learning goal @ stereotype

1. context:
   although i (hopefully) rarely complain, my master’s life has been anything but smooth sailing. my challenges include cultural adaptation, health, studying, employment, and sometimes as simple as remembering to bring a coat to survive a constant 60F in every building. believe it or not, i catch a cold in Florida quite often.
   
   this week is the goal-setting week for all the courses, so my brain is forced to think again *yay*. thinking is fun, and it is even more fun if you can wrap up your thought into certain concepts, analogies, or images, like what i did below.
   
2. goal setting:

while i hope that the graphic is self-explanatory, i also want to elaborate further about the graphic using my personal story.

in my first elective course, “Adaptive Learning,” i was at the bottom left, “the stressful one.” i took the course in my first semester in the States with a fresh mind. i even confronted one of my friends that ‘i am here very much for an oversea experience rather than a fixed learning goal.’ i surely paid for saying that.

back to the course, i knew nothing about adaptive learning before that. and without a clear goal, i was drown in helplessness when everything was new, when English – the language I had been exposed to for nearly 20 years suddenly became unfamiliar. i cried very often, questioning why everything was so difficult.

gladly, when I reached the bottom of the miserable curve, the only way left was to crawl back up.

i crawled up by moving from the bottom left box to the top left box with only one goal and that goal that time was to ‘not get an F.’ i didn’t care if i understood what the paper was referring to; i focused only on what was required in the assignments, making sure I completed all those requirements, no more, no less. i tried to submit assignments early to receive more feedback from the teacher and make every chances to get better grades.

Huong, this assignment is really good. Can I keep it as an example for future classes?

A prof at FSU

and that’s when I realized that what I learned had value not only vertically but also horizontally – when I crawled up to become an “expert” of some classes who, for example, can cite most of the challenging concepts I had shed tears over in the early weeks and start to actively participate in the group discussions. i noticed that the professors start to call my name because they want to hear my perspective. i found my friend saying appreciation to my sharing. i felt like i’m creating my own learning experience through my sharing.

but all good days come to an end (i guess?). i started to be assertive in my learning goals. at the beginning of the second semester, i started to register for a certain course because i have certain (and limited) learning objectives that i want to achieve. some of them were covered in the course, and some of them were not. i found myself unsatisfied with the learning experience provided. i became an “extremist” – super happy and collaborative if the course objectives aligned with mine, and on the other hand, super procrastinated when it is not. i honestly hate that version of mine, because i know that i’m against my original reasons to arrive here in the States.

3. long story short:

i’ve been through all of that emotions without noticing it. but some incidents happened that force me to reflect on my emotion roller coaster again, only to realize how far i have been going with my emotion.

as for this course when we learn about Web 2.0, i start to build my learning objective again, in a sense that combined both opened and fixed goal.

the fixed ones are to apply for my community – Vietnam Learning Design Group – a community in which i am always thankful for.

the flexible ones are to reflect on my journey of using social media as a tool for learning.

i hope that with that two objectives, i can again get back to the “co-author” zone – with humbleness, an open mind, and a true craving for knowledge exchange.