In a class I've been working with for the last 2 weeks, we've been talking about factors of college student success. One of the articles we read talked about faculty/peer relationships, and the other talked about self-efficacy and metacognition.I didn't think too much about it originally, but today as I was helping the students work together to write a thesis, I got thinking about my college career. Going to a school with a weird block schedule and not having too many friends in my major meant I didn't have too many study buddies. I'm a really social person normally, so this was odd for me. Lots of my friends were in the same boat. We ended up doing study parties at the library. We'd all bring whatever homework we had and sit at the same table and do it. This was especially true when we were writing papers. We'd all turn off the wireless on our computers to keep down the distractions. This parallel play worked well for us. We'd bounce ideas off each other, proofread stuff, play each other's thesaurus. As I read the articles for class this week, I realized the researchers were right; females do benefit academically from peer relationships. I really relied on this construct through college and a lot of grad school, although there I was more likely to be working on the same thing as my buddies. It's odd for me now to be working on major projects alone at work. My office is really isolated from everyone else's. Most of the rest of the staff have offices in pods near other people. Mine is right outside the public lab, which I love because it means I'm near the students when they need help. However, it also means I'm moving further from what I know works for me. I'm finally starting to find a way to work alone. I put one side of my headphones in on music, and my door closed but unlocked, so students can interrupt. I also tend to keep my chat on and available. That way I can still ask for that bounce back from people without them actually being there.
How about you? What's your learning/working process? Do you have to be alone? Near other people? In complete silence?
TOnight, I'm making a card as a thank you for a library donor. I'm going to try and video parts of it to edit into a video for later in the week. (Hopefully!) If not, you'll at least see the final project tomorrow!
-B
How about you? What's your learning/working process? Do you have to be alone? Near other people? In complete silence?
TOnight, I'm making a card as a thank you for a library donor. I'm going to try and video parts of it to edit into a video for later in the week. (Hopefully!) If not, you'll at least see the final project tomorrow!
-B
Your comment about the females working together in college is absolutely spot on. I did my final psych paper (you know the one, I'm sure) on depression in first-year college females, and the big conclusion was essentially that it's imperative for females to find those niches and relationships, particularly among others who are academically-inclined and motivated. I should pull that up since you might find some of the research I used pretty interesting/applicable.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of the opposite for me in terms of study groups -- it seemed to me all my study parties began with good intentions and ended up with someone needing a phone call the next morning to be woken up because she had too much boxed wine. C'est la vie ;)
Your comment about females and learning is interesting. It makes sense from what I know about gender differences with regard to cognition and interpersonal styles. I however, have never been this way. Throughout college and really much of graduate school, I worked alone on studying and writing. While I'm definately social, when it comes to work...I do best when I work alone. Of course, several of the "typical" feminine roles don't so much apply to me that I guess, I shouldn't be surprised.
ReplyDeleteHi by the way...I've been lurking for a few weeks & enjoying myself. I keep thinking I should do a blog, but I'm not sure what it would be about.
For me, it depends. When I did production I hated having to rely on other people and I didn't like delegating tasks or having to take on responsibilities that I didn't want. On the other hand, working in a group doing something creative I have loads of ideas shooting off the top of my head and I'm pretty quick at thinking up solutions. Alone, I'm far too lazy to come up with ideas, never mind act on them.
ReplyDeleteFor general studying, when I have a pal who needs to study and they're good at getting up and going to the library for a good session, that definitely helps to motivate me. I've never really sat and studied in a group, though. I think it'd help to bounce ideas around more, and it does seem to be more of a girl thing. I had never thought about it like that. It's very interesting.
Hi Carissa! Yeah. I think for me it was a delicate balance, I liked working/studying with a group like that, but I was the first to walk away when things got distracting. We'd also do this with headphones on. Which I think made the dynamic even weirder. I think I just needed people around. In grad school I'd go study at the undergrad library because I really needed other people around, even if I didn't know them.
ReplyDeleteAs for your blog, anything you like :) Start simple? Or do something w/ your crafts? Or about moving? Let me know if you start one, so I can follow it.