Week Six Blog

Write a reflection about what you learned about analyzing educational micro-systems from Task One.  What have you come to understand about the complexity of even simple systems? What have you learned about yourself as a learner and budding research analyst? How do you think you did on the Task? Why? What will you do differently in the future?

Micro-system analysis using Banathy’s Systems-Environment model was a challenge for me. This is the first time I have analyzed a system. It was a very complex task. I am still struggling to separate a micro system from the meso- and macro-system while analyzing a single system. Even though I used myself in the name of an employee micro-system my though got lost again and again. Sometimes I felt I was writing my resume and other time I felt I was describing the meso-system or the macro system. It was very hard to make the connection of human system to education system. How one system impacts the other systems. My understanding is still vague about system analysis. I still can’t picture it what the actual micro-system analysis should look like. It would have been helpful if the instructor was providing a model example of a system analysis to learn where the gap is. I could not comprehend my thought well to put it in writing to express my understanding about what I was trying to say. I have gotten frustrated and have felt exhausted.

I did enjoy reading about system complexity and chaos theory and learned the characteristics of complexity and chaos theory. I am trying to connect those to real life but micro-system analysis I felt there is no limit in the boundary. My understanding about the complexity of a simple system is very complex. Each system is closely interconnected with another system. There is no independent system. If one is impacted the other is impacted too. Each system is influenced by factors of system environment and general environments. The factors are indefinite in number and hence there is end of discussion about a simple system.

As a learner and budding research analyst I have learned that I need to build confidence in myself and continue to grow more in writing and analyzing. I feel I could do more but did not have time. I was not comfortable to analyze my own family factors and I dropped in in my analysis. The most uncomfortable feeling I had when I saw the similarity index. I absolutely felt embarrass when I saw my similarity index was more than expected. I have deleted lots of quoted materials and have rewritten most of the quotes and resubmitted next day. I hope Dr. Cox will accept it as first time. I will manage my time properly for next tasks.

Even though Banathy’s model was a guide for us to analyze a system, I do not think that I did an excellent job. I do think I did excellent in mind mapping the system but could not articulate in analyzing the system. Overall, I think I did a good job but only Dr. Cox can judge how good or bad I did. In future, I need to prepare myself well ahead of time so I can manage time efficiently. There was an expected time constraint affected my last day. I thought I will be able to complete it before Saturday as I knew I will not be able to use Saturday for my study. I did not want to make excuse in a PhD level study. I should have acted more responsively and proactively. I will remind myself next time to be more proactive and well organized.