53 Reflection on Learning – Active Listening

This active listening assignment proved itself to be extremely beneficial when it is applied properly. Since practicing active listening, I have often caught myself doing things that are either distracting or impolite, and now I am able to easily correct myself in the act. I had tested this on three people: My roommate, one of my suite mates, and my RA. My roommate was telling me about how her Grandma has been using the same recipes for decades when she expressed how much she missed homemade meals. One of my suite mates was talking to me about how her sister (who is still in high school) was having homecoming this upcoming weekend. My RA was talking to me at our floor’s bonfire about how our floor is one of the best groups of kids she has ever met, and how she was surprised we all got along well. For the most part, none of them reacted in a radical way to my active listening, but they did all give me glances as if they weren’t used to people listening that attentively. The main result from my active listening was getting to know these three girls better, given that i was able to make more connections with them (Roommate – we connected through family recipes, Suite mate – we connected through our younger sisters’ homecomings, RA – we connected through talking about/with other people on our floor and through our love for apple music). I feel that the only thing that had been challenging was staying off of my phone. As our generation is extremely technologically driven and are always on our phones, it was slightly difficult to stay off for the duration of the conversations.