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April's Page

9/2/10

I have never journaled.  I have attempted to, but I have never accomplished it because as something I have no interest in, I have no desire to do it. My professor tonight asked me why. Hmmm, well, I like an audience when I write. I like to consider who I am speaking to and try to formulate my sentences for clear communication with that person. Journaling means the audience is me. I'm familiar with my own thoughts and feel no need to work them out on paper; I do that in my head. Other people feel differently and that is totally cool with me. Do what works for you, right? The teacher looked at me with interest and said that she had never heard someone express that feeling before now. I know that look. I've seen that look many times and I'm sure I'll see it many times more. Yeah, I'm "different." I'm pretty secure and totally cool with that too. She then suggested to me that journaling can work as a good organizational tool for my research. I liked that idea. Having one place to group the many ideas and interests that pop into my head when I am doing research sounds pretty good to me. I already jot little things down all over the place, so it could be nice to have one place where I pull it all together and develop some of those ideas I jot down. I'm going to try it here for my final report/thesis paper. I don't know how well I'll do since I'm not really a linear thinker. Remember, I'm different. But, as an old college student, I will give it the old college try.

I did jot something down in class tonight. We were looking at the concepts of self efficacy (foundational belief of being capable), self regulation (ability to regulate and monitor your own learning) and metacognition (thinking about your thinking). That got me to thinking about my thesis, which I had not quite formulated yet. I knew I wanted to look more into Dr. Conner's teaching style, but that's a pretty big topic that needed a focus. Suddenly the lights came on and the house was occupied - I got it. I happened to be on the wiki at the same time as the 1102 class was in session this week and got to see how well a student driven classroom advances the self efficacy of a class. One student's idea became an assignment and BAM, she really took off writing, as did others. I think I will focus on self efficacy in the student driven classroom and I think I have a lot of research to do!

(Oh, and thanks to 1102. Your engagement is helping me quite a bit!)