What have you learned about the way you learn, work, and/or collaborate?
One thing I learned about the way I collaborate with others is that I really enjoy helping people when I can. When I say ‘when I can’, I mean when I understand the material they need help on. I just genuinely enjoy helping people when they ask for it, and in fact, I feel honored to do so. I also learned that when it comes to working in groups, I can be a leader if needed. If someone else seems to take the leader role, then I’ll listen, but if everyone in my group is quiet and/or shy, then I can easily step up. Basically, I can become a leader when one is needed, and I am proud of this quality.
I also learned about how I work this semester through our Mock Trial. I never knew how long and how deeply I could focus until I did this project. I found myself focusing so much on researching that I lost track of days, people, and even sleep. I had to teach myself in a lot of ways, and I was so happy when I found that I really understood the material.
What project was most valuable to you, and what have you gained from it?
I actually have two projects that turned out to be very valuable to me, and that is Media Saves the Beach, and Ampersand. Media Saves the Beach was a bit of a challenge for me, since I had never been asked to find information on my own (for example, conducting water tests), nor had I ever been asked to write like a journalist. It was hard for me to do this, since it was all so new, but in the long run, I did quite well in this project, learned more about our environment, how we can help, and I even got to experiment with a new type of writing.
The other project that I considered valuable was Ampersand because it was my first time being published, and I got to be an editor, which is one of the career paths I’ve been considering. This project gave me an inside look to publishing, as well as my classmate’s perspectives on the world, and practice with yet another style of writing that was more along the lines of story-telling, rather than journalism. I realized that when it comes to writing, I enjoy writing fiction, but still including a few facts in it, and loosely basing it on reality, rather than writing like a journalist.
What is your greatest strength as a student in a project-based learning environment?
I’d have to say that my greatest strength in a project-based learning environment is my creativity. When I’m thinking of ideas for projects and writing, it usually doesn’t take very long for me to come up with an idea and product that I am interested in pursuing and accomplishing. For example, coming up with my idea of how I wanted to show my Tralfmandorian Transformation project didn’t take me long to think of at all.
What challenges do you face as a student in a project-based learning environment?
A challenge I face as a student in a project-based learning environment is figuring out how I can actually make my final product happen. I’ll use our Tralfmandorian Transformation project as an example for this one as well. Deciding on what I wanted to display was simple, but figuring out how to make it get to that point was difficult. There are a lot of computer programs that I’m still an amateur at, or don’t even know how to use, and in a project-based learning environment, I’ve learned that you have to have quite a bit of experience in with such programs so that you can actually make your final product. Another example would be Ampersand, because I wanted to help with the layout and design team, because they seemed to be struggling, but I didn’t know how to use InDesign, so I didn’t end up being much of a help at all, which I felt extremely bad about.
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