During my 5315 and 5320 courses, I was a part of two groups and we communicated through GroupMe to collaborate and answer questions with one another.
Group Members:
Brian, Kathia, Kyna, Cicely, and Caitlyn
Hannah, Jessica B., John, Lisa, Amanda, Nyjah, and Allison
This final semester has proved to be a very challenging one due to unforeseen life circumstances. This makes me so thankful for my collaboration group because they are so helpful. Due to an unexpected death in my family, I began to fall a little behind because I was out of town for several days near the end of the semester. Thankfully, I had my group members to reach out to. They were there to answer any questions I had even though it was somewhat last minute. We have been in this group for a year now and I so appreciate each and every one of them. They have provided support and feedback. They have been cheerleaders and encouraging when needed. In the first week, Dr. Bedard told us how important it would be to find our people and establish a group that we could work and collaborate with. This was a little intimidating at first but she was so right. This program would be impossible without it. During the course, I was also able to provide feedback and answer questions for my group members. We would communicate almost daily throughout the semester. The feedback that I received from submitted assignments was very helpful and provided me with the opportunity to go back and make any changes to improve my work for my ePortfolio.
During these courses, I made sure to review and complete all of the readings and videos. I particularly enjoyed watching the "7 Skills Students Need for Their Future" in my 5315 course. This video really resonated with me and helped me put into words what I had been feeling as my view on teaching and learning has changed over the past year. This carried over into the 5320 course as I was writing my reflections on the COVA and CSLE models as well as my innovation plan reflection. I am not the same person that started this program, and that is a good thing! By consuming all of the information in these courses, I have shifted my thinking and taken the time to look inward and reflect on my beliefs about teaching and learning. I believe I could have done better about posting in a timely manner. As I said earlier in this post, some life circumstances caused me to fall a bit behind and I wanted to make sure what I was posting was a quality post and not just words that are thrown up there for the sake of meeting a deadline.
The 5320 course gave me the opportunity to look at all of the content that I have created through this program and reflect on each piece to bring it all together. Reflecting has been a recurring theme in the 5315 course as well. Reflection is a vital part of action research. Reflecting gives me the opportunity to take a look at what is working and what still needs improvement. This is something I was able to do in both courses. I was able to reflect on my innovation plan and narrow down my idea to find my focus for my action research plan. The skills that I have learned through these two courses and the other eight courses of this program will be something that I carry with me to the next chapter in my journey. I am so thankful for this program and its instructors at Lamar University.
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