Use these questions to reflect on your first line of inquiry. Post your reflection as a comment to this post by Sunday, Feb 3 at 9.00 pm.
• What did you learn about yourself as a learner?
• How did this compare with your predictions?
• What strategies did you use?
• How could you use these again?
• What are you most proud of? Why?
• What would you like to strengthen and improve?
• What would you do differently if you were to use this approach, again?
• What didn’t work?
• What would you say to yourself next time?
• What would you advise others?
• Why did we do this? Why are these skills useful?
• What if we hadn’t made our thinking visible?
The Learner's Toolbox 
As a learner, I learned that I learn best either when I’m inspired or when I’m in the mood. There is a great difference between when I am and when I’m not; I will inquire much more deeply when I’m truly curious. Learning doesn’t necessarily have to be from textbooks; it is all about collecting experiences and using them as knowledge to make further connections from (and to) my own life and other’s as well. I understand better once I make a connection, and that usually happens when a significant concept is present when I am annotating texts.
Making connections is my main strategy that I used in this process of inquiry. There will never be an article that directly answers this type of inquiry questions so texts have to be read and understood in the state of mind that’s always connecting things together.
I could use this strategy again any and every time I am required to annotate texts which include in class, in DP, and in college.
I’m proud that I was able to write down my thoughts right on the spot. This is because the notes I usually take (physically) are technical notes, not my thoughts; they usually just remain as mental notes.
I would like to improve my researching skills. I need to know how to make use of the right keywords while researching to achieve best results. I also would like to be able to distinguish points that are worth comparing better.
If I was to use this approach again, what I would do different is to inquire more into various sources instead of expecting to find everything in just a few.
What didn’t work was totally sticking to my flow chart every single step. During the process I realized that what I originally planned didn’t cover everything that was going to happen, but it did a fair job as a reminder for me at some steps. This taught me that I should always plan carefully before starting any big task; even if it may lack some step, sometimes it might turn out to be a good reminder.
We did this activity as practice for many useful skills such as planning, researching, annotating, and making comparative points. We had to plan carefully while making the flowchart; thinking systematically ahead of every step in the process. We had to research for two reliable travel texts that would be relevant to each of our relevant inquiry question. We had to annotate each of the texts to pick out the most important points to use as comparison in the next stage, as well as make connections to our own lives for better understanding.
If we hadn’t made our thinking visible, then the most obvious reason is nobody else would be able to learn from it. It would also be harder for ourselves to come back later and revise what we each had learned if the only notes we made were mental.
1. I found that sometimes I have to try different strategies before I find one that works well for my task. I also learned that as a learner, it is easiest for me to concentrate when I am inspired or motivated to learn. For example, one of my favorite parts of this inquiry was choosing travel writings to compare because I was able to browse through numerous websites and go through several stories before I chose the ones I wanted. Although that isn’t something I’d normally do in my free time, I enjoyed reading all the different publications people had written about their travels.
2. My prediction about this inquiry was that I was going to have to do numerous Google searches to find what I was looking for and that held true. Although most of my searches yielded relevant results, I still wanted to keep looking until I found writings that suited my inquiry question best.
3. The main strategy that I used was that firstly, I found a story that I really liked. After I found the story that I knew I wanted to choose, I looked for other stories that either contrasted with the story I chose, or were very similar. I did this because I wanted to be able to put them side by side and outline similarities and differences between the two.
4. I could use this strategy again in almost any scenario that involves choosing two texts and comparing and contrasting them. The stories that I chose were personally interesting to me and that is what inspired me to get my work done.
5. I am most proud of how I stayed on task in this inquiry. This is because I was focused on what I was doing and was inspired to do it. I am also proud of my flow chart because I spent a lot of time on it. I was motivated to do that because after I finished making it, I wanted to make it look more interesting and by adding pictures I think that helped.
6. If I had to do this approach again, the only thing that I would do differently is that I would spend less time going through potential stories. This is because I spend about an hour and a half just picking out the texts that I wanted to use, and after that I didn’t have much time to work on my T-chart.
7. As I mentioned before, the only thing that didn’t work was that I didn’t have enough time to work on my T-chart so I had to spend a while working on it at home. However, the T-chart was helpful in comparing the two texts side by side and picking out what qualities are similar or different.
8. Next time, I would tell myself to balance out my time. I would look at the finish date and plan out what time I would use to complete different tasks.
9. I would advise others to spend a lot of time annotating their texts as they read because the annotations were really helpful when I was making my T-chart. All the information I needed was already there in the annotations, and all I had to do was rephrase it and put it into the T-chart form.
10. I believe that we did this because making our thinking visible is the best way to show people our thought process and how we came to the conclusions or ideas that we did from our line of inquiry. It also helps us in the future when we want to look back on what we learned in the past.
11. These skills are useful because in the future, they will help us plan out our work and manage our time. Making a flow chart will also help us prepare for having a ‘plan B’ so that if unexpected things happen, we are prepared and have other ideas.
12. If we hadn’t made our thinking visible, there would not have been a way to document our thinking other than in our memories or thoughts. It is helpful to make thinking visible so other people can learn and understand what your opinions are, and your thought process as you go through your task.
1. I learned that I work best through a process in which I write down my thoughts, rather then try to remember them. This way, I don’t forget anything and am able to include everything in my work. I also learned the difference in the way that I used to work, and the way I should work. I should keep track of everything so that nothing important gets lost in the process.
2. My prediction was that if I wrote down all of my thoughts, it would take more time. However, I found it to be more efficient because I can find everything I need easily and quickly.
3. My strategy was to do research, and then write down notes and thoughts. I was then able to easily transfer this into the format it needed to be in.
4. I can use these skills again throughout my life when I am trying to answer an inquiry question or doing any kind of research in general.
5. I am most proud of the way I was able to improve my process of inquiry and make it more efficient and thought provoking for myself. This will be useful for the rest of my life.
6. I would like to improve my procrastination problem. Though I stayed on task, I found myself reading an endless number of travel blogs just to take up time so that I wouldn’t have to start annotating.
7. Next time, I would try to find whatever I needed to fit the task, and get straight to work on it.
8. My procrastination was a problem for me because it slowed me down a lot and I feel as though I could have completed more quality work if this hadn’t affected me.
9. Next time, I would encourage myself to stop procrastinating, start working right away, and follow the new method of research.
10. I would advise others to take down their thoughts and ideas so that everything is manageable and can be remembered.
11. We probably did this to think about the ways in which we inquire and make it visible. If there were any problems we had, we could see them and improve.
12. These skills are useful because they can solve problems. Thinking visibly improved my method of inquiry.
13. If we hadn’t done this, I would still be continuing to try to store all of my thoughts in my head, which is inefficient and ineffective.
I learn best when I’m curious about the topic I was given or when I feel challenged by the work (or other people challenged me to work). I find the little things around me that most people look over fascinating and intriguing – I often ask myself ‘why are things how they are’ and I keep these questions in the back of my mind and before I fall asleep I often pull these questions out and try to answer them. I work best at night, therefore, most of the times I stay up late to work on my research works and projects. Other than that, I think the ‘mood’ plays a significant role to me as a learner – I often have days where I feel like I want to know every secret of the universe, but equally as often, I have days where the world is just grey and boring.
I don’t like learning from reading alone – I enjoy going out and ask people, I like to interact with people in order to find my answers then later on reflect them based on my understanding of things. For this unit, I very much enjoy interviewing the people – I get answers where I couldn’t find it on books or on the Internet, I feel like what I find from them is very raw and realistic. I always have a feeling that textbooks always come from one person’s perspective of something. If I ask different people about their perspective of the world, I’d have much clearer idea.
I learn best through my emotions.
‘If I can’t find it on the Internet/books, I have to ask people (that is reliable)’ that’s what I often do whenever I’m researching something, I could say that’s my strategy. I understand better when I see things from many perspectives. I’ll always use this strategy whenever I find myself stuck on something.
I’m most proud that I encourage myself to be curious about the inquiry question and always keep it at the back of my head, and whenever I have a little time, I’d often try to find an answer to it. I feel proud to find a counterexample to my question as well – new questions appear when I try to answer something, and that’s why the world gets more interesting.
I would like to be able to work whenever I should instead of whenever I want to. Next time I’d like to approach different groups of people for much wider opinions. As well, I should research more about the topic independently rather than depending everyone to answer my question. If I could redo this assignment again, I’d find more answers through blogs and travel writers (though, to be honest, I wasn’t able to find one) and research this deeper. It would be nice if I could link it with psychology – it would be an interesting thing to find.
Next time I’d tell myself to be more organized and to ‘have plans’ instead of doing things all at once. And I didn’t follow my flowchart at all, which I should have.
What this unit emphasized on was for us to make our thinking clear and visible – we write out everything we think and make visuals of our understandings, we even plan out as a visual. But what I learned about this unit the most wasn’t about how to plan or how to work things in order, I learned more about myself that I didn’t know before. I learned about how I learn.
It would be harder to pinpoint what I’m thinking because something making notes inside of my head gets messy – it’s unorganized. Showing how we think visibly made it clear to me of how I should do things, but not only that, we get to share with other people about our ideas of things. I think this activity, I also learn about how other people think. I like how there’s no right or wrong in our thinking – we all have different opinions on everything.
What I noticed during my process of learning was that I learn more effectively when I have a clear goal. I believe a clear goal also means concentration and focus. Its probably the things that come when you know what you’re supposed to do. Moreover, I also learnt that as I learn I begin to ponder or think about more things thoroughly. I start to realize the question “Why,” or “How,” more often. It comes to me when I begin to know things more deeper than I do before.
Before doing the task, I thought it would be necessary for me to write down all the processes in which I would have to take in order to succeed in the task. But as I begin to start doing the task, I realized it wasn’t necessary to write all the process of what you’re supposed to do, but instead, write down the important processes that you overtake.
A strategy I used while doing this task was that I wrote the important things right after I thought of it. I believe this is necessary in order to make your thoughts visible, and also, to avoid forgotten thoughts.
I think this strategy could be used in everyday life. It could be used for annotation as you read, brainstorming as you think, or even writing the steps as you cook.
I am most proud of my annotation skills that progressed as I was doing the task. What I could see is that I begin to write better as I read. I can see the visibility of my thoughts coming together in the end. I think the reason for this is that I think this skill is really important in our life, whether in future education or real life situations.
What I would want to improve most is to be able to finish my tasks faster. I tend to slow down my thoughts as I get uncertain about different context that I encounter during my reading process. I think being able to decide things faster would definitely created a faster finished work.
I would try to be more of a risk-taker. I feel that what I did during this task was that I tend to be uncertain about the things I do. And also I tend to be more subconscious and careful in every decision I take, which makes my tasks to prolong. As a result, I would definitely try to be more of a risk-taker in order to be able to finish my task faster.
I thought my process of slowly deciding uncertain factors are the things that didn’t work. It was definitely not effective and substantial
I would tell myself to have more courage in order to become a risk-taker and to finish my task faster.
What I would advise others is that I would encourage them to don’t stop yourself from trying arbitrary things. You’ll never learn if you do not make mistakes.
We did the task last week since it was essential for us to exhibit our thoughts. It was important for us to show not just “what” but “how” we thought of things. No one would understand us unless we show them.
If we didn’t make our thoughts visible, we would never will be able to make others comprehend about what we are trying to tell them. It is also necessary for us to portray to others the steps and process of what we think. Otherwise, a math problem would never be understood without a method shown on “how” to do it. As a result, I believe making our thoughts visible is definitely important in order to successfully share our thoughts to others.
• What did you learn about yourself as a learner?
For me to actually learn something, I need to have the general knowledge or guide of what it is about. When I achieve that, I will have a vision of what kind of research do I have to do, and subconsciously I have a process I automatically follow. This would also happen in the moment where I’m “open for knowledge”, because there are times where my mind is just closed and I can’t force myself to learn in those moments. One of the things that made this inquiry thing not too hard is that we get to choose our own open ended question, with that there are more motivation to work than just questions the teacher hand to us. When we create a question, even if it’s when a teacher force us to do so, I think it subconsciously relates to something we really want to know. These questions are not only answered by researching too, it requires making inferences and “thinking about our thinking”.
• How did this compare with your predictions?
Honestly, I thought this process would be very easy. As I said in the previous question it’s not that hard, but then it’s not as easy as I thought. It took me two days until I could have an idea of what I was trying to do, for the first two days in class I only manage to read stuffs from the internet but did not have any post its. But when I was able to start brainstorming bits and bits, thoughts flow. I started by writing down irrelevant points; when the question mentions different environment and my flow chart mentioned relating it to my life, I started off by listing different places I’ve been to. Though it doesn’t really have any relevance to my discoveries, it helped sparking my thought process.
• What strategies did you use?
I’m not the type who is able to work consistently all the time. As I mentioned, it took me a few days until I was able to get my thoughts flowing, but I have those moments where I am just extra productive. If I just can’t get myself to start, I’ll start doing small things, maybe irrelevant but relatable to the topic, then little by little things come together. Then after that everything just flows naturally.
• How could you use these again?
In my flow chart, I break down different aspects of the question I can be researching about (personal encounter + scientific research), and from that I myself come to a conclusion based on my opinions. This is like breaking something down, and putting it together, like solving an equation in math. If it’s too hard, break it down.
• What are you most proud of? Why?
Ms. Lavina gave us the whole week to work on it in class, I was afraid I would get offtrack all the time. i was afraid I wasn’t going to complete my work, but throughout the week I managed to stay on task most of the time and got my work done. I am proud that I was able to engage in work, and when I got myself started it’s kind of enjoyable to keep digging into it. The more information I see, the more there are to dig thing. One thing lead to another, and another, and another. I had to choose carefully what’s most significant and filter out the information most relevant to my topic. I was also proud because I was never really good at annotating, though I did not annotate on the text itself, I consider this a kind of annotation, or at least a good start.
• What would you like to strengthen and improve?
I did not know what points to write for the T chart, so I kind of wrote paragraphs instead. If I were to be able to just write a clear point it would be better. I need to improve on getting to the point and cutting out irrelevant parts, because trying to not go over word limits had been my obstacle many times.
• What would you do differently if you were to use this approach, again?
I would give myself even more time to work, because when we were to come up to a conclusion, I wasn’t completely done with my inquiry so I had to wrap things up with what I have. I feel that I could’ve had more points, because I was just finding another key word I could have looked into. I would also give myself more time on the text and the T Chart, because I wasn’t able to fully grasp everything, but then I still feel that I was able to extract points out appropriately.
• What didn’t work?
The T-Chart didn’t work out too well for well. As I mentioned, I should have put more time into it, or this could say that I am not good at this strategy, therefore I should find another method that is optimized for me.
• What would you say to yourself next time?
Something is better than nothing, don’t be afraid to start even if you have no idea what you’re doing. It will eventually lead to something. And also, stay on task!
• What would you advise others?
Write everything down. Eventually it could be useful. Also give yourself time as you read your text, it could have more to it than you thought,
• Why did we do this? Why are these skills useful?
Not only did we break a question down into a step by step process, we had it visibly shown. As we see ourselves “thinking about our thinking”, we can reflect on how we can improve even further. When you write your thoughts down and revisit it some other time, you may even have a new idea coming out of it.
• What if we hadn’t made our thinking visible?
If our thinking wasn’t shown, what’s the point? Eventually it becomes a lost thought that noone knows about. Ms. Lavina mentioned her friend’s mom and the ice cream cake’s idea, her life would have been completely different if she had only took that thought down. You never know how important one small thought can be. Writing it down keeps a record of it, it proves that your thought is original. It’s just like a situation where your friend suddenly point out something interesting which you have already had in mind way before he did, it feels bad to have that “stolen-thought” feeling. When it is visible in some way, our thought would always remain our thought,
I learn best when I’m curious about the topic I was given or when I feel challenged by the work (or other people challenged me to work). I find the little things around me that most people look over fascinating and intriguing – I often ask myself ‘why are things how they are’ and I keep these questions in the back of my mind and before I fall asleep I often pull these questions out and try to answer them. I work best at night, therefore, most of the times I stay up late to work on my research works and projects. Other than that, I think the ‘mood’ plays a significant role to me as a learner – I often have days where I feel like I want to know every secret of the universe, but equally as often, I have days where the world is just grey and boring.
I don’t like learning from reading alone – I enjoy going out and ask people, I like to interact with people in order to find my answers then later on reflect them based on my understanding of things. For this unit, I very much enjoy interviewing the people – I get answers where I couldn’t find it on books or on the Internet, I feel like what I find from them is very raw and realistic. I always have a feeling that textbooks always come from one person’s perspective of something. If I ask different people about their perspective of the world, I’d have much clearer idea.
I learn best through my emotions.
‘If I can’t find it on the Internet/books, I have to ask people (that is reliable)’ that’s what I often do whenever I’m researching something, I could say that’s my strategy. I understand better when I see things from many perspectives. I’ll always use this strategy whenever I find myself stuck on something.
I’m most proud that I encourage myself to be curious about the inquiry question and always keep it at the back of my head, and whenever I have a little time, I’d often try to find an answer to it. I feel proud to find a counterexample to my question as well – new questions appear when I try to answer something, and that’s why the world gets more interesting.
I would like to be able to work whenever I should instead of whenever I want to. Next time I’d like to approach different groups of people for much wider opinions. As well, I should research more about the topic independently rather than depending everyone to answer my question. If I could redo this assignment again, I’d find more answers through blogs and travel writers (though, to be honest, I wasn’t able to find one) and research this deeper. It would be nice if I could link it with psychology – it would be an interesting thing to find.
Next time I’d tell myself to be more organized and to ‘have plans’ instead of doing things all at once. And I didn’t follow my flowchart at all, which I should have.
What this unit emphasized on was for us to make our thinking clear and visible – we write out everything we think and make visuals of our understandings, we even plan out as a visual. But what I learned about this unit the most wasn’t about how to plan or how to work things in order, I learned more about myself that I didn’t know before. I learned about how I learn.
It would be harder to pinpoint what I’m thinking because something making notes inside of my head gets messy – it’s unorganized. Showing how we think visibly made it clear to me of how I should do things, but not only that, we get to share with other people about our ideas of things. I think this activity, I also learn about how other people think. I like how there’s no right or wrong in our thinking – we all have different opinions on everything.
What did you learn about yourself as a learner?
I personally learnt that as a learner my ideas usually come rather accidentally that from having an orthodox “thinking” process. I would have to analyse my way of coming up with new thoughts as dependent on my mood, which may be a problem when I need to synthesise ideas in a limited amount of time. I would usually need time for my “artistic” mood so that my thoughts can flow in order to come up with the new ideas. I have learnt that I am capable of finding answers to my own curiosity, as that will be the key to survive in the 21st century world. Anybody can come up with answers for questions posed by others, not everybody can come up with their own questions to inquire into. There will always be a theme on how one comes up with the question one wants to inquire into. It is something similar to finding a personal goal of life that all inquiries would eventually lead up to at some point of time in the future.
How did this compare with your predictions?
The process of the inquiry is not hard, to simplify the idea of an inquiry, it is basically to answer a question. The question though, is hard to come up with. And as a good inquiry question would be a unique question that nobody in the world answered it. Maybe somebody else have had inquired into the same area, but nobody will tackle the inquiry in the same way as the person does. It is important to let the thoughts come flying out, not matter how unorganised it may be, as that would be the start to coming up with the answers. Otherwise, the mind would be in the state of blankness.
What strategies did you use?
To be honest, I am not the best person at doing things whilst religiously sticking to a proper way. The strategy I usually use, if it is a strategy that is, is to allow the flow of thoughts to run freely. As random and unorganised it may sound, because of the abstractness the thoughts would be, it would eventually allow the accidental answer to come. There are moments where I cannot work at all, as in my brain would not compute, however there are moments where everything starts to link up and make sense in my brain and I would be working very efficiently.
How could you use these again?
Perhaps as I aspire to be an entrepreneur (no, that does not mean being unemployed), it is important for me to keep my mind open for every opportunity there is. It is essential for me to keep the freedom I give to my mind to wander of wherever it may want to arrive at. It may find itself six hundred and twenty three miles away from where I need to be, however, it may lead to a new idea that is worth answering, even at the cost of abandoning the old one. Which also explains when I changed my question of inquiry. The flow chart would definitely need to be used over and over again to force a systematic process (something I am rather not very good at), it would be crucial to be able to think systematically in challenging problems that would be posed in the future. The near future, next year, in the Diploma Programme I would need to be able to think of things that never existed before, answering questions that nobody answered before, probably most evident in the extended essay.
What are you most proud of? Why?
I am proud of my capabilities to independently inquire into an inquiry set by myself. I am very proud that I have managed to see my abilities to wander of into the endless possibilities of my mind and even come up with a new question that is more relevant to what I want to find out.
What would you like to strengthen and improve?
Although I embrace my abilities to come up with answers accidentally or to find the relevant things in the midst of randomness. I need to perhaps speed up the process as in the future there would be instances where I am not going to have the entire time in the universe to wander off into the deep woods.
What would you do differently if you were to use this approach, again?
I would have to manage my time more wisely if I were to do this again. As I have mentioned, the process of wandering off into the deep woods have costed me valuable time. By the time to come up with a conclusion, I didn’t have the most time I could have on the texts and maybe my conclusion were not as effective as it could have been. Maybe my conclusion had too much generalisation of the content of the text, perhaps I may have missed out on the author’s real intent.
What didn’t work?
I think my flowchart did not work effectively at all. The problem also is that my flowchart is very general and I did not put any main specifics into the flowchart, as a result it did not really guide me through the inquiry process.
What would you say to yourself next time?
Maybe instead of wandering off to six hundred miles away, reduce it to three hundred (that would be a massive achievement, e.g. winning the world cup). Also, use my time wisely.
What would you advise others?
Thoughts come and go, no matter how random or useless you may think it is, it may end up being crucial. If you don’t document it, it may be lost forever. Not everything gets transferred from the RAM to the ROM.
Why did we do this? Why are these skills useful?
Thinking about thinking, it reflects on where the area of improvements may lie. The reason of doing an independent inquiry is to train ourselves to be used to finding out answers to our own questions independently. There won’t always be teachers holding your hand, creating a question for you, and telling what you need to find in order to answer the question for you.
What if we hadn’t made our thinking visible?
There’s a reason ideas are not copyrighted. Because there is no proof. Making our thinking visible is making the ideas become tangible, and that would be the proof that your idea is original. Plenty of people other than Mark Zuckerberg probably thought of the idea of creating a social network, but Zuckerberg documented it in the form of actually doing it. Therefore he got rich, and not the other people.
As I learner, I learned that I have to be more open minded. When I first made my Inquiry Question, I already have a theory in my mind which I’m pretty sure that what I have found in the internet will support my theory. However, as I annotate through my two text and dig deeper into my thinking, I’m unwilling to admit the possibility that my theory is actually inaccurate because I haven’t considered different perspectives and ideas. It took me a long time to change my theory and admit that I was wrong and this is what I found after reading the two texts might be more correct. I believed that I was wrong because the deeper I continue to think, the more I’m persuaded to think differently and in different perspectives. And, as I do that, I began to question my theory and then I realized that my theory has too many holes in them. It took me along time to make a different conclusion because during the process, I was constantly having a debate with myself. My debate came to the point where I just want to change the Inquiry question because I got myself confused and unwilling to think that my theory is wrong. However, I know that I have to be openminded so I drew several mind maps to clear my mind and finally, I came up with a conclusion that I felt proud of.
When I created my inquiry question, I already have an possible answer to this question in my mind. I just need to find articles and ideas that will support me. I was not prepared that the articles that I chose to read will change my perspective and convince me of a better conclusion. Since I was not ready for that, I had several debates within me because I don’t want to admit that my possible answer is not possible. I also predicted that my texts will be extremely hard to find because my topic is about travel and the question of identity.
My articles are really hard to find so when I couldn’t find a suitable article, I decided to go look for articles that are from students who had to go abroad to study and how they felt about themselves when they are in new places. I also drew several mind maps to clear my brain and make several plans and paths for me to follow. I did several mini-flow charts since I was quite confused during the process.
I was proud that I could finally convince myself to be openminded. It’s hard at first because I thought that what I thought of could not be wrong. I was not prepared to be wrong and I am not prepared to change my theory. So, when I said to myself, Miriam, be open-minded, that means to think in different perspectives and engage yourself to think about it. So, I was proud that I could cross this huge obstacle of not being open-minded because I’m pretty sure that thorough out the educational process, the ability to be open-minded is very important. I was also proud that I could apply what I have learned before to what I’m learning now. When I’m extremely confused, I started to doodle in my papers and iPad. Doodling have always helped me because whatI draw shows how confused I am. When I started drawing circles, I remembered the mind-maps and the flow charts. I immediately started drawing mind maps in my iPad. My middle circle’s topic was “Clearing my mind”. I then started drawing and connecting and when my goal is made clear to me and I’m no longer confused. Whenever I’m confused again, all I have to do is to read through my previous mind maps or draw another one.
Although I have became more open-minded, I still wanted to be more open-minded to avoid hard debates within myself that will make me confused or just simply give-up. At first, I was ready to just give up because I am just too confused. Unfortunately, Miss Lavina said that we cannot change our inquiry questions. I have no choice but to continue and I want to make sure that what I would conclude this task with good quality thoughts and ideas. I would also like to strengthen my determination in finding the answer. I know that giving up is not a good quality. So, I would like to train myself to not give up easily.
I would make sure that my inquiry question is clear. And, before I do anything, I would draw a mind map to make sure that I have a focused goal. I’m not sure if we could ask a lot of help and questions since it seems that we have to learn how to be independent. However, I would really want to try to ask for advice, help, and guidance if its possible since it’s really frustrating when you are confused by your own thoughts. It’ll be very helpful if we could have some guidance. It’ll be every more effective if we could remember what we were advised to and apply it to future tasks.
My initial theory didn’t work because as I go deeper into my thinking and research, I realized that my theory contains too many holes and was not strong enough.
I would lime to say to myself that when you are frustrated and you just want to leave it behind, don’t do that. Because, the harder and more challenging a question is, the more worth is contains. There are great ideas under the questions and all you have to do is to keep on going and don’t give up on what you have started. Remember your goals, remind yourself of what you are searching for, and never avoid or ignore the questions that you have inside of you. Although this is what I want to say to myself, I would also like to say this to other people. I also want to advise people to draw mind maps frequently.
This activity challenges how we think and it’s always good to know what your brain thinks. When you know how you think and what you can fix about your thinking, you can then become more effective while you think. When we train ourselves to challenge our thinking, it’ll be useful for us when we go out to the society because a lot of things in the society requires thinking
If we don’t make our thinking visible, it’ll simply disappear and we might never get that thinking back. Making it visible, such as taking notes like what we did in our corners that we have, will refresh out minds and we could continue were we stopped and go deeper. It’s much more effective.
1) As a learner, I learned that in order for me to be fully focused during the research part, I need to know exactly what I am researching about or the goal of the research because if I do not have one, I noticed that I had difficulties during this particular stage.
2) My prediction was that I would be able to follow the steps that I have planned in my flow chart. However, after completing the task I noticed that I was not able to follow through with my plan, which is why I should have planned the flow chart while considering the fact that whether or not I will ne able to complete the task on time.
3) The strategy that I used was to annotate while reading the text so that the thoughts I had during the first time I read the text will be recorded. Afterwards, I would usually reread my annotations.
4) I could use this strategy again any time I am required to do a research paper or to organize a project, especially during the diploma program, college and in the rest of my life.
5) I am most proud of how I was recorded down my thoughts while reading/annotating the text because by doing this, I will be able to see the process of my thinking.
6) I would like to strength my ability on being able to selecting quotes that are relevant towards my inquiry, considering the fact that if the selected quotes are relevant towards the point that I am trying to state, it would strenghthen my writing.
7) Next time, I would have my flow chart next to me while doing the research because by having the chart next to me, it will allow me to follow the plan that I have planned earlier and to be on track. Moreover, I would define my goal or my inquiry question because during the research I was debating between which one of the two inquiries I would be answering, which made me unable to fully focus on neither questions.
8) In my opinion, the thing that did not work out was sticking to my flow chart or the steps that I planned on following, considering the fact that I did not interview an individual that lived in another culture as planned.
9) I would tell myself to stick to the plan and to remind myself to follow the back up plan or plan B if I was not able to complete a certain task. By doing this, I will be able to work more efficiently.
10) I would advise others that while doing the research part, they should give their full attention to it, so that their thinking (during research/annotation) will not be lost.
11) The purpose for doing this activity was to prepare upon using these skills (researching, annotating, planning, etc.) efficiently in the future. Not only are these skills useful when we are planning or organizing projects, by being able to master these skills, it will allow the individual to be organized and produce a good quality of work.
12) Not only do humans tend to forget their thoughts, thoughts tend to disappear and cannot be retrieved. If the process of our thinking is not visible, then there was not point of answering our inquiry question.