Class Reflection - 9.23

I enjoyed class again today. It started slow but it heated up!

I liked the lecture form Prof. Dean at the beginning of the course. There has been a lot of discussion going on amongst the students in class and on blogs about different issues, so it was nice to hear from Prof. Dean and listen to her thoughts, opinions and statements about some topics related to the reading. It is important to have that authoritative figure in class to lecture about certain topics related to class discussions and bring everyone back to a level ground.

I liked how the class transitioned in group work again. It is kind of nice going from listening to a teacher to listening to your fellow students. I learn great from both. I like listening to students as well because sometimes I can relate to what they are saying and the thoughts they are trying to get out. I thought our group worked well. We had good points from Chapter 4, 5, and 6 to put on the board. Everyone had good input in our group which made the discussion run smoothly and efficiently. One aspect of the group work that I thought was helpful was having time to walk around and look at what other people wrote. I feel like people covered all aspects of the book and did not leave out any main points. I guess that is great and shows that people grasped all aspects of the book and the points the author was trying to convey. I like to see what other people thought and how they interpreted the reading. It helps because maybe someone else's thoughts will help me understand a part of the book or I will learn something that I previously did not know. Overall, people provided helpful input on the book and I feel like no important comments or critiques were left out.

The next part of class was interesting. Jeff Colburn asked Prof. Dean a great question about not feeling comfortable with EZPASS. This sparked a pretty unique discussion. The only reason why I saw it was unique was because some students were arguing with the teacher and not other classmates. I was not anticipating this! I thought it was great discussion and it was nice to see students and the teacher get into a friendly quarrel.

One other note from class. I thought it was really nice when Max had a question about the reading and instead of people jumping on him for his point of view or criticism about the reading. other students helped him understand why the author wrote what he did. It showed how there can be a supportive type discussion and students do not need to always disagree and argue with one another. I thought that was pretty neat and definitely something I learned from. If someone does not neccessarily grasp what the author is saying in a book, students can help the other person in a nice manner without causing a unfriendly discussion.

Back to reading the rest of the book!

Sam