Reflections
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“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must
be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard
At first, when I thought about
providing feedback to my peers my only thought (and emotion) was, “How on earth
am I going to do this?” I felt as if I was
totally unqualified to comment much less give advice to anyone else. I
felt I really did not know enough and in retrospect, this was largely true. I
think I would have provided far better feedback if I had been at the same stage
of my ILA as my peers were in theirs at the time. You don’t really understand
something until you have done it yourself and in hindsight I feel I would have
been far more helpful if I had experienced the same knowledge and emotions as
my peers before commenting on their work. Comparing the quality of my feedback
to my peers before I had completed the major posts of my blog with
feedback made afterwards, shows the importance of having your own experience before
trying to evaluate someone else’s.
I found that providing feedback on
someone else’s blog helped me to clarify and understand some of the thoughts and
emotions I had been having about my own ILA. To see that my peers had made the
same observations that I am presently making; being able to compare experiences
and agree on tactics helped me to feel as if I was heading in the right
direction.
It was good to receive the benefit
of someone else’s wisdom and their advice on what to look for when students
fill in the questionnaires. Kerrie’s advice on checking for clarification on
responses really hit a chord as I have started doing the stats on the students
responses to Questionnaires 1 and 2 and have noticed quite a few responses that
need clarification. Both ladies have also experienced the ILA from the
viewpoint of an “outsider” as I have done, their advice and observations
resonate so closely with mine despite them being different subjects and
different age groups. I think we all agree that it would be a very different
experience to develop and implement an ILA of our own, from scratch!
I felt really happy that some of
my posts had helped my team mates with their research. Kerrie let me know that
my annotated bibliography has helped her obtain some references that she found
useful and Rachael found my explanation on search strategies helpful, prompting
her to re-attempt a ProQuest search. Coping
with the isolation of distance education studies is made far easier when you
are openly encouraged to reflect on your own thoughts and emotions as well as
that of others. This type of communication is valuable wherever you are, but even
more so when you’re doing distance education. As
I explained to Kerrie, getting her response made me feel as if a great weight
had been lifted from my mind!
So, once again ladies, thank you
so much for your feedback. I really appreciated your insight and knowledge.
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