Monday, July 25, 2016

Educated Guess: The Beginning of the End

Getting up early for class on Monday is always a challenge, but less so when you are actually looking forward to your class! I can hardly wrap my head around the fact that this will be my last week of this class and my last week in Chicago! I don't want to think about that yet, so let's move on to the adventures of the day.

The lovely Arley D. Cathey Learning Center
Class today focused on IQ and learning. We considered the definition of intelligence, the ways it is understood and measured, and the ways in which it is either fluid or static. We also looked at math and language learning/development in children. This brought up intriguing conversation about different educational systems. When talking about the different ages at which most kids learn to read, I brought up my experience with Waldorf school, a progressive alternative educational philosophy. One unusual characteristic about Waldorf education, among the many others, is that students do not learn how to read until significantly later than most public school children. During the lunch break, I had an excellent follow up conversation with Marjorie about the differences, advantages, and disadvantages between Waldorf schools, Montessori schools, and public schools and how these ideas would ideally be blended. I really enjoyed today's theme, since education has been really important to me throughout my life.

So many lamps!
After lunch at the dining hall, my research group got together to work on our results section now that our study is done. Since we are no longer testing people I can fill you in on some more of the details. Our study was looking at media effects on body image in adolescents and the potential of mindfulness (a type of meditation that emphasizes acceptance) as an intervention for negative body image. While our results were not exactly conclusive, it was fun to do our experiment on teenagers rather than children and to look at a topic that is relevant in the lives of many teenagers like us at this moment.

We needed to talk to the professor to figure out exactly how we were going to analyze our data, so while we waited we decided to go check out the "Hogwarts" reading room/library in a nearby building. The room was huge, with high ceilings, stone walls, and many many lamps. We all put headphones in and got some quiet work done before we had to go back and meet with the professor. She helped us crunch some numbers, and then we were free for the rest of the day! I got a lot of work done, and even did some college research. A good afternoon of research and contemplation.

1 comment:

  1. So many engaging subjects and conversations. I believe this is what college is about. Hugs and kisses

    ReplyDelete