How does this assignment build on previous work you've done in English classes other than this one?

I've been getting better at presenting and making presentations. For example, compared to my article evaluation presentation from last year, my slides are more concise, and I was overall more confident while presenting. However, there is definitely still improvement to be made, such as interacting with the audience and diving deeper into the topic. My skills in reading higher-level papers have also increased. That just comes with time. I've gotten better at extracting useful information and shortening it down. I still have a long way to go, though. Reading longer papers/multiple papers is still a slog, and I find myself not paying attention to what I'm reading.

How have you grown in your work/study habits in this assignment?  How do you plan to grow in this area moving forward?

I've been trying to complete all my work as soon as I can and also structuring the order in which I do my work better. I do work that takes a fixed amount of time before more flexible work, so I don't spend too long on flexible assignments and leave no time for fixed ones. Unfortunately, I still do have some off days where I leave my work for that day until the last minute, but I feel like that's inevitable. I just need to not let it affect me as much and keep pushing forward. I've also been not worrying about my slides as much compared to learning the content I'm going to talk about. In the future, I hope to be able to build a more coherent sleep schedule (especially on the weekends), as I feel like that also affects my productivity.

What visual, rhetorical, and presentation techniques did you use to make your method easy to understand?

I wanted to keep my slide as simple as possible while using mostly my words to explain the more complex bits of the method. While I did do it somewhat, I still need to work on that. The slide's visuals also didn't really fit or just looked empty sometimes. I do think I did a nice job of making the bullet points go straight to the point. I also tried to speak a bit more naturally without using filler words. I feel like a script could really help me dive deeper into the points I want to talk about instead of just basically reading the points on the slide.

How does this assignment connect to other work you've done in non-English classes?

This assignment connects to work I've done in my current and past PBL projects. I've done research for both, mainly for my past PBL project, as I had to represent a community without making assumptions. This project also relates to my biology class's projects because we need to research questions about our biosphere, how an ecosystem goes through succession, and how a specific species evolved over time. All of these assignments required me to find information, understand it, and use it to support/refute my ideas.

How does this assignment address a specific global issue?

This assignment addresses the global issue of the lack of control for both people in workplaces and animals in zoo exhibits. For example, workers may have little control over their working conditions or how they complete tasks, while animals in zoo exhibits have limited control over their surroundings and daily activities. By doing more research into these topics and taking action based on results, we can improve workers' well-being and give animals more freedom and control over their living conditions. Workplaces could give employees more independence in making decisions, while zoos could create environments that allow animals to make more choices that mimic their natural behaviours.

How does this assignment consider different perspectives, especially culturally unfamiliar perspectives?

This assignment considers different perspectives by looking at different results of similar methods of study.  One example of culturally unfamiliar perspectives was the article I read about locus of control in 43 countries. The article showed that this topic can be studied across many different cultures instead of just looking at one country's perspective. It is important to take this into account because people's beliefs and experiences can be influenced by the cultures and environments they grow up in. Looking at research from different countries prevents me from assuming that everyone thinks or behaves the same way. Some of the other studies I read also included different groups of people.

Sources — What were your challenges in finding and understanding scholarly sources on your topic? How did you ensure your scholarly research was thorough and relevant?

I had some challenges finding PDF files of the articles I wanted to read, but I figured out I could just use a website to paste the DOI and acquire a PDF of the article. Some of the sources I read had complicated graphs/visuals and used words that had to be looked up. I ensured my scholarly research was thorough by first having bullet points of important points I found throughout the article and then putting them into paragraph form. Although I didn't continue this throughout the annotated bibliography, it helped me see where the most important points are going to show up and what key words to watch out for. I also checked whether my sources were scholarly and whether their findings were relevant to my research topic. I would say that most of the articles I picked out all come together to form one topic, except for the one about children and death.