Wrapping up: Transformative Learning

I remember when I first signed up for this class… I was on the floor of my dorm while I was writing a political philosophy essay. I thought that I knew how to write and this only reason I needed this class was because I messed up on a promp in AP Literature resulting in a 4 on the exam. That since this was an online class it was easy enough and shouldn’t require much attention. But this class has been able to teach me more about writing than i had learned through ap classes and my college classes.

The biggest take away I have from this class was how to think out of the box with my writing. For years I’ve followed a formula of writing. Whether it was the formula my AP lit and AP lang teachers gave me to write for the AP test or what my international relations teacher gave us in the rubric, I’ve never truly been able to develop my own sense of writing. This class allowed me to expand in writing styles that I was not familiar with and that let me put my own spin on the writing. Writing my SciComm article felt challenging as I was never used to delivering information to readers that were not already familiar on the topic. To write complex information into a simple manner was something I felt like I was good at considering I spend 50% of my time in my club breaking down complex things to make them sound interesting and simple. I quickly learned that this was not the case for this sepeicifc piece of writing… It was hard and I was constantly unsure if I was doing it correctly or if it was interesting enough but after revising it with feedback from my professor I could easily see where I fell short and felt extremely comfortable revising it and felt confident in my writing afterwards. Figuring out by trial and error with guidance from my professor allowed me to expand my writing capabilities with putting my own narrative into the writing itself.

With this class, I spent more time researching dogs than I did with my own. My biggest take away from this research is that my own dogs are smarter than I though they could ever be. Researching dog’s cognitive abilities turned out to be a little niche. It was hard to find scientific articles that really looked into that but I ended up with an article that researched dogs cognitive abilities and how it related to the g-factor or general intelligence factor that we have. When reading this article and writing about it, I realized more and more each day that my dogs related to exactly what they were describing. I could see the g-factor abilities in my dogs Kirby, Sebastian, and Mango. The research regarding the g-factor and everything that came with it made me realize that my dogs are smarter than I give them credit for.

Now with all the good change that has come from this class, there were some problem areas of course. The main one being timing issues… I will not come on here, lie, and say I’m not a procrastinator because I am. Constantly I would leave the Tuesday and Thursday assignments until after dinner those nights and would catch myself scrambling because the assignment was bigger than I thought it was. My other main issue was grammar and punctuation. Taking that connect practice session was a humbling experience realizing I knew nothing about correct grammar and punctuation which is why most of my sentences sound wordy and clunky.

To improve on these issues for the future I look to make use of the unused planners on my desk and take a look at the assignments before hand to make my day go easier by knowing exactly what I have to do and approximately how long it will take to get it done. I also plan to go and revise some old papers to practice my punctuation before firing up grammerly to see how I did and where I can continue to improve in that aspect to make my writing professional and clear; Leaving no room for questioning my writing abilities.

As we move on into the summer I hope to continue learning more about dogs with the twitter accounts that I follow and learning more about my subject by following more political science accounts. To use the skills I found in this class and transfer it into my work in other classes and my clubs.

HAVE A GREAT SUMMER EVERYONE, YOU DESERVE IT!!! See you later ❤️