Week 2 - Learning Log

It is Sunday 28^th June  and I have just posted my thoughts regarding the week 2 ‘Am I wearing any clothes’ reading section.

The instruction regarding this task was ‘offer your suggestions to the discussion topic..’. It didn’t give an idea of how many thoughts and suggestions should be offered so I decide to write more on my blog so that interested students can read more. I have personally found that when fellow students post long and wordy messages I start to skim read and perhaps I don’t the take away the key messages.

I believe it will be important for the tutors to make their presence known within the small group discussions once we start the collaborative work next week. I think this is important because for me (I believe most students would feel this of their tutors) they are the authoritative figures and should act as chairs to these discussions. An interesting thought that Mary and Jim have my trust within the first week of the course, rather than any of the students merely because they are the course tutors, authority gains trust it seems. 

I am sure that we will quickly fall into our working roles within the groups and start performing as a cohesive unit but there may be times when a impasse is reached and the group requires some order (and perhaps a push!) and if the group leader fails to do this rather than letting the whole group suffer I would expect that the tutor will step in.

I have found that in F2F situations if someone I am working with explains something in a way I do not understand then I would feel uncomfortable just to nod and turn away, I would out of politeness if nothing else question them and ask for another explanation. I have found that some writing styles of my fellow students are quite difficult for me to understand. I do not mean this as a criticism of their style, individuals have different ways of writing and explaining things just as they do in speech. 

However, as mentioned I would question someone who as spoken to me if I did not understand, online I have found that I have just moved onto the next message. This seems a shame because I am sure I have missed out on something but it is a behaviour of students I will bear in mind when working as a tutor. I will also try to correct this in myself as a student and question more, especially when working collaboratively.