Methods of inquiry and lessons learned across academic and co-curricular experiences

Integrative Learning in Academic Environments

For each course, describe one method of inquiry that you learned in that course.

Communication in Instruction and Training

This course emphasized the effort to visualize the consequences of the miscommunication or inaccurate communication of ideas. It also provided an opportunity to imagine the outcome of different communications practices.

Intercultural Communication

This course introduced us to the analytical method of substituting ourselves in the position of others to help understand the importance of various sensitivities and unintended potential issues in ordinary social interactions. That method is equally valuable in many different applications.

Language Arts

This course promoted the use of deductive reasoning to identify logical connections between the evolution of different languages from common precursors. It also offered the opportunity to recognize and apply general rules of construction to multiple languages that share similar structure.

For each co-curricular activity, describe one lesson you learned.

Volleyball

That foot position is crucially important as the foundation of power for every shot. Optimal foot position is essential to balance and is a prerequisite to generating the rotational torque that determines the amount of energy a hitter is capable of transferring to the ball. Hip rotation, base stability, and the efficient transfer of weight are the primary determinants of ball velocity, not arm strength.

Cheerleading

That soft-tissue injuries should be immediately treated with ice, elevated, and compressed. The sooner first-aid is applied, the less the injury will swell and the less recovery time will be necessary, everything else being equal. Heat therapy in any form and anti-inflammatory drugs containing aspirin should be avoided for at least 48 hours because they increase bleeding and the corresponding swelling.

Community Service

That there are more members of my communities in need than I was aware and that I may take certain advantages in my life for granted because so many people do not have them.

Multicultural Club

That certain behaviors and attitudes that I previously associated with my culture are actually quite common to other cultures. They reflect the way cultural identity manifests itself in general rather than any specific culture. In a sense, all cultural learning is arbitrary, leading to the question of whether they have as much value as is generally presumed, especially to the extent they naturally promote ethnocentrism and xenophobia.

Yoga

That my body is capable of more on some days than on others and that it is possible to be more aware of my physical condition by recognizing various signs from my body. There is a fundamental difference between muscle pain associated with breakdown and recovery from muscle pain caused by acute injury and learning to distinguish them is very important.