Ranking, One Step at a Time.

This week I used the problem solving strategies of Ranking Priorities and One Step at a Time in my Writing 105 class. Both strategies provided me with different ways to complete my assignments. With the Ranking Priorities Strategy, I was able to determine which assignments were necessary to complete and which ones were okay to put off for another day. I found that in my Writing 105 class, the majority of my work was put under the “Absolutely essential” Section, such as picking out my photos for analysis and Generating 5 qualities that make it worth analyzing. These assignments had to be completed the before the next class period in order to keep up with the lectures. I noticed that under the “Important” section, I only put two items, which were applying the notice and focus to three images, and writing a paragraph about the image I had found. These assignments weren’t do until next week so I didn’t have to worry about them immediately, but since the due date was soon, I put them under important so I didn’t forget. In the Optional section, I put my essay, which isn’t due until the first of November, so I have a while before I need to really start working on it. I also put several different Annotation assignments that aren’t due until next week under the Optional section. Since my Professor does not collect our annotations, it is really up to the student whether they want to complete it or not. I’ll probably end up doing the annotations, but it’s nice to know I have the option. Ranking Priorities proved to be very helpful in organizing my assignments through out the week so I knew which assignments were essential to complete throughout this week and the assignments I had the option of doing. This strategy was very effective in motivating me to work on the assignments that I had to complete for the week.

I also applied the One Step at a Time strategy to my Writing 105 course. This strategy was not as helpful as the application of the Ranking Priorities strategy, because it didn’t really organize my assignments or manage my time better. Where as the Ranking Priorities strategy kept track of multiple assignments and helped filter out which assignments where necessary, One Step at a Time only focused on one specific problem I had for the week, and showed me how to solve it. For example, I put in that I hadn’t collected any photos for my Writing Project. I wrote down what would happen if I didn’t get them this week; I’d have nothing to write about and fall behind in my work. Then I came up with three solutions; Go on to the Internet and randomly search for photos, ask a classmate where they got theirs, or ask my professor where he would suggest looking. I decided to not waste anymore time and just start looking up the photos myself. While this strategy was helpful in motivating me to work on the photo assignment for my writing 105 course that I’ve been putting off, it seem fairly impractical when it came to solving multiple problems. The directions said to just keep repeating the process “until you have eliminated or minimized the problem”. Repeating the process several times seems very impractical, especially if I have more than one problem a week, which I do. I think the One Step at a Time Strategy is useful for those BIG Assignments that need to be broken down, such as an essay, but when it comes to a bunch of little assignments such as annotating and analyzing, it is very inefficient and cumbersome. I think the One step strategy would have been much more effective in my Transmedia course, in which we have one BIG Project throughout each month.

I chose Ranking Priorities and One Step at a Time as my two time management strategies because I’m a visual learner, and I seem to work best when I can organize my assignments visually, such as a graphic organizer. Both of these strategies were visually appealing to me and seemed to work for my needs. Since my Writing 105 class is mostly a text-based course, a lot of the work I’ll need to do is hands on, stuff I actually need to physically do in order to understand it. Since I’m a visual learner, I’ve learned that it is essential for my to pay attention to any slides my professor might put up on the projector. Most the materials I need for my writing 105 are textbooks, so it’s difficult to really grasp the essence of an assignment when there are no visual aspects to it. I noticed it’s most helpful to me when I create visual aspects to my assignments such as using the Ranking Priorities or One Step at a Time strategy. The main way I am graded in my Writing 105 course is through the expression of my voice through an essay assignment and portfolio work. I noticed as a visual learner, it is difficult for me to learn strictly through the readings, so I often go out of my way to find other mediums to study the material I need in order to write a full, well thought out essay. Often I’ll use graphic organizers to organize my ideas so I can eventually write the essay. I think Ranking Priorities and One Step at a Time served me well for my needs. Although Ranking Priorities did prove to be a lot more effective than the One Step at a Time Strategy, they both were useable strategies that helped me organize my assignments and management my time throughout the week.