Last year’s work

September 19, 2013

I have decided to document the meeting I had with Bert and Karen in which we discussed my work of last year, in order for me to have it as a reminder of what I have done right and what I ought to improve. I had to talk about the things I thought I had to improve on and later they told me the things they thought I had to improve on and how I should improve them, the things they thought I did right and then they compared my work of last year with the habits of mind.

The things I believe I didn't and did do right last semester weren’t really that much different from what Bert and Karen told thought, so they just helped me to figure out how to improve them. So here are the things that Bert, Karen and I think I did well:

• ·      I mostly kept organized and finished my readings on time for every dialogue, and didn't have a lot of things pending when the semester was over.
• ·      I read all of the things that were required, even those that at the end didn't count.
• ·      I respected the individual work time and actually concentrated on doing my work and didn't fool around. 
• ·      The presentations that I did through out the semester went pretty well. Karen and Bert think that my style of presentation is very genuine and sincere.

Next are the things that we all thought I could improve on and how I can improve them:

• ·      My presentations need more analytical rigor; the content doesn't represent the profound thinking that I do.
• ·      My writing is good, but I can do better. I also need more analytical rigor and I can write more in less space. My writing needs more concrete examples and reasons for my opinions; I need to bring succinct and concrete things.
• ·      I need to start working more collectively. Most of the time I work on my own and rarely participate in group things.
• ·      I need to start speaking more in the dialogues. One way to do this is to summarize what has been going on, asking questions or just giving my opinion.

These are the comparisons that Karen and Bert had of my work with some of the habits of mind:

• ·      Thorough: my documentation is a model, but my writing and speaking needs to improve.
• ·      Sustains attention for tasks: I model this well, especially in the individual work time.
• ·      Enjoys new challenges: I enjoy these and I am constantly looking for them, but I should motivate my classmates to do the same.
• ·      Intellectually curious: I am also intellectually curious, but I also need to be more of an example of this for my classmates.