Quick reflection at the end of Child course

Child course is a short way of mine to call the course Child, Education and Culture. This is a course that is not included in our programme but I registered because I was curious and I also wanted to get more credits.

There are plenty of highlights about the theoretical concepts provide by this course. However, I don’t want to share them here because I have just written them down in the concluding essay. In this entry, I want to focus more on the learning method.

Before going into details, I will tell you a story. I spend three or four continuous days concluding this course. Honestly, I was not hard-working during the whole semester for this course, or in a more exact way to say, I did not manage my time well to cover concepts of the course part by part but cram all things in the last week. That’s obviously not the right way to do it. Therefore, until this moment, I feel very tired although happy at the same time because of the completion.

In the process of concluding this course, what did I do?

- Read through almost all important articles suggested in the resource list. There are usually compulsory readings in every course and in my opinion, we should spend as much time as possible to cover all these valued documents. I realise that reading researches is much more fun than listening to lectures (almost, not all cases). It is also very useful in terms of providing us with fundamental concepts with adequate explanation to understand. Besides, I learnt many new words from the readings, and that’s the way I continue to learn English and improve my academic vocabulary as well as get familiar with professional keywords that I will use regularly in the future in working life. I can also learn how to write research, I learn so many sentence templates that I will use to express my ideas later in my thesis. By contrast, when listening to the lecture, the teacher usually could not explain explicitly enough due to the lack of time.

- Look at slides again to note down emphasized keywords and grasp the teacher’s flow of interpretation. There could be important guidelines in the slides which we could not attain from the readings.

- Write my concluding essay by summarizing key concepts along with my own understanding and interpretation of them. The second thing I need to show in this essay is my readings, by adding quotes from resources and cite the documents in the most formal way of doing that. Another important part of the concluding essay is that reflection. In the essay, I reflected on my previous experiences that related to the concepts. Teachers would love to see how the course change our understanding and future implementation so I write about them in the essay: how I understood the concepts before and after the course and what I will do differently in my future career as an educator.

Main lessons I realise after finishing the task:

• You should complete it part by part, do not wait until the end (like me). Thus, a good plan is needed. The free time between lessons should be spent on wrapping up, reading, reviewing and further research. A profile should be prepared for each course to organize knowledge modules so that they could be easy to remember and use later.
• Reading is the key. The time for reading determines how much we could gain from the course. Without going through compulsory and further readings of a course, we could only learn from seminars that are inadequate. In a course structure, they usually clarify the expected amount of time a student should spend reading and attending seminars. For example, in the Ethic course, they indicate that students need 24 hours for lectures but 30 hours for self-studying. This fact changes my perception of learning. In Vietnam, they usually think that the most important thing is to be present in the lectures. After that, we can do extra work to earn money or hang out with friends to enjoy student life. Very few students want to read deeper on the concepts of the course if it is not mandatory or related to their final grade.
• Take the most of it. You only have one chance to study a course, utilize and make the most from it.  What will these new concepts help you in your future work? What could it be better if you knew them before? So appreciate the chance to learn and try to gain as much as possible. Try to understand teachers' ideas than reflect them on your own experiences and perceptions to create new lessons. Save the slides and materials and resources for later use. Write journals to reflect even when you are not asked to do that.
• There is always something interesting from a course. Do not let a moment or an element or a temporary event affect the whole judgement about the course. Be patient and try to understand the aims of course designers. Connect the concepts with your own expectation and needs. Then you will realise the course useful somehow. 
• Follow weekly lectures but after a while, you should review and wrap up things part by part. Especially at the end of the course, open all the slides, go through all of them, organize them in a logical order, make a mindmap or a jamboard or anything to visualise them. You will realise something and will be better prepared for the remaining parts of the course.
• Respect the deadline. But when you can not follow the date, please kindly inform your teacher to be tolerant. No one wants to be too strict with each other. They usually understand and forgive if it doesn't cause any serious consequences.

an assignment of mine in the course