13 Learning Reflections
How I Learn
I learn best with active feedback. I value my ability to evaluate the feedback I receive and see where I can make differences or not. When I am learning something new ask a lot of questions, sometimes too many to make sure I have a full understanding and that I’m on the right track. I have been told that I need to learn to trust myself when I am learning new things. I am usually on the right track, sometimes I just need to have the confidence to know I am right and have good ideas.
Active listening
Active listening is the ability to hear and digest the story someone is telling you with absolutely no distractions. The hardest part of eliminating distractions is not the ones around you but the one’s in your head. Actively listening is not even wondering more about a certain part of the story that you are more interested in than another. It is more important to fully gasp every part of what the person is saying, where they pause and what areas they focus more on. Watch, listen and take in what they are staying.
To practice active listening I spoke with a new friend, an old friend, and my grandmother. In every conversation, they were telling me a story. Not all of their stories looked or came out the same. The new friend’s story I would say was the most similar to what you would think when someone is telling a tale. There was a clear beginning, middle, and end of how her knee injury occurred and how it has changed her life. While she was speaking I tried not to focus on what I was going to ask her next. This lead to be very hard for me. But as the conversation went on I felt I had a good grip of fully focusing on her, the words she was saying, and her body language. I also noticed when I did this my body language was more relaxed. I was still focused, but I felt I was able to have a fuller understand of what the story meant to my friend.
Active listening is a skill we all need to work more on. I have been taught how to show someone I am interested in what they are saying with direct eye contact and three slow head nods but there is so much more to listening than focusing on yourself. Active listening is selflessness that we all need to practice more.
Visual Thinking Strategies – Discovering MERF
Visual thinking strategies is a completely new topic to me. When I researched the term, I learned that it is a method used to help people interpret visual art on a deeper level. After learning about this term, I realized that I use this method quiet often in my everyday life. I catch myself finding art and beauty in everything. I do usually analyze how it makes me feel and the meaning behind what I am looking at. This was no different when we had the chance to discover the MERF building.
I have walked past MERF almost every day to my microbiology lecture and lab. Once before I even committed to Iowa, I had the opportunity to tour a lab there. I’ll be honest, I never thought of as much. It seemed kind of cold from the outside and I always imagined that it just held labs and offices. When visited with the indentations to analyze the art the building presents, I was blown away. I felt like I got to see not only a new side of the building but also the medical campus community. When I first got there, I was surprised by the amount of people and food trucks in my usually Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday path. There were so many people from nurses to students to facility. It really felt like a mini party in the courtyard with the smell of food and constant chatter and laughter. As we went into the building the sound of people
enjoying other’s company continued. The building really holds more than just labs. There is constant chatter and collaboration areas. The feeling of the MERF on the inside is very welcoming with science everywhere. What they study in this building decorates the wall in ways of art and accomplishment. It was one of the most inspiring environments I have ever stepped foot in. The way the building is built and the art that decorates the walls, floors, windows, and even ceiling are the reason for this atmosphere.
Learning to Experience Art
The Stanley Art Museum is a true treasure of the University of Iowa, offering a diverse collection of beautiful pieces from various cultures and time periods. Today, our class visited the museum, and although this wasn’t my first visit, it was my first time experiencing a guided tour. This provided a new perspective on viewing and interpreting the art.
While we had less time to explore as many pieces as I did during my previous visit, I found that I was able to interpret and connect deeper with each piece we viewed. For example, we saw a striking pink carved fish. I initially thought it was just an ornamental sculpture. However, with the guide’s explanation, I learned it was actually a coffin and a symbol of celebration for life. The expression the fish’s face seemed to change when viewed from different angles, revealing layers of meaning and beauty that I would have missed without closer examination.
We also observed a powerful mural from the Civil Right Movement era. I found fascinating how each person in the group had a different interpretation and emotional reaction to the painting. This visit taught me to appreciate art not only for its visual appeal but also for its cultural significance and the personal impact it had on each viewer.
What I know about AI
This semester is the first semester I have consistently used AI in all my classes. I don’t know what I would have done without it this semester. I also believe that if I had not been using AI and learning how to use it, I would have been behind my peers and the rest of the world. Everyone in my classes is using AI and I think it is important to learn and grow with the new advancements of our world.
In this class specifically, I have used ChatGPT to summarize articles, find sources, find songs, and generate art. This class has helped me learn the different ways I can use AI other than a scientific assignment or paper. I have also discovered new AI platforms that have been very helpful in other classes such as Research Rabbit. At the beginning of the semester, we also were taught a few different ways to use AI such as having it break an article down into a poem or generate a specific acronym to help me remember something. I have also used AI to help me get started on assignments by helping with an outline or generating similar ideas.
For other classes, it has also been very useful. I have been able to take very complex processes and break them down so that I can better understand them. Such as how a certain virus infects, replicates, and kills a host cell. I have also learned which AI platforms are good at college-level chemistry and which are not. For chem ChatGPT can break down exactly what equations to use and how to get there and sometimes it can make more sense or be similar to what is taught in the lecture. I think the biggest way that AI has helped me this semester has been as a studying tool. Copilot can help generate similar exam questions and make practice exams. Quizlet AI can now make a set of flash cards from a document. There is still a far way AI must go, but it will be a part of everyone’s daily life if it isn’t already.
Final Reflection
Demonstrate a firm grasp of the differences between natural/social science approaches to health, and humanistic ones.
From my time in Health and Humanities this semester I have not only learned what the study of humanities is in general. I have also learned the important difference between both the social sciences and humanities. Social science is what we see everywhere. It is facts, data, black and white information. Humanities is everything else. It is everything that cannot be backed up by straight data and assigned a label. Humanities is the feeling I feel when I look up at a tree and how that feeling can impact the rest of my day and my life. The social science of this exam would be that it is proven that time spent in nature can affect how you feel throughout your day. My favorite part of this semester and humanities is that it is the study of the individual, not the population. I believe that we will get further in improving health care and human experience if there was more emphasis on how not only the population is affected, but also the population.
