Contributions & Connections

Self Score: 88
Contributions/Rationale: 
      While I like to think of myself as a leader and hold a leadership role in my professional life, I have to admit that I have not been quick to take on that responsibility in my ADL learning community.  There are excuses: two jobs, a teenager at home, and a tendency toward introversion.  In reality, I love to collaborate in person, but I find it difficult to do in a virtual setting such as this. 
That being said, I completed my coursework in a timely fashion and participated in discussion boards regularly.  The 2nd job prevented me from joining the zoom meetings live as often as I would have liked, but I did watch the recordings. My core group from 5303/5305 remains intact and includes myself, Robin Ballard, Danielle Pyle, LIndsay Hoerig-Cavanagh, Lindsey Wallace, Aliscia Drummond, Maria Rodman, and Avery Nihill.  The group maintained a Google slide deck to curate resources and share our work outside of the Blackboard platform as well as a GroupMe for real time communication.  We also zoomed once a week to debrief and reflect on our learning and what others in the classes were doing differently. I contributed, but did I go above and beyond as a leader?  I don’t believe so.    
While I participate by posting in the discussions and responding to my core group and a few others, the phrase “took leadership responsibility” might be a bit of a stretch. I have engaged in more back-and-forth conversations, rather than just responding once and calling it done.  Even so, I’ve really felt like a bystander this session rather than an active participant.  In future classes, I will try to be a more dedicated participant in the discussions, especially when I can’t attend the weekly zooms.   I must say, however, that my discussion board posts themselves have improved.  In the first session I felt very out of my element with all the writing and citing sources and whatnot, but as I have settled in I feel more comfortable sharing my ideas and believe my posts reflect more depth of thinking, which is probably why my conversations with classmates have been more involved. 
Last session I compared myself to the mom’s old station wagon in “Karate Kid” that needed a rolling start.  Now that I’m ‘rolling’ so to speak I need to pick up some speed to merge onto the highway and go with the flow of traffic.   
Connections:
    For me, the concept of growth mindset has permeated every aspect of this session.  My discomfort in the virtual setting was met with positive self-talk about my strengths (organization, coaching, design) and how I could use them to be a more active participant in class.  As I was struggling to organize my ideas for the Influencer Model, I continually reminded myself that perfection is not the goal - improvement is.  The moment of truth arrived when I realized I was probably going to make a B.  My fixed mindset engine roared to life and prepared to take the checkered flag, but I remembered that as long as I learn something from the B and am making progress, a growth mindset will help me win the race.  
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Blog Post:  wigs-and-cova-and-growth-mindsetoh-my.html 
​Blog Post:  reflections-on-growth-mindset.html