50 Learning Reflections
How I Learn
When I have a strong interest in learning something I will do everything and use all of my resources to gain that knowledge. I’ll read books, ask questions, research, talk to other people to learn what they know and get their opinions on it, and I’ll take the time to really sit down and learn it and discuss with another person. There have been times were I’m really interested in making an intricate recipe, so I’ll read through the directions, I’ll ask my mom and grandma if they’ve made something like it, since I trust their cooking expertise. I will ask how it went and what went wrong and the best way to approach it to get the best results. I read about the best ingredients and methods and if I’m unfamiliar with those, research them. I go through every step slowly and plan out what I need to prepare first and what measuring tools I need out so that the process can go smoothly. I may make the recipe several times until it goes smoothly.
Learning Reflection: Active Listening
Active listening is fully focusing on what a person is saying without outside distractions or side comments about what is being said, not typical with “normal” conversations. During the class activity for active listening, I used a lot of eye contact, reacted with my face more, and nodded. It was hard to feel engaged without saying anything and with the window behind my partner, my eyes would get distracted. Following the 36 hour active listening exercise, I realized how easy it is to get distracted and how challenging it can be. On the flip side of that, I also felt that I was more into the conversation because I was paying such close attention and I had questions in my head prior that were answered, but if I had spoken, I could have cut them off when the question would have been answered. I now realize how distracted I get during conversations and how often I may cut someone off or how impatient I get while conversing.
Visual Thinking Strategies
Prior to this week, I had not worked with Visual Thinking Strategies that much. I have done some art analysis before in some English classes, most recently my Rhetoric class I took here, at the University of Iowa, in the Spring 2024 semester. We spent a lot of time on the work, Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez, analyzing everything from the people in the room, to the colors used, to eyelines, to how and where light was placed. Something that was so interesting to me is how little time people will spend looking at a piece of art. On average people will only look at a piece of art for 15-30 seconds. When we took the time in class, both in Rhetoric and Health Humanities, to really analyze eyelines, colors, time the art was created, people, painters, history, buildings, shapes, etc., it opens your eyes to how much can be noticed, but also how much goes unnoticed. How interesting it is to have possibly seen the art in another context, glanced at it, and walked away, compared to now feeling empathy for the people frozen in the frame and wondering what they felt in that moment. Though just a snapshot of what could have been a daily experience, how did they feel? What was going on in their lives?
In MERF, we explored the building, paying attention to architecture, furniture, design/layout, colors, organization, important people, art on the walls, wondering how did this all contribute to the bigger picture? Colors can play an important role in mood and learning environments. It can boost energy and help with stimulation, which is so important for these students that spend so many hours in these buildings. Having the learning pods and so many areas to socialize with others also plays a big role in helping to keep spirits high and give people a place to collaborate. There were many walls and pictures up throughout the building of important people to the college, including contributors, graduates, and more giving current students and staff a way to see the legacy and success of the college every day. The art displayed through drawings on the windows, framed pictures, sculptures, and more, also helps to give students a way to not be so intimidated with school. Med school especially can be very daunting and stressful, so giving these students a way to feel welcomed and want to be at classes and learning is so beneficial to their mindset and wellbeing as hardworking, and most of the time, burnt out students.
What I Now Know About AI
This semester I have learned how to use AI through different assignments in the Foundations of Health Humanities class. I was unfamiliar with Chat GPT before this semester, but we incorporated it into the curriculum for this class in several ways. We used AI to summarize articles and movies, proofread, and generate images. With summarizing, we looked at how universal information becomes when using AI and how certain points are not picked up on through their algorithms. We compared how our summaries of a source compared to the generalization of AI and how similar it was to an abstract of an article. It was interesting to see how AI proofreading is beneficial to simple grammatical or spelling errors but was not much help for complex feedback. AI has not yet perfected contextual factors and in some cases is evidently unable to use background information to aid in a response due to its algorithm. Another assignment we did required generation of an image to create a health narrative. My AI platforms could not produce an image that I thought was fitting, so I had to use a classmate’s platform to get it to work even though we used the same website and prompt. It took several reworkings of the prompt and specifications to get the image I had hoped for.
In a few of my clubs and while working on homework for other classes, we also used AI. We used AI to create a resume, following a guide. I had to input previous education, work experiences, etc., but it then would provide automated descriptions of the job and skills that you could hit a plus button on to add them to the resume, if it felt fitting. It made the process a lot quicker, but after I had done that, a member of the Pomerantz Career Center later talked about how ATS, what resumes are filtered through, will automatically discount any resume that isn’t in a similar layout to one they provided. Perhaps there is a different platform that exists or could be developed to help follow ATS guidelines, which would be beneficial especially to young adults that don’t know where to start with their resumes. For my homework, I was looking up a question I had on a topic and the first thing that popped up on Google is AI Overview, where it takes the key points from similar search results and combines information into a generalized view. It has been very beneficial to me to get a quick or broad answer, but I do still find that I need to do in depth dives into numerous websites.
What did I learn in this class, and how did I learn it?
Knowledge:
Something I know now that I did not know in August is how art, music, film and social media can be used to deepen understanding of medical and health issues. I had not considered how representation in film, like A Quiet Place, or posts on social media advertising clubs that host events or speakers that are talking about an issue can help to strengthen one’s perspective on a certain medical and health issue, how music therapy or animal therapy can be beneficial to the journey of a person’s healing, or how healing and one’s process can look different for people struggling with similar issues.
Skills:
I think this class taught me how to build off of my ideas and reflect on my learning to develop as a student. Having most of our projects broken down into steps, like the creative project, it taught me what my flaws were and how I can improve my work. It showed me the importance of drafts and how you can learn from your own work by coming back to it, not even a week later. For my Project Prep 1 in the creative project, I thought originally that it was a great piece of art, but coming back to it to work on another version a month later, I had so much I wanted to add and change. Following that, there was a creative project reflection that made me really consider why I did what I did and what was intentional and what to improve on.
