I didn’t see this part of the asignment last night, so I’m doing it now, but when I heard the prompt in class today, I was able to answer it immediately. I want to learn in this class for my own benefit, not just to do well on a test and get a high grade to buff my gpa. I want to do my homework because I want to, and not because I know I have to, and I want to enjoy doing it. I am very used to being in classes where I skim the boring academic reading for five minutes and then come to class and talk about the few points I read to boost my participation grade, then taking a test that I studied for by reading my notes the night before. I’ve definitely learned from these classes, but the learning doesn’t compare to the stress I’ve had from taking them. My hope for this class is that I learn because I want to learn, and enjoy what I do.
Uncomfortability
One thing I strive to do during the course is being uncomfortable. Although that may sound odd, one thing I’ve learned is that being comfortable in environments can inhibit the growth you could gain in a given subject. Being comfortable means that your okay with where you are, and I believe that everyone can become a better version of themselves by stepping out if their comfort zone. This could be seen in ways such as becoming more vocal in classroom settings and sharing ideas that I’d usually keep to myself. One bad habit I have is overthinking and sometimes it leads to me reserving my thoughts. I want to be able to collaborate and share ideas with others to build a better understanding of the things we’ll learn in the course.
Name and Faces
As we age our ability to make connections heightens and yet classroom environments typically become less supportive of forming new relationships. One thing that is often overlooked but can make a huge difference in the environment is knowing peoples names. Referring to each other by name creates a more comfortable environment that promotes people sharing in class. For instance, MGMT 101 forces students to memorize their classmates names and faces as students are quizzed on them. This means that by the third time the class meets they are familiar with the name of each one of their classmates and already have a higher sense of community than most classes ever reach. Something as easy as spending some time to consciously absorb peoples names when they say them can make a huge difference In the community of the class and therefore how much people are able to take away from the class. If people are more willing to share then the class will become more engaging therefore benefiting each of us. While it is easy to start a comment by saying, “similarly to what she said” or “I agree with what he said”, I will make the conscious effort to call each of my classmates by their name.
Learning from My Peers
Very often, I feel academically challenged and even threatened by my classmates. Bucknell is a very competitive environment where many students are constantly trying to one up each other. While a little competition is healthy, we should be helping each other grow rather than planning each other’s destruction. I am personally a very arrogant person. I do not want people to help me solve a problem because I want to solve it all by myself. It is my sense of “I am better or even worthy of you” to my classmates. This semester, I plan to change this. I hope to attempt to learn from my peers rather than ignoring them. I will listen to their ideas and then consider them valuable. I believe by doing this, I will gain more out of this class and learn more overall this semester.
Embracing Failure
This semester I want to put less pressure on myself to succeed in regards to the evaluation I receive from my professors but allow myself to measure my own success in regards to the level of learning that is taking place. Along with this, I am going to push myself to accept failure as a means of further learning rather than a barricade on the road. Prior to now, I am normally on the quieter side in my classes for the fear of saying the wrong thing and seeming stupid to my peers or my professor. In efforts to embrace failure, I plan to speak up more in my classes whether I think my ideas are correct or not. This will be the first step in helping to change my skewed perception of success that has been ingrained in my head from the pressures of getting an A in earlier learning environments.
Making Mistakes
In most if not all classes, class participation is a major part of grading as well as the learning experience. I am comfortable voicing my opinion or answering questions whenever I believe that I have something that will contribute to the class discussion. However, I find that when I am unsure of my answer I become a little uneasy with myself become embarrassed when I present an answer that is incorrect. This semester I hope to become more sure of myself even when my answer is not correct and not become embarrassed because of my mistake.
Confidence and Individuality
Something that has always affected me most is worrying what others are thinking, especially when it comes to school work. I always try to show my best self, but will often get caught up in what others are doing which will cause me to limit myself to ensure that I am not doing something different. In order to be the most successful version of myself in this class, I want to stop caring what others are doing and only focus on my work. It is important to allow myself to be creative without holding back due to comparing myself to others.
Express Myself
As we spoke about in class, I feel like often in my classes at Bucknell I am so fixated on completing a project for the grade and lose sight of learning and improving. In this class, I love the concept of receiving feedback and working towards bettering my skills instead of thinking about how well I will do. I think this will give me a real chance to express myself instead of focusing on what I believe my professors want. I love that the class already seems to be judge-free. I think it will be a difficult adjustment because I am so used to worrying about my performance and the standard of my work. Even as I do this simple assignment, I find myself questioning if I am answering the question correctly and leaving a good enough response. But, I am excited to challenge myself in this way and hopefully this mindset my transfer into other classes.
Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone
On the first day of classes, I always look around the room and observe the various types of people that I will be collaborating with for the next couple of months. One of the things that I always seem to notice is that I’m usually the only woman of color in my classes. It’s very sad to say, but it’s also the truth. Being the only woman of color in many of my classes is particularly difficult for me, especially when it is time for participation. I often feel uncomfortable speaking in class, as I feel as though people look at me like what I’m saying doesn’t matter or is completely stupid. Although I feel this way, I do know that it isn’t true, as last semester many said that they appreciated and enjoyed my input. This semester, I want to step out of my comfort zone and speak more in class– whether it’s asking questions, playing devil’s advocate or stating my opinion. I would like to step away from the mindset that people aren’t listening when I talk. Once I do that, I’ll be more comfortable with participating and working with others in class.
Being Myself
One thing that I definitely notice as a personal norm that holds me back in the classroom environment is peer judgment. I agree as Tim Brown talks about in his Ted Talk that as kids grow up they care more about the judgment of their peers and often apologize for their work. I find myself apologizing for my work, or making excuses for why it isn’t different when I should be proud of it. I will try to focus on creating and doing something for myself and not caring about what others think of my work. This will help me stay true to myself and be even more creative.
Judgement Free Zone
Often in a classroom setting, students are judged or rather believe that they will be judged for being too “extra”. Therefore, they will tone their ideas down a little to avoid this judgement. This can decrease creativity and expression in classwork. Additionally, this leads students to work toward a uniformity so that their work does not stand out. I have done this in the past, including during our first assignment. I thought about what others might do for their mind maps rather than going with my gut. This semester, I plan to do what I want and think less of how my work will compare to others or what they might think of it. I also plan to support others for being unique so that they do not feel judged for being different. By doing so, I will break a classroom boundary and work to the best of my abilities in this course.
Taking a step back.
Often times when working in a group, I take a little bit too much control and try really hard to make sure my idea is the one my group goes with. I think it would be beneficial for my growth as a collaborator to take a step back and let others in my group take the lead on whatever we are working on. I don’t mean to say that I want to sit back and do nothing, but instead of being the lead contributor I would like to work off other people’s ideas and let them take charge of whatever we might be doing. I recognize that being a leader is a good trait to have, but I also think a good trait to have is to be able to work well with others when you are not the leader. As I begin to enter the workforce in entry level position, letting other people lead me is definitely a skill I will need to have. For this reason, I think taking a step back from being somewhat of a control freak in group situations would be a good classroom norm for me to break
Building a community
On the first day of classes, people often pick a seat that they’re most comfortable with, most likely with friends, and stick to that for the rest of the semester. This prevents students from meeting new people and being comfortable with the class. I hope that in this class, focused more on collaboration, I will have the opportunity to communicate and engage with the rest of the class. This will, hopefully, also create comfort within each other and a closer knit. And my goal is to have the bonds we make here, last beyond just the classroom.
Communication and Teamwork
This semester, I want to try and communicate better with classmates and receive different perspectives on my work so that I can improve the overall quality of my work. In the past, I have had problems with distributing the workload during group projects and seeking peer review on individual projects. I feel that this lack of differing perspectives on my work has lead to it being less open minded and poorer quality. I hope this semester I can participate in better teamwork strategies and receive peer feedback so that my work quality improves and I learn different ways of thinking about assignments.
Comfortable Taking Risks
In my classes at Bucknell, so far, I have found myself not taking risks when participating in class. I have realized I only participate in classes where I already feel confident in the material and subject area. I realize that I learn more and absorb material better when I participate frequently in class. For this reason I hope to challenge myself by participating in discussions where I may not be as confident. I don’t want to raise my hand in hope of validation for the right answer, but instead just raise my hand for the reason of taking a chance and participating.
Fully Engaged
Throughout this course, I hope to stay fully engaged with the material and the concepts we go over in class. I hope to be a MIDE major so I want to get as much out of this course as I can. Often times in class I just show up, listen to the lecture, and participate occasionally but I feel like I never fully absorb what was said and I mostly care about what I have to know to get the good grade. I know that this class is very collaborative and not an ordinary class, so I think it will be a good chance to try my best to stay attentive in every class and stay enthusiastic about what we do throughout the semester so I can get the most out of everything and take what I learn with me after the class. I am excited for what I’m going to learn in this course, so my goal is to stay fully engaged.
Fear of Participation
Throughout my time at Bucknell so far, I have found myself resistant to participate and answer questions in many of my classes. Most of the time, I tend to have the correct answer, however, the possible chance that my answer is incorrect holds me back from raising my hand. I have struggled to participate in my classes due to my fear of being incorrect and judged by my professor and fellow peers. It is interesting as my personality is completely different outside of the classroom. When I am in with my friends and family, I find that I am extremely outgoing and talkative. However, in a classroom setting, I find that I am more reserved due to this fear. I hope that this semester, I will be able to overcome this fear and participate more in class. As this course is based more on creativity than accuracy, I hope to become more comfortable sharing my ideas.
Fear of Judgement
Often times I refrain from participating in class in fear of being judged for my opinions or the way in which I articulate my thoughts. This fear of mine stems from social pressures and the idea that everyone should think and act the same to avoid conflict. However, I think that contrasting opinions and beliefs are beneficial to strengthening not only character but also intellectual scope. Because of this, I want to be able to speak freely in class without fearing of what people are thinking of me or what I am saying. I will practice this by listening to others and respecting my classmates opinions and learning from them as well. By doing this, I will learn to be more open with my thoughts in class and to fear less of judgement from my peers.
Questioning my Instincts
In the majority of my classes at Bucknell, I have found that I tend to be more reserved when it comes to expressing my opinions and raising my voice in class. When a thought comes to my mind, my initial instinct is to keep it to myself and not to share it with the class. I feel that I lack self confidence and question if what I am going to say is worth it. After thinking about it and questioning it for so long, the conversation has often already moved onto a different topic or someone has already said what I was going to say. In this class, I am going to try to not only voice my opinion and speak out more, but also try to go with my gut instinct and not let myself second guess what I am thinking. I feel that in this class I will be able to become more comfortable in the classroom environment and be able to say what truly comes to my mind. I also think this will help me become more comfortable giving presentations in front of the class, whether it be on my own or in a group.
Taking Risks
Almost always, in the classroom and on assignments, I tend to be afraid to take risks. In class, sometimes I find myself holding back on sharing my thoughts due to my fear of judgement from others who may not agree with me or like my ideas. Also, when completing assignments, I usually focus on following guidelines exactly instead of allowing myself to think more creatively. In MIDE300, I want to allow myself to brake my personal norm of not taking risks in the classroom environment. I primarily plan to do this by participating more in class, which I hope will lead to me being more willing to share all of my thoughts that I think are important. Also, I think that I will be comfortable participating in this class compared to my other classes since I am already familiar with many of my classmates from previously having class with them. On assignments, I plan to take risks more by challenging myself to think creatively, even if it means I may not succeed at first. I hope that by doing this I can produce more unique and meaningful work.
Over-thinker
Something I have always struggled with in class is overthinking an answer or idea rather than going with my gut and learning from my mistakes. Trying new things and pushing myself to think of creative ideas that might not be fully fleshed out will allow me to learn more. Instead of backing down from participating and overthinking what to say, I will “go for it” and receive feedback on ways to improve. By fostering an open and positive environment in class, others will feel comfortable giving answers that might not be fully right, and we can all discuss to develop the idea and expand it.
No I in Team
I’ve always been someone who likes to be in control of things, so group projects have always been a great source of frustration for me since inherently no one person has complete control. I like things to be done a certain way and in specific time frames, and it can sometimes be hard for me to acknowledge that some people don’t work the same way that I do. I want to be able to let go of my need for control and, hopefully, learn to change my own set habits and experience new ways of working.
Positive Dynamics
From everything that I’ve been reading and from personal experience, a large inhibitor of classroom comfort is the lack of familiarity or the lack of support in class. It sometimes takes a lot for me to speak in class even if I have friends in my class because I’m nervous I might say something irrelevant or incorrect, but when I finally do say some, the occasional head nod, supportive comment, or anything positive helps me open up more. I intend to do this more in class to help pay it forward. I also hope to become closer to everyone in class to make this course a more fun, close, and supportive environment.
Participation Pressure
I have always been the student that feels pressure and nervous to participate in class. In my personal life, I love talking to people and am actually pretty outgoing. However in the classroom setting, I’ve always been one to sit back and let everyone else answer the question, even if I have something I know I want to say. I get nervous to participate in the fear of seeming dumb, as well as the pressure of having an entire room of my peers and professors listening to me. So my personal goal for the semester and norm I want to break out of is this fear of participation. If I have something to say, I hope to gain the confidence to just raise my hand and say it. I feel like the space and atmosphere in MIDE 300 is the perfect place to start and encourage more participation, because it’s based on a different learning styles than the typical lecture style classroom.
Boo Perfection
I want to try to stop striving for perfection in the first round and get better at doing iterations and accepting developmental feedback as apart of the process. In many cases in school, it is a one and done kind of thing- you have one chance to perform well on the test, paper, project and then you will receive a grade so you spend hours working on it and become so stressed about it being perfect and getting the A. However, this class seems to be a lot about iterations and taking the developmental feedback to then improve your project or task or newly learned skill to make it better or get better at it, not to perfect it.
Engagement!
What I have discovered over the years is that I’ve developed a habit of being silent in class and sitting back and waiting for the time to run out. In all honestly, his practice has unfortunately made me not excited to learn. I hope that by being more engaged in the classroom with the material and my classmates will allow me to be able to break my personal norm and bring back my excitement to learn. After the first lesson, I can already see myself coming out of my shell by participating in the activities given and that makes me really excited for what’s to come in this class.
Getting out in the Open
One thing that I want to do in this class to break my personal norms in the classroom environment is to stop hesitating and just “do”. I feel that oftentimes when a question is asked, I hesitate to speak up or raise my hand, and then miss out on giving an answer after someone else calls out the answer or raises their hand first. I also want to be more confident in my ideas because I find that sometimes my thoughts are similar to one someone else already said, and I worry that it is not different enough or that it isn’t as good, so I keep it to myself. However, by not hesitating as much and by believing in the ideas I have, I know that I’ll be able to contribute value to the class overall by giving my input. The more ideas the better!
Being Confident
The one thing I want to do in this class to break my personal norms is become more confident and speak out in class. In my life I am a very outgoing person who loves to be social and interact with all sorts of people, conversation doesn’t scare me. However in the classroom setting I can never find that confidence to speak up. I am usually quiet and hardworking which leads to good grades, but I never speak my mind. I have this fear of being wrong and looking dumb in front of the whole class, and I always second guess myself or know the answer and choose not to say it because I am thinking too hard. The introductory class today really resonated with me because it opened my eyes by being creative and having fun in a course instead of just worrying about if I am going to be right or wrong. Hopefully this different type of classroom environment will help me break out of my shell and participate more in class. There have been too many times where I have sat back and let other people say what I was thinking and contribute to the class, and I feel I can add value that I’ve been withholding.