Part 1
I feel that I have made progress in all my student development plan goals, and I owe that partially to the group work that we have done with our research project. The teamwork has helped me use the support from my team members to avoid procrastination and their respectful and attentive listening has helped me voice my opinions without having fear that the ideas that I mentioned will be mentioned to others or taken in a wrong way. Although I feel like I have improved in my goals, I know there’s room for improvement. The major thing that I want to be more successful in is the way that I divide my work up in order to finish it all on time.
To avoid procrastination I plan to follow a few tips that I picked up which we watched the Critical Thinking video. I want to become more organized with the way I divide up my work and set personal deadlines in order to divide the work that I have to do and do it by sections as opposed to trying to finish it all the night before it is due which results in mediocre work. After trying this technique, I plan to check back on the way that this new method has worked out for me to see if I have to make any adjustments to the way that I am studying and finishing my work or to see if anything needs to be changed.
Part 2
My team experience has been very positive and helpful. As a team, we have all finished our research on time and have been consistent about attending class and dividing work to finish everything and have accurate research. We have followed the agreements in our charter, especially the parts of respecting different ideas and applying all our thoughts into our research, even if we have different views on certain topics or ideas.
The only thing that I can think that we can possibly make better is by linking the two parts of our research together. We researched schools and the responsibility that they might have on childhood obesity and health campaigns. We divided up the research and group, but I think there are connections between these two sections and it would be nice to link them together because a lot of these health campaigns are based on school activities and sometimes even school funds.
Part 3
The Constructive Listening exercises that we have done in class have really helped me a lot. Before doing these exercises, it was difficult to really listen to someone speaking and not respond or interrupt with my thoughts. When I would offer my opinion I wasn’t meaning to interrupt whoever was talking, but I was so used to interrupting that it didn’t even cross my mind whether it was rude to cut the other person off or not. When we started doing these exercises, it was a little difficult to do the talking at first because the other person was completely silent, only offering head nods and confused looks, but as we kept practicing, it got easier to talk straight through and not have awkward pauses halfway through.
Being the listener is a lot easier though. By listening to people’s complete thoughts it is easier to see what they’re thinking. Another thing that I noticed was that when people talk without being interrupted they often form new thoughts because saying things to someone else is a lot more eye opening that just forming thoughts to ourselves. I have found that talking about our personal experiences is a little harder than talking about a different topic, but it’s better to reflect on things while talking to someone else.
marthagarcia16 
Gabrielle Witherill said
I really enjoyed looking over your blog and feel that a large amount of reflection is easy to see when reading it. I too have a hard time with procrastination and learned a large amount form the videos. One thing that I notice was that in the first section of the blog you use the word improve a lot. I feel that if you try to use another word every so often it might make that part stronger. Some other word examples would be better, change or even just wording the sentence a little differently like saying there’s room for further improvement. Overall, I think you are doing a Wonderful job!!!! 🙂
marthagarcia16 said
Thank you so much for poiting that out! I hadn’t realized my repetition until I read your feedback. Very helpful! Thank you for reading.=]
dcmind said
Martha,
It’s nice to know that you have improved in your goals and that your team has been helping you as well. You mention procrastination as being the most difficult area to improve in, and I can understand because I have the same problem. The Critical Thinking video offered great tips on how to approach this problem and I plan to implement some of those tips as well. You mentioned how dividing up your work-time into sections could help you finish assignments before deadlines. I think you could also explain specific methods on how you will make sure to stick to that plan.
It seems that your team is working well together and you guys are on top of things. Perhaps you could suggest the “linking of both topics” at your next group meeting and hear what they think about it. I agree with what you said about it being difficult to be the speaker when the other person doesn’t verbally respond. It does however help you create new thoughts like you said, because you’re not being interrupted. Good job on your blog!
marthagarcia16 said
Thank you! I’ve really struggled to try to improve my procrastination because I recognize it’s one of my biggest problems and I think if I don’t get a hold of this habit it will make my success a lot harder. Thanks again for reading!
nhtom said
Hey Martha,
You did a great job on your post for RB#3. One thing that might help your post out is if you give us some ideas on how you and your group could try to link your two sections together. It is good to here that you and your group are getting along well and working together. Overall I really enjoyed reading your post and thought you did a great job.
marthagarcia16 said
Thank you! Yes, linking the two topics together was very essential to the presentation because these two issues go hand in hand and both need to be fixed in order to create a successful generation of children. Thank you for reading!
hyperhaley said
Hey Martha,
I liked reading your blog and I feel that you gave a great reflection on how you are doing and how you feel about all three parts. I am glad that you are improving on your goals and that you found useful tactics in the video. Like Gabby said try and use different words for improve, besides that this is a very well written blog, amazing job! 🙂
marthagarcia16 said
Thank you so much for pointing it out! I hadn’t realized the repetition but I will make sure to go in and make corrections. Your feedback was very helpful.