For the active listening assignment, I talked with my mom, Karla. We talked during our weekly phone calls about how our week went and what we have going on in the week to come. My mom reacted by asking me if I was okay because I was paraphrasing. I then explained to her how we were learning about active listening in class and she was intrigued by the idea. For the rest of our conversation, she seemed to be more engaged and actively listening, reflecting my behaviors. I do not think that anything different resulted from using active listening in regards to feeling more heard as we both expressed that we have a mutual understanding that we are listening even if we are not paraphrasing or making eye contact over Facetime. We felt this way as we have a strong long-term relationship. However, we were more engaged throughout the conversation. I think the main challenge was not sounding awkward or overall changing how I normally talk to someone else. Overall I think that active listening helped us have a more productive conversation and proves again how this is an important skill.

I have never heard of the idea of visual thinking strategies before this class. I think that VTS is using images, art, and visuals to convey a deeper meaning and critically examine these pieces. This week in class I feel like the review of Anarcha with Dr. J. Marion Sims” was a good starting point for understanding VTS. When I was looking at the piece I noticed that I was first drawn to the larger elements and things more in the center/ focus of the artwork. Starting with the people, what they were wearing, and who they might be. Then the second assessment I saw more about the details and piecing together what might be happening in the piece. Some things other people noticed that I did not that stuck out to me was where they were looking.

Then going to the MERF I think I got a bit of a deeper and more vast idea about what VTS really is. I never thought in depth about how elements of a building can have deeper meanings and convey messages. Our group discussed how details of the architecture and art gave the building personality. It created a collaborative, creative, and inviting space. For the exterior of the building, the color of the tiling was a nice change to the red brick and gray cement buildings I am so used to.  I also thought the unique shapes and protrusions add to this nonconformity. We then spent most of our time in the interior of the building. There was a lot of artwork throughout the halls, some made by students while others were made by professionals. I came across the wooden artistic models and it hit me that this is a form of art in medicine, how while they are depicting anatomy it can also be a form of artistic expression. Another area I really enjoyed was the student study communities. I loved the theming, the window art, and the creative atmosphere. I think that this is not only a break from the draining and difficult material they are learning but also to express themselves in a creative way as well. Through these exercises, I have not only learned about VTS but also how to look at everything from a different angle.

This past week we have been looking at birth and death traditions around the world. Learning about these pivotal moments in communities. At the museum, we made three specific stops at works around the museum that focused on these experiences. We utilized visual thinking strategies as we interpreted the works. We started with a 3-D sculpture of a painted fish. The key elements of the piece that stuck out to me were the color, pink, and the detail of the fins. Then when initially interpreting the art I noticed that there was an opening and relating to our discussion in class believed it could be a coffin. Through our class discussion of the piece, it seemed as though others had the same thought as well. We also discussed the significance of the chosen shape, to resemble a fish. Overall the class seemed to believe that it had a greater spiritual meaning or was a spirit guide. However, we learned from the museum guide that the shape represented what they did as an occupation in their life.

The second stop we made in the museum was at a wall display of various wooden carved figures. I initially noticed that a large number came in pairs and my initial thought was maybe couples when they got married. However, I then noticed that there was a group of three figures and a few that were by themselves. This then led me to think that they would rather symbolize siblings/children. This was something that others also noticed, in addition to pointing out that the pairings were not distinctly opposite sexes or all the same sex. We then learned from our guide that this was yet another death tradition. The Ibeji community has the highest rate of twins in the world. With this high rate, there is an increased infant mortality rate as there are often complications with one or both twins. The figures were made when a twin child died and would be cared for as if it was still living. The community believes that twins have great power and often feared that power so creating these figures and caring for them was a form of offering.

The third and final stop was at a wall canvas that was painted by Sam Gillian in 1970. My initial observations of the painting were mainly focused on the foreground with the paint splatters. I was intrigued at the dimension that the tried paint added to the piece. The color choice was also mainly red, with some yellow and blue, the primary colors. As we began discussing, others seemed to be more focused on the background. Discussing that it looked like a plastic sheet and you could not quite make out what it was blocking. I interpreted that the splatter represented blood and violence in the way the splatters were shown on the canvas. The act of creating such large splatters takes force, anger, and passion. The guide then told us more about the artist’s story which revealed more of its deeper meaning. She explained that Sam was a Black artist in Washington D.C. When thinking about the time that this piece was made it makes sense for the anger and violence depicted. Representing the continuation of the civil rights movement and specifically the many tragic assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. which took place in April of 1968. The guide also educated us on how Gillian would make his art. Describing that he would make folds and lines and use diluted dye for the backgrounds. This added an element of mystery and unintentionally to the art. Allowing the art to become what it is intended to be naturally.

From our visit to the Stanley Museum of Art, I feel as though I have gained a better understanding of representing death and life. Through seeing various traditions from around the world or through the lens of a horrific time in America I have a new perspective on the emotion and expression of these experiences.

Throughout this course, we have learned about AI, tested its uses, and compared tools. As a class we mainly found that AI can be a useful tool however should be used cautiously and should always be credited and checked. In this class, we put AI to the test in many different ways. At the start of the semester, we started with using ChatGBT to summarize articles and compare them to our own summaries. I found that ChatGBT’s quality of response relied on how detailed and well-worded your prompt was. We started with just the title and the author and found that it was not as accurate and did not pull out the most important elements of the source. We then went on to paste the whole article into the prompt and found slightly better results. In comparison to our own summaries, the ChatGBT summary was still not drawing the most important elements and was quite lengthy however, it was accurate to the text. We also used ChatGBT to give us a summary of the article in a more unique way that might increase the reader’s attention and comprehension. We asked it to create a summary in the style of a Dr.Suess poem. I found that while this was more entertaining and easier to remember it lacked a lot of the specifics and key takeaways from the article.

Later in the semester, we revisited the idea of having AI summarize sources however this time using a different AI tool, NotebookLM. This source has a specific tool where you can import your sources and they will compile them together as well as give a summary. I found this tool to be more user-friendly and accurate as you had to import either the article as a PDF, a URL, or full text which eliminates the fiddling with creating a prompt. When comparing NotebookLM’s summaries to the ones I created myself I found that we drew many of the same concussions and highlighted many of the same key points of the sources. NotebookLM also has other features such as a podcast feature where you can turn your source into a podcast. I have listened to my source podcasts, the one assigned for class on therapy dogs, and my Spotify wrapped, and I have found some positives and room for improvement in this feature. As I discussed in my how I learn, I tend to learn from listening, such as audiobooks and podcasts, and am fascinated by this tool. I did find myself having an easier time staying focused on the material as well as having a comprehension of the source from the podcast. However, some elements could be improved. I noticed for one that the podcast was quite repetitive in what they were saying. One host would say a line from the source then the other would repeat it and then the first host would say it again. I also noticed across these podcasts that they are the same two voices for all of them. I think it would be good to expand and offer more voices to create variation. Overall I would say that AI use for summarizing sources can be beneficial as long as you use a good AI tool such as NotebookLM, cite its use, and always review its work.

Throughout this semester, this course has taught me a lot about humanities ways of knowing, and humanities in connection to health,healing, and illness. The learning objective I chose to discuss was: “Integrate experiences in art, music, film and social media, and their therapeutic dimensions, to deepen understanding of medical and health issues.” Back in August I did not know much about  how art, music, film, etc. could be healing methods. I did know that art was often used as a therapy or ways to open up about mental health but never that itself was a form of medicine. Learning about how health is so much more than just the illness or disease an individual had but rather the overall wellbeing of the person. When trying to heal a person’s specific ailment you also need to heal their wellbeing. Art, music, film, etc, are great examples of forms of healing a person’s wellbeing from feeling not alone listening to a song about substance abuse or going to an art museum following the passing of your grandparent.

The skill that I chose to discuss was: “Transparent and responsible uses of artificial intelligence: You will learn through experience what AI does well and where it fails; you will understand how AI may be used ethically and constructively as part of your learning process.” Back in August I was very adamant that AI was “bad” and had only harm being involved with education. Therefore I had never learned how to use AI effectively and “correctly” or how to cite or acknowledge the use of AI. Throughout this course we explored various AI tools, using AI for various reasons, and learning how to effectively cite our usage of AI. I have learned how to use AI to find sources, to summarize sources that are difficult to understand or digest, to create new ways of learning (AI Podcasts), and to proofread essays to improve readability. Overall I feel much more comfortable using AI and am now able to see potential benefits of AI in education (if done correctly).