week 2 reflections

• What were your learning intentions for the week and did you follow through on those or did you get sidetracked?  

I wanted to continue to work on my concept map.  I saw that others' maps were much more robust and created real relationship and movement between the theories.  I wanted to try to recreate this in my own map, through my own understanding of the information.  I did get sidetracked, in a way, when I tried some different concept maps tools to see if they were and improvement to my google draw map.  But these ended up being more confusing and didn't offer anything new, so I stayed with google draw and my original map and just fleshed it out more. Once I really stayed with it, I began to see more ways to connect pieces.

• If you got sidetracked, was it beneficial or do you need to revise your learning strategies in order to stay on track?

I think it was beneficial to help me see that other tools might not be any better.  I was looking for a cure-all to make the concept map easier to digest, when I found that just working through the one I had really made it more understandable for myself.

• How does what you learned this week relate to what you've previously learned? 

The CPS Learner's Model was new to me and really interesting.  I also liked the Paul & Elder Model, although I'm not sure how this would be applied in real-life.  I've known that our course development process creates somewhat "flat" courses, as they need to be easily reproduced, but this really came out when I was doing the reading and reflecting on it.  Creating an assignment that hit on critical, creative, and metacognitive thinking also took some work and thought.  Our assignments generally only hit on critical or metacognitive, and not often both.

• What types of interaction have you engaged in with your CoP? Is there anything you have learned intentionally or unintentionally from your interactions this week?

To be honest, I haven't engaged much in my CoP.  Keeping up with my job, coursework, and family is providing enough challenge.  I do receive the eLearningGuild and OLC newsletters in my email, and I'm reading them and clicking over to pertinent/interesting articles and links as I can.

• How is your involvement in this CoP similar to, and different from, other learning networks/CoP you've interacted with, and what might you need to change/keep the same in order to improve your experiences?

My goal is to remain engaged with the networks, especially once this course is complete.  I want to use them as a weekly resource for professional development - even if it's just one article - and a place for me to go with questions, thoughts, etc.  To do this, I think I need to set aside time weekly where I'm intentionally engaging in each of my networks.  It might only be two hours a week, but I'm checking in, I'm reading, I'm posting, I'm remaining engaged.