During this class, active listening helped me work with the new concepts like CPX. Circuit Playground Express contained too much information all at once. So, it would be straightforward to be overwhelmed if I did not pause to digest and reflect on a partial of the info I was just given. Especially when suddenly the A5 and A6 stopped working and I spent 30 minutes debugging with my TA and my Professor. This was hard as there was also a difference between macOS and Linux (the OS professor used). As I got lost in that, I decided to pause on it that day and revisited it on Wednesday (1 day later). Then, I realized it was all about rejecting the old sketch. Pausing allowed my brain to sleep and organize the problem in the back of my head and gave me a fresh look the next day.
When I look back, what I would love to share with the beginning of the course is completely okay with pausing when needed. It is not a sign of weakness but an essential strategy for my short and long-term learning. To be productive, reflect on and know where you are at, and take time to digest at your own pace is a tough lesson that I learned over time. Whatever takes you this far, trust yourself, listen to yourself first, and believe that voice will lead us to where we belong.
Reflecting on my academic journey, there was an experience in physics Force, Motion, and Kinematics course that may have gone differently if I had paused to explicitly use an SRL cycle. As a CS major, and it was about more than seven years since I seriously learned Physics, I found it really overwhelming and hard to catch up with. The homework questions that were related to the phenomena always challenged me to the point that I felt rushed/ pressured to even open and read the questions. When I rushed, I usually skipped the part of Planning, jumping directly to Execute and skipping Reflection. It turned out that skipping steps made it even harder for me after a while to catch up and understand the concepts as a whole. Looking back, if only I learned or been reminded about the SRL cycle, it would have been so much more beneficial to me for the learning process/ curve. It might take more time temporarily but took less time in the longer term.
Also, in that class, on the first day of in-class group work, 2/3 questions were in homework. Due to my busy schedule with my project, I had not looked at the homework yet while the other two members already did. Thus, they passed fast on those first two questions and I was lost. I asked if could we move slower through those questions and one of them yelled at me “No!” After that, I remained awkwardly silent toward the end of the class. I felt shocked, and insecure and did now know how to react. The dynamic between us in later classes also went pretty bad. We found it hard to actively listen to each other and look at others’ points of view. That led to group work near the end of the course, it was a hard math question related to phenomena. I suggested to do it in 1 way and both of them immediately said I was wrong. They had not listened yet. Both of them thought to solve it in another way, proceeding to document them down to the answer board. And then the professor came and said that was not correct and suggested another solution, proving my approach was correct. They were both lost and then it came as a shock to them that I was right. To be honest, it felt good and bad at the same time. It was not meant to be a fight between us who was right and wrong. We were supposed to be a team. We all failed at functioning well to be a team: putting ourselves in other people’s shoes, listening, and even reflecting as a team.