Something I would also like to intentionally work on this quarter at least is how I respond to feedback. Throughout my time at Northwestern I learned about how important it was to ask for feedback and take feedback with a critical lens. Now, I think I am at a point where I would like to reflect on the feedback I have gotten from my first two research assignments for 543. This will also be a timed engagement for 30 mins where I would like to be focused - reflecting on what I wrote, what the instructors comments and feedback mean to me, and moving forward how I can act on them or improve as a scholar.
After participating in a timed reading engagement during class time, I wrote a response on what it felt to read under time pressure. My response noted how my perception of the paper changed as I read it, an analysis on the current strategies I use to read a research paper and thinking about what strategies I want to improve on moving forward as I read more papers. I looked back at my professor's comments and responded as I reflected on them below.
I've gone back and read my submission.
The biggest thing I wrote about was how my initial perception of the paper after reading the title and the abstract was that I thought the authors were going to discuss how gender and culture affects people disclosing their mental health illness through social media lens. What I learned after I read more of the paper and specifically the study methodology was that the authors created a system that inferred the gender and the culture of the tweets they received via their large dataset and this was by far more interesting to me. Why didn't they note this earlier? Is this a common practice with large data sets of tweets like this one?
Feedback: Why do I think my initial perception wrong?
I hadn't thought about this question until my professor's comment on my submission and now I wonder if I brought my own lens or maybe a reader's bias in what I understood the paper to be initially. Mental health for college students is something I am & was particularly involved with at Northwestern. My current research interests are understanding and learning from minority females in engineering about their experiences in makerspaces. Could it be that after reading the title and the abstract I created my own idea what the paper could be about due to the perceptions I brought into the reading from my own experience? How can I recognize this for the future - thinking about what I "want" a paper to be about vs. what language the author uses in their writing that leads me to get a different initial perception is something I will think about moving forward.
Feedback: What do I mean by the "slowing down" process in reading?
This was interesting for me to read because when I look back at my response to the timed-engagement this was one of my last notes that I wrote down but I felt important to express. As I was reading the data section that explained how the author's derived the gender and culture of the person who posted the tweet gender I felt particularly intrigued. Understanding my flow of reading is important and identifying these key moments when I feel pulled into the research and when I voluntarily slow down to digest the section. How do I capitalize on these moments when naturally my speed of reading slows down and something significant might be happening in my thoughts? How do we support others when they read to 1- recognize their flow pattern and 2-take advantage of it when it happens. This can also be translated to writing since it is on my mind from the book I am reading "How to write a lot."
“A general thought as I click to my next canvas submission and read my professor’s comments is a personal one about how nice it feels to know someone read my work and felt it was important to comment on it. This is practice I would like to learn from and can already see the difference it makes educators take the time to do so. Now as student’s how do we recognize that effort and use those comments beyond just reading them. ”
My next submission was a timed reading engagement where I wrote for 30mins on what reading reminded me of and what reading meant to me. My professor's comments noted how inspiring my imagery was and I am proud I was able to convey my sentiments about my grandparent's hometown and the importance they have to me via my words.
Feedback: If I would suggest one of the books I read this past summer, which one would it be?
I'd say it's a hard choice because they are all so different but each eye-opening and intelligent in their own way. I'd pick Americanah by Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi because of the beautiful language expressing moving to a new place by yourself, maintaining relationships both personal and romantic across cultures, and learning the role your ties to your homeland play into your decisions as an individual.
I'll be working on this practice of acting on feedback moving forward but for now my timed 30mins are up.