Week 4 GU

WEEK 4 READING ASSIGNMENT

Study Strategies

Understanding the benefits of active learning and engagement is essential to your growth as both a graduate student and a profession within the workplace. Once you graduate does not mean that you are done learning. In fact, the more you learn, the more you will find you grow in your career.  Active learning is a process where students engage in activities that promote learning, such as reading, writing, discussion, or problem solving that encourage analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of the course content. Active learning is not going to be a new concept at the graduate level because it can be as simple as completing a homework assignment. However, you might find that how active learning is applied differs at the higher educational level. For example, instead of reading through all of your assigned reading and completing a discussion, you might be asked to participate in a team activity or a debate. Active learning will allow you to take your learning to a new level where you are able to apply the real-world to your learning and apply your learning to the real-world. By having the chance to do this, you are able to actively see the importance behind the learned concepts. Having the opportunity to engage in active learning and embracing the opportunities presented to you by your instructor’s via the provided assignments will help you build your skill base. Use personal examples from your experiences in the discussions. Taking the time to do this will allow others with the same experiences to share their thoughts. This will also allow others to take from your experiences and apply to their learning. The forum is going to be one of the most beneficial learning tools for you throughout your graduate program as it will allow you the opportunity to collaborate among your classmates in a number of ways.  Teamwork, debates, and working with others to solve problems should be looked upon as a beneficial learning tool rather. In the online learning environment, teamwork can be challenging based on the demographics of others within your team. However, take the time to utilize communication tools via technology that are available to assist you in creating a successful team environment. There are many free options available to you for communication. Our email system utilizes the Google platform which means you have accessibility to Google Hangouts which is a video chat system. Gmail also offers real-time chat that will allow you accessibility to your classmates when phone calls are not a viable option.  Engaged Learning is used in education where course objectives are learned by working on projects with a community partner. Those who utilize engaged learning provide the ability to apply classroom skills and knowledge into practice while serving the community. Some of you may do this already, however, many may find this technique to be new and maybe even a little frightening. However, networking and getting involved in your career before you graduate is essential to having the skills necessary to transition into your career industry.  Skorton and Altschuler (2013) mention in their article that “employers rated “soft” skills, such as communication, social skills, collaborative decision making and problem solving, higher in importance than job-related knowledge and technical skills.” This means that you will need more than an education and industry experience to land that dream job. You need to know how to communicate with others and you need to know how to problem solve with those who may or may not agree with your initial thought. Having the ability to work with and learn from others in the field is just as important as reading this lecture and completing your weekly homework assignment.  You should now be able to decipher between active learning and engaged learning. You should also understand the importance of both and what they mean to you as you grow both educationally and professionally. This will be a great week to reflect personally on your expectations. Take the time to review the assigned reading this week as it will be beneficial to your learning experience.