Tag Archives: Reflection

Civic Issues Blog

Deliberation Reflection

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On Friday, February 27th, I attended another deliberation called “The Problem: Dealing with Heroin in PA”. Since this was the day before our class’s deliberations, I specifically was looking to take notes on what to do and what not to do while hosting a deliberation to maximize everyone’s experience. I saw that they had both a pre-survey and a questionnaire. They also used the whiteboard to take notes which helped a lot during the summary portion. I noticed that there was some confusion in the beginning about which group was which and finding seating for everyone. I thought that it was often hard to hear people speaking, even the hosts. I also observed that it was the same few people speaking and contributing their ideas.

For our deliberation, I made sure I told our group all of the above. We added more to our questionnaire. We focused on seating even before most of our guests arrived. We spoke up and were also able to hear everyone else who spoke. I think that almost everyone who attended contributed to the deliberation. When it came time for me to summarize, I used the whiteboard notes to refresh and as a visual for the attendees to follow along. I’m really glad that I attended another deliberation before ours.

RCL Blogs

My First Semester of RCL

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I have learned in our class that English in college is both similar and different than English in high school. It is similar in the topics and variety of assignments/projects that we do and have. However it is different in the pace and depth/discussion of certain topics and the level of work expected is higher (especially in an honors course). I think I have left to learn how to not only meet the requirements to the best of my ability but also how to allow myself to exceed them to have my work reflect my abilities. This is because I struggle with knowing exactly what I need to do for an assignment but I am trying to become more comfortable with the idea that not everything is going to be spelled out for me or outlined so black-and-white. I think I have excelled in keeping my writing style high quality and challenging myself on certain assignments even if I am worried that it may not be the “safe” thing to do.  I think what keeps me from doing my best work is being unsure of myself. I wasn’t like that in my English classes previous to college.  My best work results from time put into the assignment (which when constricted may affect it also) so that I can understand it as best as I can, talk to my professor about, think about it, and well-execute it so that I can be satisfied with the final product.

RCL Blogs

Project 4 Paradigm Shift TED Talk Video and Reflection

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After watching my TED Talk, I think what I did well was engage with the audience. I opened with a question and a few points for them to think about. I closed with what they could take away from my talk and then apply to take action. I think what could have been better was my ability to recall the specific words that I wanted to use when speaking. I had memorized the ideas and some of the phrasing, but every once in a while I would get stuck and say something that didn’t best convey what I was trying to say. I still got my main points and message across, but even more practice would allow me to have every word memorized just in case and an increased ease of flow. I was surprised because I thought that I had made a good amount of eye contact throughout the entire talk. I did during the beginning and ending, but during the middle I looked between the slides and off to the side because I was trying to recall facts and points. This also might have been avoided at least a small amount by practicing more.