Reflections

As referring back to my first post on this learning blog, you can notice that one thing that I was looking forward to gain through this course was “get crystal clear on my goals of a PhD thesis”. By finishing the course, I have learned a lot of things, by reading papers provided during the course, now I know better “how” to start my research, how to set up my research questions and my goals, how to find suitable means of data collection, how to reflect upon my activities, how to observe openly, how to make use of the techniques like “dialogue” instead of discussion, how to present my findings and a lot more. Furthermore, I would for sure take into account the phases of “Theory U” in the process of writing my dissertation, cause I found it very useful.

Creation of success requires a strong foundation in each individual pursuing it. For a person who is an extreme procrastinator like me, I’ve found that using great tools and methods, like creating observation weblogs or make use of sharing files tools for the group work, would be very effective for eliminating procrastination and keep me more connected with my project.

As a PhD student who is at the beginning of her way to write a dissertation I found this course very productive. In order to achieve specific goals or results it’s not useful just to know how much time you spent on doing things, but as well you need a tool to measure achievements as well. That was the first time I created a learning journal, but it is not going to be the only one, because it was a productive method that helped me a lot to keep track of my learning.


M.M