alexbaker07-blog

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Week 13 - Future Strategies

Attitudes/Behaviors

My biggest surprise for the semester was the culture created in the classroom. I have previously studied at Deakin and Swinburne and I found that at Holmesglen the lecturers are much more hands on with my academics and this is something I have found to be extremely beneficial to my learning. The biggest negative is that the entire semester has been online due to the Covid-19 crisis, I believe this has been a great disadvantage to my learning as I’m much more of a kinesthetic learner (Tedx Talk 2015). Studies in American university have highlighted 8 flaws in online learning being admin issues, social interaction, academic skills, technical skills, learner motivation, time and support for studies, access to internet and technical problems (Lin Muilenberg & Zane Berge), These are all problems I have been faced with this semester. I hope come the start of next year things will have normalized and I can get back in the classroom and I should see a great improvement in both my academic progress and my in class attention levels.

Knowledge/Skills 

The strengths in my skills have been my essay writing, there is still room for improvement however I have always felt comfortable writing. I have a strong vocabulary and consider myself descent at structuring essay’s. As I continue to complete more essay’s this will further improve, the more I practice the more I will learn. My biggest weakness would have to be my ability to correctly reference. The best way for me to fix this is to just keep asking my lecturers for help as they are best suited to guiding me through these flaws. Sometimes I get confused between what style I need to reference, for example I might reference a website as though it were a journal, this is where I have leaned on the Holmesglen referencing guide for help and I will continue to in the future. 

Muilenberg, L & Berge, S 2005, ‘Student Barriers to Online Learning: A factor analytic study’, University of South Alabama & University of Maryland, vol. 26, no.1, pp 29-48, Viewed 24 October 2020

Kinesthetic learners | Abigail Harlow | TEDxPascoCountySchoolsED 2015, online video, 3 April, TEDx Talks, Viewed 20 October 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diMJhM8Y1N4

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Week 11 - Managing assessments

My biggest strength is my vocabulary, I believe my writing style is very coherent and I can string together a good flow in my essay’s. English was my best subject in VCE, and writing comes quite natural to me so long as I take my time and don’t put myself in a position where I have to rush through. That’s why personally starting essay’s early is very important for me as having to rush subtracts from my biggest strength. As previously spoken in my last post referencing has been the hardest concept for me to grasp, ultimately this is something I still need to hone my skills on. The Harvard referencing guide has been good for me, and I plan to fall back on it if I become unsure. My lecturers have been great at giving me feedback on how I can improve and I know that they are willing to help me if I start struggling. I feel good about this going forward because I believe it will naturally come to me over time, good referencing is easy marks gained so as I improve this I should see better results in my assignments.

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Week 9 - Utilising and understanding feedback

One of the weaknesses highlighted in my progress review was simple grammatical errors, one of the ways I have tried to rectify this is by changing my writing platforms. Previously I was using apple pages and I have since changed over to Microsoft word and have found that the spell check is better at picking up typos. I have also tried to type slower and this has also been beneficial to me. The second concern raised was my referencing ability and this has been my biggest focus since the progress review. I have raised this with my lecturers, and they have been great in helping me improve in this area. The best example of this is sending one of my assignments to my other lecturer for her to review my work particularly my referencing and in-text citations before officially sending it prior to the deadline. This was definitely beneficial to me and I have definitely seen my referencing skills improve step by step over the course of the semester. I also believe that because previously I have left referencing to the end of my assignments that perhaps I have either rushed it or just been careless due to mental fatigue, so in my last assignments I have tried to reference as I go to avoid this and I believe it has helped me thus far.

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So far this semester managing my study with my interests has been easier than normal considering Covid-19 restrictions have meant I can’t leave the house. However I’ve still had to plan my time effectively to ensure my work and rest remains balanced, for example if there’s a game of cricket starting at 8pm I’ll start my work earlier than usual to ensure I don’t miss the start of the match. Additionally this semester I’ve started brainstorming by assessments before I start them, which has allowed me to be more efficient in my studies. It encourages critical and creative thinking and allows me to be clear in my plan for my assessments (Chron, the Importance of brainstorming). As I mentioned in my week 2 blog I have created a document on my laptop with all the dates my assignments are due and the percentage grading throughout the whole semester. This allows me to effectively plan my time and takes away the possibility of assignments sneaking up on me, This has worked well for me thus far and I can see this being a plan I can use in my future career  

Chron.com, 2020, The importance of brainstorming, 8 September, opened 20 September 2020 https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-brainstorming-77488.html

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Week 5 - Teamwork

For assessment two myself and Holly teamed up to present an assessment on Hannah Mouncey, and the dilemma around whether as a transgender woman she should be allowed to compete in women’s football league. As a pair we worked very efficiently, we created a google document and split the work in half, with myself doing the first few slides followed by Holly taking the middle block and myself the end. The google doc was a great idea, as it allowed us to see what each other had done and ultimately avoid the possibility of stepping on each other’s toes, it a very efficient way of tackling the workload. We delegated our tasks through Facebook messenger and were able to lean on each other if we needed help. One setback I had was that I failed to realise that I my artic les had to be academic so I had to change articles, but this was okay as I started my work early and had time to adjust. I would say the biggest strength of myself and Holly as a team was our communication, and this was the driving force behind our success. Surveys have shown that in group assignments cooperation and communication are the two most valued strengths between team members (Patrick X.W. Zou & Hossein Darvish). My peer feedback was good for me to see where I can improve, one of the weaknesses I noticed was that I should be more confident in my ability and work, however this was the first assessment that I had to do in the course so I can comfortably assume that that will come to me over time. What I also learnt that the strong communication and cooperation that I had with my peers is very beneficial in my work going forward, as long as I can create a strong environment for myself and my peers to communicate it will provide clarity and make it easier on all of us to achieve our tasks.

P Zou & H Darvish, 2011, Architectural Engineering and Design Management, 6 June, PP 203-215

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Week 2 - Starting out

From listening to my class in the 1st week I have a greater understanding for how I need to organize myself to the best of my ability in order to stay on top of my growing workload and to get the best out of myself. Therefore, I plan to put some systems in place in order to maximize my efficiency such as a document on my laptop with all the assessments for all 4 of my subjects and the dates in which they are due. This will allow me to construct a plan for how to best balance my Uni studies and reduce the chance of work sneaking up on me at the last minute. throughout the year my plan is going to be to start all my assessments as early as possible. I don’t want to be stuck in the position where I have to rush through an assignment in order to finish on time as this will likely diminish the quality of work I produce. University at the Syracuse university shows that when deadlines are in place human instinct tends us to complete tasks at the last minute, resulting in lower quality outcomes. 

Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University, 2016, Rushing to complete work on deadline could mean more mistakes, 2020, ScienceDaily,  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160919133449.htm