With the end of any given course, be it for a few days or a few weeks, there will almost always be the question of "was this worth my time?" A lot of that can come down to very qualitative answers, perhaps maybe quantitative if you ascribe a value to what you gained from the time invested. But I digress. I would say that, given my overall objective of getting some kind of Master's degree to satisfy expectations at work, that I at least am another few credits closer to gaining the degree and even managed to walk away with a few additional ideas and thought processes.
On the positive side of things, through the discussions I was able to see some other people's experiences in being students, thinking through their thinking, and their leadership experiences up through now. I also did take away some food for thought in the form of CARS, qualitative versus quantitative thinking, and the general concept of Action Research.
There were though, some things that required a bit of resiliency and adaptability on my part. Among other things, I've found that the parallel to life nature of online learning in the context of my personal life demands a level of time management and self-discipline that can match and exceed what I had to muster during college. Back then, studying was my primary job and I had more time dedicated to it, mostly needing to cram in ROTC and a personal life with minimal commuting time. Now I have about a 40 minute drive each way to the office, a roughly nine hour duty day, and the need to maintain some semblance of order in my bachelor household. This doesn't include getting tasks done and turned in during vacation or business trips, which can be yet another adventure unto itself. It's not impossible, but it does add a level of planning and removes some potential for spontaneity. To improve my overall learning experience, I may have to take more concentrated efforts to "schedule" school time throughout the week so that I have a greater yield of free time over the weekends. This may have to extend as well to scheduling time for house cleaning, time for preparing the week's meals, etc.
Given the nature of how the material is being delivered on an asynchronous timeline to individuals across the globe, I believe that the staff and faculty at ERAU are already doing a great job with support. I can say that so far I've never had to wait particularly long for replies to queries, and everything has been running fairly steadily. The only real gripe I've had is the sometimes open ended instructions given to some assignments, as this makes it a bit more difficult for me to gauge whether or not I'm on the right track. I did, however, recently read in the discussion board that this was intentional and I can see where the development team is going with the pedagogy. The only recommendation I might give is to provide a listing of useful information for commonly used MSLD tools or concepts such as the Brain, SEE-I charts, presentation tools, and the like. When I took MSLD520, I had to do a fair amount of digging to figure out the formatting for SEE-I and had to mull a bit on good presentation resources. MSLD500 did a very good job of introducing resources on these subjects as we went along, I just didn't have the benefit of it being my very first course
I would say that most of the material is relevant to my experiences or at the very least relevant to what I expect to see in the course. I believe the general critical thinking methods we've discussed will be useful in my work so long as I can recognize when to use them. Being able to evaluate my own thinking, as well as the thought process of my organization, may prove extremely beneficial. Although I don't anticipate conducting a lot of research projects at the office beyond occasional efficiency studies, I certainly expect them to come as I complete my degree program. Again, having taken a somewhat circuitous path to the Foundations course, I would say this particular course does prepare us for what is to come later in the program.
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