In continuing with my self-regulated learning, I’ve outlined the areas where I found success and challenges with my previous focus area. I’m also changing my focus area to planning.
Successes
I am officially a member of STC. I haven’t completed the mentorship application yet as I’m not sure about the area I would like to focus. I’m leaning towards UX but wanted to take another class first.
Also, when comparing Teams from a previous project, my interaction with my group was twice what it was in a previous class. I also compared my private chat history with the instructor. While not a flurry of activity, I was substantially more engaged than in a previous course. I also made a point to ask questions during office hours rather than weight the likelihood of an assumed answer. I honestly believe I saved a lot of time by having quick 15 minute conversations.
Challenges
My recent schedule has prevented me from visiting the Tech Comm Lab (workload has increased and schedules have shifted so I’m not on campus as often). Additionally, within our MadCap Flare project, we encountered a problem that surpassed what I had learned with tutorials. We spent a large amount of time troubleshooting the project, only to find no solution. Contacting the Tech Comm Lab when we first encountered issues would have saved us a lot of time, and possibly resulted in a different outcome.
Changing My Focus Area
Moving forward, I’ll change my focus area from help seeking to planning. I have a tendency to create unrealistic plans for myself when scheduling daily or weekly learning goals. This inevitably leads to rushing through projects to meet a goal or completely abandoning the learning goal altogether.
I will utilize LinkedIn Learning. I recently discovered three of the courses required for TECM 5191 are part of the Junior WordPress Developer learning path. My goal is to further my progress in this path by completing the following courses before the end of the semester:
- WordPress 5 Essential Training: Site Administration
- WordPress: Workflows
- Version Control for Everyone
Collectively, these courses add a little over an hour a week to my coursework for the remainder of TECM 5191 (I’m already halfway through one of the courses). Breaking this down further, working through the remainder of these courses requires a little over 10 minutes a day for the rest of the semester. Additionally, LinkedIn Learning lets users set weekly time goals and provides a visual progress graphic to help visualize the goal.
Completing these courses will help me develop a strong WordPress Portfolio for the end of course project and as a final portfolio for the PTC program. I’ll also have certificates of completion for my LinkedIn Profile, and be a little under halfway to completing the full learning pathway. Personally, this will be a challenge because I’m setting a midpoint goal, and not finishing the full learning pathway. While completing the full learning pathway is an exciting idea, it’s not realistic given the time frame.
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