Tuesday, October 8, 2013

A500.9.4.RB_MilliganSteven

This course is my first course on the way to receiving my Master of Science in Leadership.  I learned a lot of valuable things during the last nine weeks.  I felt the course load was pretty heavy but not necessarily overwhelming.  It definitely taught me to get a jump start on my coursework.  One of the things I like most about the course was the work itself.  The readings weren't there just to read and dump.  It was there for a reason and in order to do most of the coursework I needed to do the readings.  I felt that the readings weren't boring either.  There was a lot of good information in them that I was able to use while accomplishing the various assignments.  One of my favorites was the Amelia Earhart assignment.  I think I may have looked up at least five other crazy conspiracy theories that week just because it got me interested in them. 

I enjoyed the research project also because it allowed me to focus on an aspect of critical thinking and how to expand my own ability to think critically in a way that I felt I needed the most.  For me learning to be more creative and being able to apply this to critical thinking and complex problem solving is definitely something I would like to be better at.  The research project took a lot of time and effort but it was a great way to really learn and understand the topic.  This was much more enjoyable than just reading about it in a book.
Some improvements in the course I would like to see are probably just some links to help those of us that aren't used to APA style or writing a literature review have something to reference when doing these.  When looking at these online there are a lot of sources but not all are very helpful.  I was able to find some good ones though and share them with the class.  The way it was set up did allow me to problem solve and class members were expected to help each other out.  This is generally the way it is at work so I can’t complain too much about this being this way here.  Actually, I usually get a lot less instruction at work than I do here. 

I found the topics incredibly useful and hopefully will apply these in future courses.  I have already found myself looking for ways to apply them at work to help others learn some of the cool and useful things I’ve learned over the last nine weeks.

The most difficult part of taking a course in critical thinking is that you are afraid that you are not thinking about your assignments enough, so you are always trying to think about how you are accomplishing the assignment and hoping that you did it right.  I guess this is something I should have been doing throughout my college career though.    

Overall this was a great course and a great online experience.  I especially liked some of the new tools I discovered for presentations.  I like to do presentations in person and I felt that the tools enabled me to feel like I was able to do a more personable presentation rather than just making a PowerPoint and script.  I liked being able to record and embed the presentation.  In the future I hope to be able to spend more time on the material and less time wondering if I'm doing the assignment correctly.  I think that would help me to learn the material better and enjoy the learning process more.  


This was a great course and I appreciate the time and effort that was put into it by both the professor and the other students.     

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