Madeline's Blog

 I am not quite sure what we are supposed to write about for our second blog, but since we started off the year with a blog about our semester this year, I am going to write about how I think the semester went for all of my classes. This semester was my hardest one yet since I was taking the most classes I ever have for one semester and also trying to work. I also had to apply to the sonography program on top of that. I am glad that this semester is coming to an end because it was honestly really stressful.  My classes were pretty challenging this semester compared to spring semester of 2022. I have finished applying to the sonography program and I do feel that that was a big weight off of my shoulders. I am definitely ready for Christmas break, and I just need to focus and stay positive and finish this semester strong. 

 I thought that the blog postings weren't that difficult and helped me get some writing in every other week. I liked when we were able to pick what we wanted to write about, and it made it more enjoyable and much easier for me. One thing that I found useful is by doing these writing assignments every week rather it be a blog or a perusall article, it helped me by practicing writing every week so that it was easier for me to complete the writing portion of the assignments.  However, I do think that some of the writing assignments didn't have much meaning to them and they were only there in place so that we did have a writing assignment every week. Like I said before, I really did enjoy some of the writing assignments for some of the blog entries and I wish that we could have done more of those. For example, I really liked the one where there were one hundred topics to choose from and we could find one that interests us and write about it. 

 Another of the course objectives that was included in this course from the syllabus is "Students will be able to manage sophisticated writing and research projects, planning, documenting, completing, and assessing work on time and within the constraints of the project." What I interpreted from this course objective is that students would be able to complete a research project with correct steps and learning how to complete that research project. I feel like I practiced this objective in high school when we had bigger assignments to complete so it was not new to me.  I have seen myself using these techniques while creating some of the projects that were assigned in this class like the instructions protocol, context analysis, and the pamphlet assignment we had this week. Since these assignments do require more planning and critical thinking, it is useful to come up with a plan on how you will complete this assignment so that you do it correctly. Practicing these skills again i

One of the course objectives for this course is to "Effectively communicate analysis, knowledge, understanding, expression and/or conclusions." Prior to taking this course, I would interpret this in the form of a paper. I originally thought that we would learn these skills and practice these skills by writing different kinds of papers throughout the course, but I was very wrong. Throughout the course I have seen myself using these techniques in ways other than papers which has helped show me that I will need these skills when I graduate and enter my field.  For example, I have analyzed many different classmates work through the discussion board and effectively communicated what I thought about their work to them. I used my analyzing skills when reading their work and taking it apart to understand what they are trying to communicate to their readers. Another place that I saw these skills being practiced was the perusall articles. Here, I learned how to communicate with others