Originally published here.
When I initially started the course, I had a few basic understanding of some of the skills and ideas involved in being an in(ter)depenent learner, but never really had a chance to try and practise and improve these skills. I had previously worked in group projects at school and such but never really to a level that was as challenging as to make me really use skills that I for instance have acquired during this course, such as synthesis and evaluation. This course has given me a much deeper understanding through each weeks assignments, which each week built from the last, and took me through different stages and skills that were involved in independent learning. It has helped me gain a new insight into the traits of being a good in(ter)dependent learner and also how hard it can be to master these skills.
I think that the course has helped me show for starters that I can be committed to finishing things! Many of the tasks were time consuming and did require me to manage my time well to fit them into the week and complete the tasks. It required a great level of extra reading and research and it has helped me build on drawing from other accessible resources to help aid my task. It has further helped me realise that everything can be critically analysed and that I should be careful to assess the extent that I can trust a source by inquiring it’s reliability and validity.
I will finish the course coming away with many new skills that will most certainly add to value to my future work. I hope to study pyschology at university in a few years and these skills especially critiquing and analysing research and sources will hopefully greatly help me in this subject as much research is involved. Generally I feel that the course will help equip me better for further education as I can now identify how I feel I work best and also my strengths and weaknesses. So for example I feel I am good at assessing validity and reliability but I am not so good at drawing overall conclusions. All in all I am glad I took part in this course as I know that the skills that I take away will be very beneficial and I believe I now have a head start compared to others in tackling university and further education.
