Week 2 - A Focus on Study Skills, Projects, and Collaborative Work

 Reviewing and Reflecting on Learning Strategies

Effective Study Skills (Kizlik, 2020) presents various study tips and advice for strengthening skills for better studying. I have some strengths in some of the mentioned skills, but I may need a little work in some other studying areas. Three areas I believe I’m strong on are surveying, outlining, and efficiency. For me, surveying is an integral part of studying. I need to have a sense of purpose and understanding of what it is I’m about to dive into. I normally do this by reading the main topics and focusing on the desired outcome, then I’ll go back and analyze the steps it takes to get there. Furthermore, I’d say I’m quite organized and tactical in my approach to my study sessions. It’s more of a mental organization, but it helps me have structure to my studying time with. This leads me into my last skill, I tend to be quite efficient with my time. Although I do not make and keep to a schedule, but when I work, I’m locked in and having a mental outline along with a goal helps me keep that efficiency.

Despite my strengths, there are some skills I need to strengthen. In Kizlik’s chart, I identified these skills to be creating a schedule, sticking to a schedule, and selecting an appropriate place to study. Though I’ve always struggled with this, developing a schedule can help provide a framework for my studying that will boost my current skills. Developing a schedule is one thing, but sticking to it is another challenge. Sticking to a schedule is quite difficult for me because I’m a person that works on how I feel. If I could control my feelings and lock in on-demand, I think I would have better, more efficient, and meaningful study sessions. Lastly, study environment is huge for me, and I often don’t have control over it. This idea lends itself to planning a schedule because if I planned, I would be in more control of my study environment. After a quick analysis of my study habits, I find it interesting that each of my skills lends strength to each other and each of my weaknesses can be aided if I fix the other.

Time Management Skills & Schedule

Below I’ve created a weekly tentative schedule for my CST 300 course:

 

Project Management Basics

As this program is going to be very project oriented, I’ve summarized some information on project management. A video Project management: What is a work breakdown structure? clarifies that projects are set in place to produce deliverables and it’s best to break down the structures of the project for the work to be executed (ProjectManager, 2014). Introduction to project management (KNOLSKAPE, 2013) explains that projects are temporary endeavors that creature unique products and do not operate after the goals are obtained whereas operations are constantly operating and repeating to sustain business. Most industries seem to have both projects and operations. An example would be the automobile industry. A team can be part of a project that’s in charge of prototyping the car, once they disband, the team for operations comes in a ensure the operability of the business with the car as the product. Projects have lifecycles that contain initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, control process, and closing. Statistics show that not all projects make it to the market so it’s important to manage a project even though the process seems simple. Failure in time management, cost management, scope management, and quality management are all legitimate reasons as to projects may not succeed. A project manager can take the lead to ensure that all these areas go smoothly for the project. 

Checking Out Previous Capstones

I’m going to review 3 previous capstone projects from the Capstone Festival by Cohort 14 at CSUMB. 

What Can We Play Today (Yasin, Barrios, Ngoun, Rivera 2023) uses Steam and a web browser application to create an environment for online gamers to chat and exchange game suggestions. The video was very interactive, and the group showed their interface to explain how the product works. It was well organized and walked the user through the process. I believe it was well done; however, I think the explanation was a bit convoluted and I think some of the technical descriptions could have been minimized.

Badge (George, 2023) is a capstone project made for music immersion. George starts off by comparing it to Duolingo geared for elementary school students who are looking to enhance their music learning skills. She seemed to have put a lot of thought into the illustrations and web design. The application has teacher and student accounts that are explained from both sides of the application. I think this student did a good job of ensuring that the viewer understood the concept of the project from the start. She started off with a description that was easy to understand and then went on to explain the technical portion of the project. It was a pleasure to watch.

MBARI AUV (Horne, Yoshimoto, Navarro, Watson, Lopez, 2023) is a project that seeks to uncover the data of the ocean by helping scientists see meaningful changes and impacts. This was quite an intriguing project. It uses “sonar, GPS and inertial navigation systems to determine the position orientation and movement.” It was quite an impressive project, and it seems like this group put a lot of effort into it. It uses Python to collect data from the ocean and the user interface has many options for viewing statistics. However, as far as the presentation goes, I found myself having to watch multiple times and still not understanding exactly what is going on. The explanations were convoluted, and the presenters were speaking too fast for me to internalize and understand what they were talking about. 

A Summary of Week 2

A big takeaway I had from this week was learning the meaning of collective intelligence. I learned that diversity could have an effective impact on projects. This gave me a different insight into group work and really encouraged me to get to know the strengths of my team members. 

I also took a dive into a more professional version of peer-reviewing. I was able to give and receive feedback from my teammates on my paper so that we’re able to highlight our strengths and strengthen our weaknesses.

Looking into the past capstone projects, I was impressed at all the hard work CS Online students have put into their work in the past. I was intimidated by how awesome these are, but it gave me encouragement to keep moving on through the program to attain that quality of work. Going forward, I’m confident I’ll have more motivation on my team, and better peer-reviewing and collaboration skills.

References

George (2023) California State University Monterey Bay Cohort 14 Capstone Festival. Slide 9.

Horne, Yoshimoto, Navarro, Watson, Lopez (2023) California State University Monterey Bay Cohort 14 Capstone Festival. Slide 17.

Kizlik, B. (2020) Effective study skills. http://www.adprima.com/studyout.htm (Accessed: 07 May 2024). 

KNOLSKAPE. (2013). Introduction to project management. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOU1YP5NZVA 

ProjectManager. (2014). Project management: What is a work breakdown structure? Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEWhnodF6ig 

 Yasin, Barrios, Ngoun, Rivera (2023) California State University Monterey Bay Cohort 14 Capstone Festival. Slide 7.