Week 3: Habits of Mind

This is the reflection blog for week 3. I started this week with a practice on punctuation use, I am very satisfied with my nearly perfect result. Then there is a annotation assignment on an article about toxic masculinity, it provides lots of examples that is very helpful for me to understand the concept. Lastly, I did a analysis and annotation on the film Beauty and the Beast(2017), it is my first time watching the remake version of the movie, and I do discover a lot of the gender roles being represented by main characters.

Next, I am going to reflect on my experiences with 8 "habits of mind" in this class so far.

Curiosity – the desire to know more about the world

I have always been curious about anything new to me, including the concept of gender role. When I first learned about the idea of toxic masculinity from Kilbourne's lecture, I have been wondering the cause of this social issue and what keeps it alive for so long. After this week's reading, I start to realize that it's hard for people with toxic masculinity to recognize themselves and understand why they are toxic.

Openness – the willingness to consider new ways of being and thinking in the world

I have learned to use other's perspective to think about an issue. The idea comes from Kilbourne's speech that when thinking about gender role problems, different perspective gives different conclusions. So it's important to include as many sides' perspectives when trying to solve a problem.

Engagement – a sense of investment and involvement in learning

There is a huge sense of engagement in this class for two reasons. The first one is that in order to complete all the work, I have to spend a lot of time reading, writing, and understanding. And when I am doing reflections, I can really feel what I have done and learned so far. The second reason is that there are responses to classmates' works, so that I have the chance to compare my work with theirs, thus enhanced the sense of involvement.

Creativity – the ability to use novel approaches for generating, investigating, and representing ideas

I think I have become more creative when I am trying to represent an idea. Whenever there is an assignment that asks me to connect myself with the reading, I do find out that I have experienced more than I thought and I was able to use my experiences to explain the idea.

Persistence – the ability to sustain interest in and attention to short- and long-term projects

There is definitely persistence in my work in this class. For example, this week's annotation on Beauty and the Beast is my first time doing annotation on an entire film. It took me a lot of time and work and eventually I feel satisficed about my work. In addition, I have been thinking and discussing with my group members about what to include in the podcast in the future since the class meeting.

Flexibility – the ability to adapt to situations, expectations, or demands

My biggest adaption in this class is on annotation on videos. It was super hard for me in the beginning because I have only done one or two before. But that is not an excuse for incomplete work. With my experience on Kilbourne's lecture and Beauty and the Beast, I start to realize that I am actually very efficient at annotating videos if I can find the subtitles for the video.

Responsibility – the ability to take ownership of one’s actions and understand the consequences of those actions for oneself and others

I think every response to my classmates shows my responsibility. I have always try my best to read and understand my classmates' works so that I can give them an appropriate feedback. I think it's rude and irresponsible to post meaningless responses.

Metacognition (reflection) – the ability to reflect on one’s own thinking as well as on the individual and cultural processes used to structure knowledge

I believe I have been doing well on reflections. I always go back and check my work to see what I have accomplished and learned this week when writing my reflection blogs. For this reflection on "habits of mind", I have also think very carefully about my experiences with this class so far.