Reflection 4: What?
Situation:
Your class has just ended and you decide to head to the MSC for lunch. As you are packing up, you hear someone say “Howdy!” in your direction. The barista you met last semester with whom you discussed your capstone project is a fellow Aggie and you two are in the same class together. They begin to ask you about your project.
What is the biggest obstacle you have encountered this far in your project?
The biggest obstacle that I’ve encountered this far in my project is getting people to stay focused and engaged through Zoom. I can tell that some people have been on their phones, working on other work, or watching TV instead of listening to my lecture. It is frustrating to me as their instructor, so I can only imagine how frustrating this must be for real professors who teach every single day.
What has gone well with your project?
Something that has gone extremely well with my project so far is my group discussions. Every student in my class has answered each of the discussion prompts every week so far. It has been so inspiring to see people who were once strangers get deep and vulnerable with each other about their upbringings and why they see the world how they do.
What kind of roles have you taken on during the creation of your project?
During the creation of my project, I have taken on the roles of teacher, mentor, friend, and advocate. I am teaching new information to a group of students who did not previously know about the subject, mentoring them with my knowledge of the Enneagram and through my life experiences, being a friend to them when they are becoming vulnerable, and advocating for each students’ voice to be heard and respected by the whole class.
How has this project reinforced your goals?
This project has reinforced my goals because I have tangibly seen growth in the students in the class from the first day of class through week 5. This class has given me an outlet to teach students about using the Enneagram as a tool to catalyze personal development. Already, only five weeks in, my students are becoming much more comfortable in their own skin and interacting with each other before/after class.
What would do differently if you were starting over?
If starting over, I would try to push to have more people in my class, because this platform has worked extremely well and many people have given personal testimonies about how the course and its content have aided them in their personal development journeys. I wish that more people could be impacted through this course or that I could teach in every semester!