question. 
    
    One assignment I look back nearly satisfied with is when we had to plan our final. We were told to think of scenarios for the final. I was pretty fixed on what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about tolerance/acceptance of [other] religious beliefs. It's been a topic hovering over my head for a while. With how some college students in Johnson openly or subtly discriminate against Christians and Jews, I knew this was important to talk about. As someone working to be a teacher, I do not want to enable this behavior and teach children that this kind of behavior is acceptable. Granted, I was late sharing my plan. I may have missed it or forgot to do it later that day. I also made a grammar mistake. I would have fixed it if I knew my wording was off. Generously, I was given a 10/10. I was shocked, but I am not going to argue with it.

    I also enjoyed seeing what other students plan to do for their finals. Given it was due that day, I can't expect any of them to read my feedback or comments. I hope people take my thoughts into consideration.

    Classmates/Peers

    For the most part, everybody seemed to get along. Except one student. I can't put it in nicer words other than she was miserable and didn't have a lot of positive things to say. She even encouraged absurd ideas to classmates such as separating from friends and family over the results of the election. No matter the results, people shouldn't break up [their] families because they can't put their disagreements aside. Family is more important than anything. I don't know what makes her think she can get away with such behavior. It was probably because this class was online and she didn't have to face anybody. Nevertheless, I was disappointed.

    There was another person who had a debate with me on abortion. I'm not sure if she agreed with me on everything, but the important thing is that she was civil and we listened to each other's comments. It was a productive discussion, and we thanked each other for taking things well. It's a heavy subject, with no fits-all solution. It's a topic with a lot of "what if..." counterarguments on both sides. She set a good role model for other students on how to debate on political subjects [online].

    Personal Reflection

      I have been good about taking criticism, and giving criticism when needed. I've almost been perfect with turning in assignments on time. I'm not someone who likes to miss class or be late on assignments. Especially for classes that are required, such as this one. I don't want to make excuses for any delays. If I mess up, it's on me.

    Final thoughts

    I wasn't sure how I would feel about online classes. I think I engage better when it is in person. I believe I still made a lot of progress in this class. It was also nice having it online since I didn't have to attend class or Zoom. Not that I didn't enjoy either of those things, but it meant that this class was flexible throughout the week.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Foundations of Inclusive Practice

    Course Evaluation      Course subjects     The lessons were all interesting. The lesson that I got hooked on the most was the one documenting children [who were grown men by the time it was filmed] who were victims of being incorrectly labeled as disabled to be homed into mental asylums. It wasn't just the fact they were forced to remain institutionalized for what was planned to be their whole lives, but what the adults made them do in the asylum. Things such as sexual assault, eating radioactive oatmeal as an experiment, and one even had to handle slices of brains that belonged to deceased residents of the asylum. I went into this lesson assuming that the conditions may be bare minimum, and how workers handled disabled people would be intense or immoral (given the time period), but that left me appalled. It made me wonder how many places replicate this behavior. And this was just what was uncovered... What beha...
Read more

Eco-Human Experience (Fall)

   Course Evaluation      Course subjects     The assignments in this course were not at all challenging. I got to rewatch documentaries and reflect off of what I thought when I first watched the video. Usually, seeing something twice, viewers can pick up details that didn't make sense or weren't seen before. In my opinion, God Loves Uganda was still hard to sit through. Not just the fact gay people couldn't live comfortably in Uganda, but from the perspective of someone with a Catholic background, it's hard to fathom how communities that are also Christian can create such an ugly divide between people. Even out of their home country.     The easiest assignment in my opinion was when students were assigned a chapter to make a discussion about. Reflecting on my first attempt at making a discussion, I failed to make a conversation that doesn't directly rip off from the book. Since I was struggling to remember the story's timeline verbatim, I pa...
Read more

Inventive Thinking

  Course Reflection      Course subjects         Most of my assignments depended on reading, and asking me to explain new words with my own interpretation of their meaning. This helped me rehearse what I read and helped me build my vocabulary around the subject of inventive thinking. Including new definitions like "KWL reading" which means "What I know, What I want to know, and What I learned.". Learning strategies such as this help open a variety of choices that could teach students in unique, effective ways. Outside of acronyms, I also learned about Jigsaw grouping which was the idea of mixing groups with different fields of knowledge to exchange thoughts to build onto one idea or to give each other lessons on multiple subjects. I like this method because it encourages students to get into groups and learn more from each other. This also gets them to socialize more with people their age and learn stuff from each other that may not know from...
Read more