Claiming an Education

At the very beginning of the article it states how interacting in an environment or conversation helps in your understanding of the topic being conversed. I believe this is especially true because if you are just arbitrarily listening, you may miss focal points of the conversation because you are not involved and therefore don’t need to participate or learn. This also rings true for the syllabus that is somewhat of a written contract between professors and students. If students don’t participate fully in the work that is assigned or read through it thoroughly, they are not going to get everything they could out of that assignment in terms of learning. This will lead to more challenges along the way because of the decreased participation over time.

I thought it was interesting how these two topics seemed relevant to each other even though one is more of a conversation piece and the other a learning aspect. I have found both of these important in my life as learning objectives but never noticed the two could be linked together. I think it is also very important in this particular class because it is online. Since there is not the ability to be in person engaging, it is especially pertinent to interact in the online discussion posts and blogs that we have.

In growing with this skill of becoming more involved, I believe my intellectual curiosity has grown. It deals with looking at issues from multiple perspectives and seeking out more information before ending at someone’s own rationalization. This may involve being more of an active learner, which strengthens understanding of possible conversational topics and readings. This is important to me because I will work with a team of nurses and other disciplines. By looking at things from other perspectives I will grow as a healthcare worker.

Another point made about active learners that I thought was interesting was the fact that it involves using multiple different strategies of learning to determine which produces superior results. This is especially important in college because there are so many courses that are required for a degree along with some required by the university. There is so much to learn in the four months of each semester with differing teaching styles from every professor that being an active learner is almost imperative throughout one’s college years. I know this is something I especially had to grow into during my beginning years at college and even more so because I am a nursing major with a heavy course load. But, the good thing about college in general, and in my case my major, is that I am never alone in my struggles class wise. There is a lot of collaboration that happens in my major as I am sure are just as important in other majors. So by having many students with mostly active learning styles I think that could create the richest environment for groups and other activities involving other people.

In another sense, this is also true in learning because being in a new environment there most likely is a change of learning from a previous study habit had before. For most, college contains more lectures, handouts, and information than what was previously had. For me, I have never taken an online class at this college so I need to be active in my learning to make the most of the experience and receive decent grades. College is a special place because there are so many people from different backgrounds and ways of doing things that were relevant where they originated from that it makes the campus almost an instant learning experience. By combining this along with the new conversations and information to learn, most students adapt to be more involved in their learning because this is where a lot of independence grows.

This also rings true in my major because medicine is not always cause and effect. Every patient presents with their own unique symptoms and may not be as black and white as the next. This is also important in this class because writing involves so much technique and can be applied to practically every discipline. By having immense knowledge and different strategies one could produce a technically correct paper.

This idea of multiple ideas involved to see what produces the best results may also help with independent work as well because if one person doesn’t know something there is a good chance someone else has a similar question and will seek out collaboration as well to solve it. This is relevant to our class because we have a discussion forum for this.

As previously discussed, in this new environment of college that one has to adapt to that I have mentioned also ties into the topic of reciprocal determinism. This identifies the fact that there is a relationship between a person and their environment. This bodes well in the college aspect because most students are on their own and have to work with what they have and interact with a new environment to make the most of their situation, both socially and educationally. This ties back into the topic of being more active in learning and in situations that require more than just a passive glance. By interacting with the environment it enhances learning for not only oneself, but also for others. By participating in conversations like on other people’s posts and being active in listening it can produce more impactful conversations.