45 Learning Reflections
Learning Reflection no. 1 How I learn – Surfing in Bali
Although I am often told I am an incredibly patient person, the one person who is an exception to that is myself. Although many subjects came quite easily to me during K-12, college was more challenging in that I was having to be patient in learning and that was a struggle for me to sit down and actually review information learned from classes. Up until the end of my third year I felt that I was not good at taking the time to learn things, but I had one year of undergrad left and decided to give myself one last shot by learning to surf.
Surfing was something I had always wanted to try, but the biggest barrier was that I was born and raised in Iowa, where there were no waves and Oceans nearby. A window of opportunity opened up when I had gone on vacation to Indonesia this summer and Bali had two hour $12 USD surf lessons.
On land, learning posture, position on the board was quite easy, but of course the salty Indian Ocean waves would create a major distraction, and I would forget a different detail on how to get up on the board once I was in the water. I was becoming increasingly frustrated that I would get so close but could not get on the board. My instructor had to keep reminding me to not overthink and that a big part of surfing was being free and letting go of your thoughts which is a lot easier said than done for a chronic over-thinker like me. Towards the half-way point of the class, my instructor had told me that I should take a break (which is something I don’t like to do when studying out of fear of loosing my workflow) and I decided that I had to to grab water and a snack.
After a croissant and ice cold water, the second hour of the surf lesson had commenced, and I got on my board, stood up, and looked straight ahead despite the stinging in my eyes from being immersed in salt water and I did not fall off. I made it to shore on my board. I not only learned to surf, but that I have the capability of being patient learner, thus realizing how I can learn successfully, and that when I take breaks and critiques I am able to absorb information better to improve myself and pick up on a new skill or subject.
Learning Reflection no. 2 – Active Listening as a Chatterbox
Initially in class, I spoke with a peer, I found it initially not difficult but my main challenge was waiting to ask a question for clarification, I like to be engaged and one way of doing so was asking questions and making comments. But this initial exercise in class made me reflect and think about my abilities as a listener rather than someone who talks all the time.
I attempted active listening multiple times last week, once in therapy, another with my roommate, and lastly with my mom. The conversations with my therapist, then roommate were not very challenging as I was able to be focused in therapy with no distractions listening to advice, but it did feel a bit odd as I think of therapy as my time to talk and that I don’t think about actively listening to my therapist. My therapist was happy that I responded attentively to her advice and said she was glad that I was able to understand and listen to what she was saying, and it helped me understand a benefit of therapy is to listen to what someone else has to say. With my roommate, he was telling me about a show he liked called Breathless a Spanish version of Grey’s Anatomy. Usually my roommate and I talk about problems and I don’t think about listening, but as I kept quiet and made eye-contact with him, his eyes seemed to light up as he talked about the show in great detail since he really enjoyed it and wanted to recommend it. My mom was the most difficult as when I called her, she would ask me a ton of questions and I didn’t get to hear about her day, so I couldn’t practice active listening as much. I did however, hear about her cleaning the garage but my mom would then ask me a question before I heard a lot of the story, which made my attempt feel inefficient.
Learning Reflection no. 3 – Visual Thinking Strategies
I have engaged with visual thinking strategies even though I did not actively know that it was what I was partaking in. This was in a biology class where I had an assignment, and I had to observe images of muscle cells and identify what type it was based on the image alone. This activity had me observing details in the image such as where certain lines, dots, and shading occurred for me to complete the assignment. I understand visual thinking strategies as a method to take patience in learning by observing, then understanding your interpretation of the observation you made, and reviewing the visual to ensure you understand the whole picture. The purpose of taking the time to do it is to ensure that you fully understand your interpretation and to consolidate the image in your memory.
From the image and observing the MERF, I was able to truly engage myself in creating and understanding the observations I was making. This was especially prevalent in the MERF, where the building’s interior and exterior designs were intended to create an identity and message for those that use and interact with it on a day-to-day basis.
Learning Reflection no. 4 – What I now Know about Using AI
Prior to this class, I felt skeptical about using AI. I felt that if I used in a class, it would make me feel like my work was disingenuous. At most, all I would use AI with my work, was to proofread for grammatical issues when I didn’t have a second set of eyes to look over my paper. In this class, the first activity that made me reconsider using AI was using it to summarize articles, event in the style of a Dr. Suess poem. I found from this activity that AI could be used to help make an article more digestible for me. This was something I could see myself use to help with determining if a very long article is usable for a research project. Although AI platforms such as ChatGPT would not always get the desired results for other things such as sources, I realized that AI can make a great starting point with refinements to my search criteria.
I also noticed how refinement was needed when I had to generate an image that constructed a health narrative. My health narrative was surrounding reminiscence therapy for dementia patients. Although the first couple images that the Dall-E AI platform I used was not sufficient for my liking, I used more specifications in my description in order for me to generate an image. This activity gave me more practice in understanding on what I should include in an AI search bar or what I can do to refine my searches.
Lastly, for project 4 – Synthesis project I learned of two different AI platforms of Research Rabbit and Notebook LM. Using these to search and summarize scholarly articles had taught me that there are other platforms to use apart from ChatGPT. I also learned from using both platforms that AI can help my research in multiple ways apart from summarizing.
