Prompt 3
This course does not have exams, but uses a projects-based approach and sharing your learning with your fellow students instead. How does that format help or hinder you to explore new knowledge and demonstrate what you learned? What are you learning about yourself as a student through this process?
Personally, the projects based approach that is used to structure this class is refreshing and comfortable. I love getting to add in my artistic background to a research project such as this one, and I also love getting to collaborate and share with my fellow students. The portfolio check ins act as a great way to keep me on track with my research, as well as the artistic components that will be going along with the pieces of art themselves. I will also get to add essay-type museum plaques to each drawing, which will say what the drawing is picturing, as well as put the drawing in a historical context. I love that I get to combine both my writing skills and my artistic skills into this final project, and hope that it all comes together in the end. Throughout this project, I am learning a lot about myself as a student as well. I am learning that a schedule is extremely beneficial to me and that I work well when things are planned out in advance. When I have a clear direction to follow, things work out a lot better than if I go into a project blind. At the beginning of this project, I knew that I wanted to use my artistic skills, but I also knew that it takes me a long time to produce art that I can be proud of. That being considered, I set out a timeline for me to have the art finished and have stuck to that timeline very well. I still need to finalize the museum plaques and finish the final paintings, but other than that, I think I am on a very good track to finishing my project within the next few weeks.
Prompt 4
What are skills, techniques or insights and perspectives you learned in this course so far (contents or otherwise) that you feel you can apply in other courses, or even outside college?
This is my first history course at Muhlenberg, and it has taught me a lot about how I am as a student and how I learn best. I learned many skills, techniques, and insights about myself during this course, including what I stated above about needing to make myself a to-do/checklist when doing personal projects. I also feel as though this course is one that is quite independent. Even though it is an ungraded course, it is unique in the way that a lot of our ‘grade’ is up to us. We have to take it upon ourselves to get in the 5:15 reports and portfolio check-ins, which demonstrate what we have learned on our own through at-home readings, as well as what we learn through in-class discussions and peer work. In class, I often find that I learn a lot not only from Dr. D in our lectures, but also from my fellow students around me. This is definitely something that I will be applying to my future classes, specifically the portion where I will be collaborating with classmates as well as the professor. A gradeless course also allows for me to honor my personal commitments to a course, and test my time management skills. One thing I learned that kind of goes along with this is that I need to spend a bit less time making something “perfect.” At the beginning of the semester, I found that I was putting an abnormally long time into my 5:15 reports, often spending almost a full hour on each one. With the help of Dr. D and fellow students, however, I have developed a system where I take notes while I am reading, refine the notes during class time, and then finalize them within the 5:15 report, which has significantly cut down the amount of time I spend typing them up since most of what I type is already done with my notes. This is definitely something that I will be taking with me to classes in the future, and is something that I’ve utilized in the IL course with Dr. Miller. In that course, I take notes during class, and then use those notes to assist in my essays, which helps a ton as well. Overall, this course taught me and is continuing to teach me many new skillsets that help me now and will help in the future.
