2013 Fall Semester

During the first semester of my doctoral study, I took four courses, namely EDIT 6190 Design and Development Tools, EDIT 6170 Instructional Design, WFED 9200 Research Methods, and WFED 8990 Doctoral Seminar. All those courses turned out to be very helpful to me.

 

In EDIT 6190, I got to know various research trends and development tools by reading articles in various fields and discussing them with peers in class. In reflection, I think this course helped me to gain a broad understanding of what is going on in the field of Learning, Design, and Technology. Apart from reading articles and several books, I also learned Storyline, an elearning authoring tool during the semester and produced a “mini” course about my research interests at the end of the semester as my final project.

 

By taking EDIT 6170, I was able to get a deeper understanding of instructional design in terms of theory and at the same time, practice instructional design by doing several practice activities and a team project using the ADDIE paradigm. Although I have several years of work experience as an instructional designer before I came here and have developed dozens of elearning courses, I still feel greatly indebted to this course.

 

WFED 9200 is another great course I took in the first semester. Although, frankly speaking, it was really challenging and sometimes, discouraging, especially at the first couple of months, it turned out to be the most valuable course for me. By taking this course, I not only managed to figure out my research interests and topic for dissertation, but also started to work on part of the future dissertation from the very beginning. Preliminary as it is, the writing helped me think deeper about the topic and refine my understanding and thoughts.

 

WFED 8990 is a very useful course for first year students. During the course, I had the opportunities to listen to the research of different faculty members in LDT program in UGA and got to know various resources available for us to narrow down our research interests and carry on our doctoral studies. Besides academic contribution, it also provided an inspiring and friendly environment, which is very important to help first year students adjust themselves and fit in the group.

 

2014 Spring Semester

For the spring semester, I took 5 courses altogether, namely EDIT 6190 Design and Development Tools, EDIT 9990 Doctoral Seminar, EDIT 9990 Writing Seminar, which is designed to help us with our writing projects, another EDIT 9990 Medical Reasoning Seminar, which is offered by my advisor and is closely related to my research interests, and LLED 7769 International Graduate Intern, which will prepare me for future teaching assistantship positions.

 

Same as last semester, EDIT 6190 is helpful for my research. This semester, the instrutor of the course is changed and Dr. Clinton's style is a bit different from Dr. Orey's. During the first semester,  Dr. Orey introduced us lots of different topics, like design-based research, case-based research, problem and project-based research, augumented reality, 3D printing and elearning. It was good for us to explore different research or technologoies at the begining. This semester, we focused more on design-based research. And Dr. Clinton organized two workshops, wordpress and livecode. For this semester's project, I planned to develop a new case, but this is not in my control and I have to cooperate with faculty members in Vet school. So probably I can't finish this by the end of this semster. But I will do whatever I can to move this forward and accomplish as much as I can. At the same time, I and Karen, my partner for this project will build a website about case-based learning, using wordpress, a tool we learn this semester. Hopefully, when the new case is finally developed, it will be part of the website.

 

EDIT 9990 Doctoral Seminar is also very inspiring. This semester, each session, we have an incubation session during which three students present their individual research ideas and plans and express their vexations and other students as observers will ask questions and give them feedback to help the presenters with their problems and hopefully give them some inspirations during the process. Personally, I like the incubation very much. It not only provides opportunities for us to articulate our research ideas to our peers, but also gives us a chance to get valuable feedback from our peers and professors. Sometimes, new ideas will come out when you present your ideas to other people. And the audience's unique perspectives might give us inspirations and new ideas that we never think about before. 

 

Apart from incubation, we also have the chance to listen to senior doctoral students presenting their research. It is really helpful to learn  what other students are doing and how they do their research. For first-year students, this is really a good learning opportunity. Also, we might identy some opportunities for collaboration and share some resources by listening to other students' research ideas.

 

EDIT 9990 Writing Seminar is helpful in that it encourages me to write something for my research. During the one-to-one meetings with Dr. Hill, I learned a lot from her and she really gave me valuable suggestions and encourgement for moving forward. At the begining of the course, Dr. Hill asked us to set up a goal  for this course. My goal is to write a conceptual paper about learning from success and learning from failure. But the problem is I feel I am not moving forward this semester. I tried to write something, but the ideas in my head seemed not as clear as I thought. So I just keep reading articles and books and am a bit afraid of the idea that I might write something stupid. But Dr. Hill gave me the courage and I started writing the paper based on what I have read. I know it might look stupid, but the important thing is that I actually put my ideas into words. That is a big step. And I believe good articles need repeated refinement. Once I write something, I can keep refining it based on new thoughts and new readings and I am sure I can finally come up with something readable in the end. I hope I can finish the draft of the paper by the end of this semester. 

 

Another EDIT 9990 Medical Reasoning is also a meaningful course for me. It is closely related with my research interest. During the course, we learn different medical reasoning models, like hypo-deductive reasoning, forward reasoning, backward reasoning, scheme-inductive reasoning, pattern recognition and intuitive reasoning. Since I am interested in decision-making and real-word problem-solving. This course turns out to be very helpful. So far, I have a much deeper understanding of different reasoning models and learned a lot during the process. Besides, we read lots of article this semester, which are helpful for my research, especially those about misdiagnosis. Probably I will refer to those articles when I design and develop a failure-based new case. 

 

LLED 7769 is a language course for international students who want to become a teaching assistant in UGA. Relatively speaking. this course is kind of easy for me, but still it is very helpful. During the class, we learn different teaching strategies that are especially necessary for international students whose first language is not English. Also, we have several presentations throughout the semester for us to practice teaching. Each presentation is videotaped and peer-reviewed. Afterwards, the instructor will discuss with each one of us about his/her presentation and give us very detailed feedback. I like this course very much and I feel much more confident about teaching now. I hope I can have the opportunity to teach at UGA next year.