Reflection Essay

Laura Rizzo

Professor Barbara Gleason

Teaching Adult Writers in Diverse Contexts

 May 22, 2015

My Own Self-Directed Learning Needs

            Throughout this course, I was able to think about myself from two perspectives: as an adult educator and as an adult learner. It was very valuable for me to metacognitively identify my own needs as an adult learner. I touched on how observing the obstacles my mental health pose to my academic success allowed me to empathize with my future students more deeply. However, in this final reflective essay, I would like to reflect on some of the goals I have identified through the course of the semester (rather than the challenges), and identify ways that I could support self-directed learning that achieves those goals.

            One area of growth I identified this semester is that I struggle with time management. In assessing my performance this semester, I was frequently late, struggled with meeting deadlines, and I went over my time allowance on both of my oral presentations. I think that the best way for me to independently develop in this area is to seek out support at the campus wellness office, but also look into free resources offered in my community. One critical realization I had in this course is that every struggle I have as a learner, is a struggle I should anticipate that my future students would have too. All of my challenges are essentially pre-mortems I can use for effective curriculum and lesson planning. Consequently, I would like to see if there are resources at the library or nonprofits in the area that support people in being organized and managing their time, resources, and energy effectively. In this way, my difficulties are constructive and I will be simultaneously bettering myself as a professional student and as a future teacher.

            Another area of growth I identified is my need to gain more experience working with adult learners and observing adult learning environments. In education programs that lead to traditional certification, there are frequently a required number of hours of fieldwork (generally a pretty large number of hours too, somewhere in the hundreds). Though this is not a formal requirement in other courses in the Language and Literacy program, I found my research at my field site to be eye opening and it provoked more questions than answers.

I believe that I can independently construct methods for obtaining fieldwork hours in several ways. One way is by simply doing observations at the sites that my colleagues from class observed. I am planning on creating a directory of adult learning sites by context and including contact information for the managers of those sites beginning with the essays of my classmates. I also would like to propose several options for volunteering CAMBA’s Adult Literacy Center to the program director I spoke with during my project. I had originally chosen to observe at this site because it is in my community and seemed like a promising organization for me to work as a volunteer. Unfortunately, they do not hire volunteers to conduct their courses. However, as a result of observing the program and writing about it through the lens of adult development and learning needs, I discovered several relevant ways I could enhance the offerings of the program.

I have several proposals I am planning on making to the Adult Literacy Center regarding volunteer opportunities. One particularly interesting aspect of my visit that I did not get the chance to explore in my research report was a partnership CAMBA developed with an arts organization, and they installed original art throughout the center. I liked the idea of the nonprofit offering a more beautiful and expressive form of outreach, and it got me thinking about another organization I have been interested in that offers free creative writing workshops. I think I will try and facilitate a partnership between these two Brooklyn-based, literacy and empowerment organizations; I anticipate it will be very rewarding if it is successful and will allow me to develop remarkable work experience. I also learned that the Adult Learning Center has reduced the number of hours that their computer lab is open and that they do not offer on-site child care. I think offering to staff the computer lab or watch clients’ children would be an interesting partnership, that allows me to apply some of my other interests and skills to an adult learning context, since I used to tutor elementary schoolers in reading and I work on resumes and cover letters with teens on the weekend. I am excited to offer thoughtful and creative ways to volunteer at this organization and get to truly know the neighbors in my community. In addition, this realization that I should accumulate and track my fieldwork has caused me to talk to the Institute for the Emergence of 21^st Century Literacies at school. I am going to try and think about strategic partnerships for fieldwork and professional development for myself, but also apply my strategies and partnerships to the whole L&L community through this committee.  

            Finally, I learned a lot about text structures and forms. I loved the experience of working on a blog, since I am a strongly intrapersonal learner, which is a learning style that is not catered to in many classrooms. It got me excited about writing and surprised me in many ways. The low stakes writing brought out many discoveries and was really self-directed; many of the goals I indentified in this reflection came from my work on my blog. I liked being able to use captions and comments and add links. It was writing that was more alive and more efficient. I translated this into how I approached several other assignments for class. I created a more visual and less narrative flier for my oral presentation. I have always been very comfortable expressing myself through writing, but I created tables, charts, and included graphics in my final research report.

I think this was a great way for me to learn to accommodate many learning styles my future learners will have. My students will want to express their vast prior knowledge in safe and unstructured writing assignments, and blogs are a phenomenal tool for accommodating this need. They will also enthusiastically welcome materials that involve visual modalities, since they will be working on acquiring language and literacy skills. I am planning on merging this area of interest with the goal of tracking my professional observations and development, by creating a professional blog. I am not sure where to learn more skills on blogging, but it is possible that simply continuing to use the Blogger platform will allow for more discoveries to emerge organically.

            I am grateful that Teaching Adult Writers in Diverse Contexts was my entry point into the L&L program for many reasons. I think that exploring the rich and necessary role of fieldwork and observation play in being an effective educator, will guide many of the decisions I make in my academic career, and will lead to me being a more knowledgeable and experienced graduate. In addition, I was able to articulate several goals and needs I have as a learner. Learning from my own experiences as an adult learner and developing a sensitivity and curiosity about my personal challenges will be an essential and transformational perspective for me to have throughout my studies in the L&L program. I am looking forward to seeing how I can carry these observations and insights forth independently both informally outside of school this summer, but also in more formal learning environments this fall.