While I have never heard of the term self efficacy before, the concept is not surprising to me. It was interesting to me that in some situations, self efficacy has a higher impact on success than one's existing skill set. I appreciate this framing because while I have taken one coding class before, I am not very familiar with computer science. With this in mind, I appreciate the emphasis that trusting my ability to learn (especially in the more challenging moments) will greatly impact my ability to succeed in this course.
Throughout high school and college I have consistently categorized myself as a humanities and social studies person, not science and math. In sophomore year of high school I chose to take AP psychology instead of the expected chemistry. Since then I have continued to shy away from STEM courses except for in small ways such as this course. Because I thought I knew where my skill set lay and I was scared at the idea of struggling with something new I didn’t take classes that, looking back, I would have likely enjoyed. I see the way a fixed mindset greatly impacted these choices.
I also consider my relationship to sports. As a child I was very active but always chose individualized sports rather than team. I thought that all of my peers had been playing for far longer than I, and that I would not be able to catch up, effectively embarrassing myself and others. Now as I learn to dance and try other new activities, I see myself getting better with practice and recognize this would have been true in childhood as well.
Looking at the example tech projects I have a mixed sense of self efficacy and mindset. I feel that I could follow instructions confidently and succeed for all of them. However, I don’t believe as strongly that I could figure them out alone. I have a higher sense of self efficacy with the sparkle skirt because it looks like it uses material and code we have practiced in class. That in itself indicates the way practice and experience- even just a little can impact my belief in my abilities.
The tech project I feel least confident in is the emotobot. The elements I imagine include code for the shape of the lights, the corresponding leg movements, and the prompt for all of these. While I can recognize these pieces and have some theories about how they might work together, I struggle to believe I could figure it out without instruction with my knowledge base right now.
Overall, self efficacy and mindset have impacted both my academic and extra curricular choices in the past. However, a big part of what brought me to this class was a desire to challenge myself and learn something new. With that in mind, I can also see self efficacy and mindset shifting and am open to seeing where that takes me as I learn to create beyond my current comfort zone.
When learning to use the CPX, I noticed that pausing and listening actively to my partner helped me understand the code. I have minimal experience with code and while I was able to follow the instructions and could have completed the assignment on my own, I had a better grasp of the material after talking it through with my partner and listening to their understanding as well.
Pausing and discussing the work both made it easier to understand and more engaging than working alone, even if I still would have been successful. This is a helpful reminder as I can often get caught up with the end goal and prefer to work on my own as it is faster. However, pausing and listening to others is time worth spend because I gain more understanding as well as interpersonal connection that I would not otherwise experience.
Another place I can see the SRL cycle coming into my academic work is with writing. I am taking a history research seminar this semester with cumulative, 15-page paper due at the end. The size of this assignment feels daunting however by breaking it down into smaller pieces it will become more manageable. I especially see the plan/do/evaluate process coming in once I finish the bulk of the research and begin writing. I will plan out each section, write it, and then revise what I have written to ensure my message is clear and well delivered.
Taking the time to pause in the writing process will allow me to digest my ideas and their delivery and give me opportunity to edit. Overall, the elements of the the SRL cycle will help this assignment feel much more achievable.
In the activity during class, I noticed it was more challenging than I expected to incorporate the pivot challenge into our project. My group is planning to make a night light and the design element we were challenged to incorporate was the distance sensor that makes noise. While we came up with someways to use this in the project, I wonder if we would have had more luck brainstorming by altering our design away from the night light. This flexibility could have opened up more project ideas that connected more effectively with the distance sensor.
I appreciated the fishbowl discussion exercise because I found it impactful to listen to my peers ideas and have my own be heard as well. Knowing that my ideas would be taken seriously and genuinely wanted the input from my classmates as we tried to problem solve together both gave me a sense of belonging and sense of shared investment in our project and its outcome.
Beyond this class, I find myself practicing congnitive flexibility in how I complete my homework. I have a busy schedule and often try to map out when I will complete which assignments when. This helps me get a sense of how I will finish everything in time according to when I am available to do work. However, this semester has held a number of unexpected moments that have meant I can't finish my work according to the schedule I outlined for myself. It has been helpful in these moments to step back, find what is most important to work on, and complete as much as I have the ability to regardless of if it is in alignment with my original schedule.
When I was in middle school I did a lot of work in the wood shop building sets for our school plays. Since then I have not returned to these tools and found myself feeling out of my depth in the wood shop here more than I expected. However I also felt excited to learn and appreciated the instruction given. I felt that although I had a lot to learn, others wanted me to be there and succeed which increased my self efficacy greatly.
I notice that while I feel comfortable working with the skills we learned during the wood working class, I have less confidence asking for help with tools I am not familiar with and therefore less likely to use them because I don't want to inconvenience others. I am not sure what kind of messaging might help shift this mindset.
This semester giving my peers feedback has been central to a number of my courses. I always start by sharing something I appreciate about what they have presented and conclude any suggestions I give by reiterating that that is only my opinion and the path forward is only up to them. I have had experiences in the past when I get excited about brainstorming with others and they have felt there was not space for their ideas so I try to be incredibly mindful of this in conversations now.
As often one of the few masculine people in spaces at Mount Holyoke, I do my best to notice when my voice is overshadowing others or when folks may more readily listen to my ideas than those of others. When working in small groups I often notice when one person hasn't spoken and will ask them if they have input while also not putting pressure on them if they don't want to share. I struggle to know if this is appreciated or overwhelming to others.