Self-Evaluation Mid-Term

ASSIGNMENT #2A
Self-Analysis of My Postings
Ed_5183



















vincent p lahey
for: Victor Hendricken
Due Date: 10 February 2005

Introduction

“Participation in online discussions, as in regular classroom discussions, includes effective listening, reflecting and speaking - or in the case of online communications - writing.” Victor Hendricken

Being part of an online community is a very time consuming and intellectually draining endeavour. This educational format requires a constant “checking-in” to review postings by classmates in order to stay abreast of the discussions taking place. Long absences by classmates are noticed by all and can result in a type of “empty space’ because they are not adding to the thread.

My Community

In a distance education environment, there is a certain amount of “netiquette” involved as well. Even though we are not in a classroom, we should still all be respectful of each other. When I prepare my responses to a particular topic or am returning a reply to another student, I am always mindful of how the message I am posting might be interpreted by someone I don’t really know. I do not want to offend anyone and try to take every precaution that I will not cause discomfort in my postings. The one thing that I have done is to withdraw from the discussion if I feel that I am under “attack”. This will sometimes explain my own absence in a discussion.

As a community, we should also be practicing compassion and tolerance towards one another and it is up to each of us to be responsible to the well-being of our fellow classmates. Because of the asynchronous nature of DE, we must look out for each other and provide assistance when we can. The last thing we want to do is to alienate a fellow learner.

Learning Styles

According to Kolb’s learning style I am a Diverger and have a preference for concrete experience and reflective observation. I am very interested in people, have a vivid imagination, good at brainstorming and coming up with ideas and have varied interests across a wide variety of areas. These are preferences for learning that I feel are actually hampered when it comes to DE for I do not have the contact with my fellow students in a face to face (f2f) environment. Even though I am learning to enjoy this form of course delivery, it is not quite the same as a one on one or group discussion in the physical sense. (Link to Kolb article http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-explrn.htm#learning%20style )

Now this is not to say that the discussions that we have been having have not been meaningful. So far we have touched on topics such as multiple intelligences, learning styles and learning style assessment instruments and the input from everyone has been quite enlightening. There are many different perspectives coming through and experiential learning has played a large part of in the direction the discussions have gone.

Analysis

I have noticed that my own contributions to the discussions so far have been mainly those of information sharing combined with well thought out ideas and suggestions. Message number 86 is a good example of information sharing. In response to a posting by a student, I was able to respond to the post using references from the course reader. In Message no. 66, I have pulled some quotes from other readings (Hiemstra and Guild Davis) in this program in order to support the stance I was taking on a particular discussion thread. I feel that when my adult education vocabulary enlarges, I will be more able to say what I would like more succinctly, in the meantime, my posts can be reather wordy.

One of the things that I could change to improve the quality of my learning would to be a little more critical in my thinking. Although I have been somewhat reflective in my postings, the one thing that I try to avoid is confrontation. Where this has come from I do not know but it is something that I need to take more control over. I have always believed that when in discussions, the idea is to attack the argument and not the person. For example, I could rephrase what someone has said in the discussion in order to fully understand the point they are trying to make, critique the argument being presented and then defend my own point of view with supporting references taken from the sources I am referring to. I also believe that I should be using more references than I use now in order to effectively back up my own argument.

Another change that I could make to improve my postings is to change my routine in the way I answer. For example, I usually make my first posting a thoughtful, well planned response to the topic at hand. (Message no. 179) It might be more helpful if I were to include the complete reference to the article(s) being read and the page numbers to the quotations that I am pulling for the defence of my posting. Once this posting has been made I then tend to follow with several responses to postings by other students in the class.

Conclusion

In reading over the postings that I have made, and doing a comparison to those of other students in the class, I see how I am able to cut down on the length of my responses (through the use of effective vocabulary). Having the ability to keep a record of the postings will also help my growth in this area for future classes.