Week 2
Learning Strategy Reflection
There are many resourceful study suggestions within Bob Kizlik's "Effective Study Sills" article. There are many good studying reminders that he covers, like having a set study place. It's like the practice of only using your bedroom to sleep, so when you're in bed your body knows that it's time to sleep (which I actually follow). I think that is the most solid advice. I hadn't heard of the Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review (SQ3R) method before and I really like the idea behind it. The acronym could use some work, but the process of actively learning is great and I will try it out.My strengths
- Making and Revising a Schedule My free time has always been consumed by organizing and planning out everything. You should see what happens when I am in charge of Thanksgiving dinner! I will have the most perfectly planned out study schedule.
- Taking Notes I take notes daily. There are many reminders and questions (mostly to myself) throughout my computer, phone, and on post it notes at home and at work. Taking notes for assignments is no different. It makes studying take longer, but it can be worth it, especially when wanting to refresh your knowledge base before exams.
- Preparing Outlines and Writing Papers Preparing outlines goes along with my obsessive nature with organizing. Preparing an outline is possibly my favorite and most looked forward to part of writing a paper. In fact, I do this when writing simple emails to coworkers or making event schedules with friends. I always want to ensure that I cover the right topics.
My weaknesses
- Reading Unfortunately, I'm not great at completely focusing on the text in front of me. I find myself rereading paragraphs way too often because I have zoned out and am not in tune with what's going on in the text. Actively reading would prove tremendously helpful to me and I wouldn't be eating up so much precious time with my rereading!
- Surveying Skipping straight ahead to the content and not considering what I'm going to be looking at is definitely something that I should improve. Many times I find that I haven't even read the title of what I'm looking at. Just want to find the quick answers in the thick of it.
- Not Reading Aloud to Myself I had no idea that this was actually bad practice. I usually read aloud to myself thinking that I will understand something better. This is a lot of the reason why I want to study at home (I don't want to be the crazy person at the local coffee shop). I'm going to try it and maybe it will improve my overall reading abilities.
Preview Time Management Skills
Mind Tool's Time Management information is useful, but I am pretty comfortable with my time management skills. I'm very focused and stay on task, especially at work. However, sometimes I can overbook myself and need to learn to scale back my load in order to not overwork myself, making me feel exhausted. See my day spent at work is described in my activity log below.Project Management Basics
There are a few videos or slideshows covering project management. A summary of each video is described below their heading.
Introduction to Project Management
This video is very similar in content to the project management slideshow from Corpedia that is described below. A project manager (PM) oversees a project, which is a task that has a set beginning phase and ending phase. Within the project there are specific phases like initiating, planning, and execution. The PM is there to ensure that their project won't fail due to time, cost, scope, or quality issues.Project Management Introduction ("An Applied Framework for Project Management" Corpedia Education Course)
Again, this video describes the different stages of project management. However, this slideshow also describes the different roles of people that could be involved in a project (aside from the PM). They bring up the stakeholders, sponsors and team members as well, which I think is much more important that the PM alone. It also covers how goals are met much better with a project management system.It's interesting to see such a broad overview of project management. Since I've been working in the industry, I've really caught on to the shortfalls of project management and the technical team members. In this slideshow there was a section where they went over different stages of a project. Having a section for execution and nothing more involved is basically what I've seen when working under a corporate PM and it left me extremely unsatisfied and frustrated at times. There's a lot more that goes into execution for a tech company (like quality assurance, refactoring, etc.).
Project Management: What is a work Breakdown Structure (WBS)?
The lady in the video explains the importance of defining the "deliverable" for a project in order to keep the team on track, with an end goal in mind. She explains the importance of defining a hierarchical structure with the overall project at the top and the individual tasks at the bottom for defining the entire scope of the project. This hierarchy can include sub projects, phases, and small deliverables. However, there should be one overall deliverable item that the project will return.Project Management: What is a Gantt Chart?
The Gantt chart is a horizontal bar graph that indicates time periods. Each bar in the chart can indicate a task. While some tasks may have to wait until another is complete, others may be done concurrently. There can be many indicators in these charts, like their completeness, the relation to today, and a variety of estimated durations. Gantt charts can also be created in Microsoft Excel.Previous Capstones
At the end of the CSUMB online bachelor's degree program there will be a capstone project that I will need to complete. Here is an overview of a few previous capstone projects:
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