Famous Last Words: The End
These will be, quite literally, my Famous Last Words for this course! What a ride it has been. I had no idea what this class was going to be like when I enrolled, and I just did it to get my final General Education credit. However, I think this might be my favorite course that I've taken at OU. Often, it didn't even feel like a class! I loved the readings and getting to explore multiple cultures through their traditional stories. I also found a lot of joy in the writing portion of the class, as we engineers don't often get to flex that part of our brain. Additionally, it was nice getting to keep up with the stories of different classmates. Some of them were really fantastic and you could tell they put a lot of effort into them.
One of the most valuable parts of this class was engaging in a discussion about learning and teaching methods. This class introduced some ideas about breaking generally accepted education methods and standards in favor of a nontraditional but more personalized approach to teaching. I think this was a great idea to have running throughout this class specifically because, for me at least, I am studying something that I normally wouldn't see in my coursework in an online setting, so it is already breaking a few molds.
Overall, I am so glad that I decided to take this class. I learned a lot about mythology and folklore, of course, but I also learned about how to take reading notes, how to come up with a creative story, and how to approach learning standards for myself and others. I will certainly take aspects of this class with me into the future, whether that is recognizing a reference to a folktale in modern entertainment or studying for an exam in my math class. Thank you, Laura, you should be proud of yourself for this class!
Riding off into the sunset. Source: Good Free Photos
Andrew, this post MADE MY DAY: thank you for your kind words, and I am so glad about all of this. Yay for creativity, stories, connecting with other people online, all that good stuff. And in this totally weird world in which we are living right now, we are probably going to have to learn all kinds of ways to break some molds and discover good solutions for problems we never thought we would have to face. We will need all the creativity we can get! I've got your final revisions thing in the stack so I'll have a chance to write you later this week, but I just wanted to thank you for this post now. I really appreciate it! :-)
ReplyDeleteAndrew,
ReplyDeleteI loved reading about what you enjoyed in this class! I completely agree, I had no idea what I was getting into when I enrolled in this class. I have also really enjoyed it, and I have recommended to lots of friends who are looking to fill their general education requirements that they take this class as well. I also agree that Laura has done such a great job using nontraditional learning methods to make this class so great and unique. Congrats on getting through another semester!