Week 15 Curation

My 3 favorite discoveries this week:

1. Canva.com 
• This site allows you to easily create design projects like cards, invitations, social media posts, and so much more. It is super user-friendly and also has some great tutorials to make it even easier.
2. This website on Growth Mindset
• Growth mindset is a mindset that allows people to view themselves as capable of developing their abilities. They are capable of more through hard work and dedication. 
3. Limayre's Dante story from Week 14
• Limayre did a really great job of telling Dante's story from his perspective. It was almost like a diary of this journey through hell. I really enjoyed her version of retelling the story. 

I created this image using Canva this week. 

Week 15 Review

My favorite thing from this week’s announcements was the blog on isle versus aisle. There are so words like that you have to be careful of. I have done a few in my blogs in this class. When I am just writing so quickly and forget to write the right “there” or “your”. You have to read and reread to make sure you catch those mistakes.

Photo taken from the weekly announcements on D2L.

Famous Last Words Week 15

The Famous Last Words blog post is perfect for the last week of class. For this class, these really will be my last words. It’s also a great blog post for the last week because you can look over all your work and progress in this class as a whole and that’s exactly what I am going to do.

This class hasn’t been the best representation of my academic ability. I have really had a hard time meeting deadlines and turning in work. I think that is the case for multiple reasons. One being, that I never got on a schedule to get ahead of assignments so I was always doing them the day of. Another reason is that I had a very busy semester this year. I was in my capstone that basically got completely rearranged 3 weeks before school. I was also an intern this semester working 16 hours a week. I also was worrying about my near graduation in about 1 week. There were many factors that contributed to my lack of accountability, but in the end it was me not making it a priority.

With that being said, I really did enjoy this class and the creative outlet it serves as. I am a PR major so we write factual pieces that need to be set up in a very regimented way. In this class, it truly is creative writing. We get to create our own stories and choose what we read to base those stories off of. Now that we are done, my favorite story I wrote this semester is George and theApple.  I spent the most time on this story and had the most fun writing it. 

Overall, I have enjoyed this class. It’s weird for me as I write this because I realize it is one of my last assignments in school ever. I graduate in 1 week and am moving on back to Dallas. I have enjoyed my time at OU and the things I have learned here.

My family and me at my high school graduation.
 Now, 4 years later I am graduating college. Photo taken by Arlene McDowell.

Week 15 Growth Mindset

I remember learning about Growth Mindset in another class, but honestly I can’t remember what class or even what Growth Mindset is. I figured for my first Growth Mindset blog I should learn a little more about what it is.

The Growth Mindset was developed by Carol Dweck in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. The growth mindset is a mindset where you believe you can develop your abilities by hard work and dedication. Oppose to the more common mindsets kids grow up having. They consider themselves either dumb or smart and no effort can change their abilities.

This actually applies to me a lot for different reasons. Growing up I was diagnosed with Dyslexia and as a result had to repeat the third grade. I was the weird, older, idiot who couldn’t pass third grade. I was bullied. For some reason, I didn’t let people calling me an idiot affect my view on myself. I worked hard through my alpha phonics tutoring and didn’t let the bullying make me think different of myself.

This meme was created by Laura Gibbs. 

Therefore, I completely believe in the growth mindset and its ability to help children learn and grow. I think at such a young age when grades are distributed it puts a numerical divide that children view they are either on the other side, the smart side or the dumb side.

Source: The Glossary of Education Reform

Reading Evaluation

This semester I really enjoyed the Cherokee, Russian, and Italian reading units. I thought the stories in those sections were easy to understand, which made it easy to create a story from them. The balance between reading, writing, and commenting was pretty even in my opinion.  I feel like I spent an equal amount of time on both. I really enjoyed reading and commenting on other blogs because it was a way to gain insight and inspiration.

Advice I have for students next year:

1. Read the stories until you understand them enough so you can write an informative Author's Note
2. Really try to get a schedule established early in order to avoid missing deadlines

Reflections

Looking back, I have realized the structure of this class is probably not best for the type of student I am. I normally choose to take online classes if they are available because they work for me, but this one was a little different. I had trouble with deadlines everyday. I know you could work ahead and make your own schedule, but I found that hard to do. I am quit the procrastinator.

With that being said, I did enjoy the creative aspect of this course.  I am a journalism major so I rarely get to write creatively. I enjoyed getting to write my own stories and use my imagination. It was hard to forget my journalism writing principles and try to get my creative juices flowing. I wish I had stayed on top of this class because it is totally reachable to get an A. I would recommend this class to someone who can meet deadlines everyday, but I work better in classes with deadlines in one day that allow me to procrastinate a little more.