SRP Reflections.

What you begin with is not necessarily  going to affect what you might end up doing , I think that sentiment describes this first lesson in a beautiful way. Here is my reflection of  the 1st CTR class.

Upon entering the classroom, I had a mixture of feelings which is normal for a first lesson. Feelings that range from fear to excitement and  everything felt surreal and a bit scary.

For our first activity Ms. Andrea asked us to try to come up with synonyms for each word that CTR stands for .

During the activity my brain stopped working because of the anxiety you get in the beginning, And since I'm not that good at finding synonyms I didn't participate as much as I wanted to . 

However the discussion of these words and their synonyms was really informative and it sparked  my interest.

For our second activity, tape lines were placed in the middle of the classroom floor.With our teacher’s guidance we managed to participate in various activities such as :yes or no and in order from last to least .

I loved these activities because they were such great icebreakers,they  got us engaged  by  using different kinds of communication. I also got to learn a lot of interesting facts about my classmates.As for the last activity, group members were asking questions among themselves. (heart question).

This activity was really interesting.It showed me how different we can really be and how everyone is unique and important .

Getting to know each person’s aspirations , fears and what is stopping them , getting a better understanding of the people that you will be working with in the SRP.

Overall, Our first CTR lesson was a good starting point for the learning that I have to do. 

In today's class ms Andrea introduced us to an activity called “Raging river”. The activity is to cross a raging river without falling in it, using paper as an imaginary floating tool. When she explained it at first, I couldn't get an idea on how to play it and not being able to understand it  scared me,but it got more comfortable when we got to see a video demonstration on how to play. We got a plan and had an overview on what we should do next.one of the problems that we faced during the activity were trying to stick to the time limit.  This activity helped us develop many skills like Communication ,Teamwork,visualizing,Solving problems and creating solutions. As for what I can i do better, I think I should work on my confidence because i knew what i was supposed to do but couldn't really try my best during the activity because of fear of failure and first day impressions.and work on our speedness as a team.

On Wednesday we had a debate. There were 6 groups and we had 3 topics. I think the best performance was for group 15 for so many reasons. They managed to get a 4 in four different factors. Including their superior delivery and proficient persuasiveness. First, they managed to successfully introduce the topic of the discussion given that it wasn't factual or based on information but captured on our own experiences and struggles. 

After that they managed to present facts in a very good way, they presented the facts that aligned with their arguments and added facts that would underestimate what the “against” group mentioned in their introduction proving their corporeality. They also address all of their opponents' arguments adding additional counter-evidence as they prove, Because of their strategies and the level of their opponents' arguments. Lastly, their summary mostly reiterated what they had been saying, which was done nicely. 

As for my team, I think every member tried their best in whatever role they had, however, I think we can do better in terms of pointing out our arguments and restating them when addressing the opposition's argument. My role in the debate was to summarize the facts and arguments that we had previously presented, When it was my turn I started by restating the facts that aligned with our arguments, and because of my anxiety, I started forgetting where I was in my statement and I eventually forgot some words then all I heard was, TIME !

On what can I do better I think not relying on a piece of paper is the best solution to a mid-presentation speech brain block because pre-written scripts can easily distract and disturb me, writing bullet points can be really helpful in these situations, Practicing what to talk about can be help full for my case too. Overall messing up in our debate made me feel ashamed and a bit stupid, but I realize that these feelings are not valid because at least I tried, and only from mistakes we can learn.

One of my goals is to start working on video essays monthly ,i'll be constantly learning and improving  language skills  and video production skills.When i read that goal to Hanin, she gave me some useful feedback.She liked that it will help me practice a lot of skills collectively and the idea of video essays generally. However she raised some concerns about managing time between all of my responsibilities. 

The concept of growth mindset,is the belief that a person's capacities and talents can be improved over time.This concept assures me improvement in the points Hanin raised rewriting my goal to something more time manageable .The concept also helped me overcome my anxiety and imposter syndrome during the beginning SRP because i struggled with being confident in myself and perfectionism working by the concept is going to reduce my anxiety and self comparison because i would believe that no matter where i'm right now, i can always improve it

Oxford defines grit as courage and resolve and strength of character and as an acronym it can represent guts,resilience, intensity and tenacity.For me these words reminded me of how i reacted to failure and setbacks in the past.An example of a hardship is last year’s finals week,when i went fully to panic mode but tried my best into pulling myself back together and showed resilience no matter how dumb or uncapable i thought i was. when encountering setbacks in the future,I will show as much resilience and courage  and willingness to learn no matter what is the outcome and remind myself of the importance of trying even if you fail.And when it comes to quitting i think reminding myself of  how i almost wanted to quit in the beginning of the SRP because how different and challenging it was,but pulled myself back together with the help of my colleagues and mentors.And part of what makes me a human is admitting and endorsing these mistakes and  trusting their purpose when it comes to the lessons we learn.

Today, we got to  understand what AI is exactly and how it works and what's the difference between Chat GPT and its model, and a lot about the concerns of its taking over Ms Andrea divided us into 4 teams of four, ironic right? We got to do research and discuss the exact ethics of AI as programmers, students, schools and companies. We got to know about the good side and the negative side of using AI .its efficiency ,accessibility being one of the reasons on why people like AI,However there are a lot of concerns that risen with the fast growing and  developing models , concerns with data privacy ,bias and giving false and sensitive claims.due to these important concerns we decided to think and brainstorm a collective credo on what ethics we will follow when using any form of AI.

Our SRP credo states that we will never copy anything that AI produces, we will be transparent about our AI use, fact-check everything AI produces before using it in our work and we will be mindful when sharing any personal data with AI. This class helped me to decide how I will interact with us in future and during the ILP phase of my Oman Scholarship work.

One day in the SRP, we got to learn about screen time management,time management and setting boundaries when it comes to personal and time management.With miss Andrea’s help we got to learn on how and what skills we will be using to manage our time and practice setting a boundary when it comes to a person inviting you before a deadline or to something you don’t believe in or touching you without your consent.As for how ill be learning i think i'll try and practice on how to perfectly or semi perfectly manage my time because i'll need it alot during the ILP and in college.Also ill be more specific and clear when setting a boundary.Something that i've got to deal with its bad consequences for more than one instance.

I'm writing this an hour before i have to submit another deadline ( My eportfolio),and i just realized that i have to work on how i treat and react to deadlines , i just panicked and tried to finish everything at once and now i don't know what to do and how to do and manage.As for what im i going to do to fix this i think i have to really work on my planning and preperation and reminding myself everyday of the consequences of my actions and delays.I just feel so bad about myself but i know that i worked really hard throughout the SRP and i dont want to be failing at the very end.