#i have an annotated bibliography to write so that should be motivation enough | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

paytonsportfolio · 5 years

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Prospectus with Annotated Bibliography

Introduction

How should the progress of physical literacy be observed and recorded under the conditions of our unhealthy societal habits? Due to the constant changes in our society, physical literacy is becoming a popular, yet complex concept to live by. People across the globe are becoming more aware of physical literacy, specifically because of the current obesity crisis. Our society is finally realizing the lack of physical activity in the average human’s everyday life; however, it is not just physical activity that we are lacking. Our society is unaware of how important it is to take care of yourself, whether it’s your mental or physical health. Working at my university’s recreation center, I, along with my colleagues and patrons, are very familiar with the concept of physical literacy and deal with health and wellness every day. This paper will discuss the overall idea of physical literacy. This paper will also look at the different ways physical literacy is taught in today’s education systems and how physical literacy can be integrated throughout one’s entire life.

Background

Physical literacy is beyond the basic idea of reading, writing, and speaking. There are many different definitions of physical literacy, but they all have the same concept. Overall, physical literacy is the foundation of a healthy life. The development of physical literacy starts at a young age. Children start to learn and develop physical literacy once they start attending school, as early as preschool and or kindergarten. PE majors and teachers, exercise science majors, like health and fitness instructors, and other health and wellness academic fields must be very knowledgeable about the concept. In this case, we are talking about the fundamental movements of your body, and concepts like having confidence within yourself.

In the article, “Physical literacy in the field of physical education – A challenge and a possibility,” Lundvall mentions Whitehead’s first definition of physical literacy discusses the idea of “physical performance aspects of movement that enable a particular goal to be achieved, or elements of movement that need attention” (114). Part of physical literacy is understanding that your body has limits and acknowledging those limits. Physical Literacy helps humans, not just athletes, recognize their body’s boundaries. As you get older, your body starts to not work as well. Everyday activities, like walking up and down stairs, can become difficult, so it is very crucial to know your body’s limits.

Physical Literacy in Physical Education

Whether you realize it or not, everyone formally learns about physical literacy in their early years of education and is developed with time and repetition. It is introduced to children at such a young age to influence them to be aware of their health for the rest of their lives. Children start learning the skills of physical literacy when they play freely and or with guidance, followed by the fundamental movements; however, Lundvall believes that physical literacy isn’t just about the fundamentals. She uses the idea of building blocks. Once you learn a basic, fundamental movement, you can learn to execute more difficult movements; for example, you can learn to do jumping jacks or ride a bike. These things require you to have balance and move specific body parts a certain way. Lundvall also argues that physical literacy focuses on individual skills; however, you must look at it with a broad view. That single skill can be utilized with other movements or everyday duties. Lundvall also describes that being motivated is an essential component of the “building blocks of physical literacy” (115). When you are no longer motivated, your self-esteem goes down, along with your self-respect.  

Once a child had learned the fundamentals, they learn the more complex movements, which can include a sport like baseball or soccer. Playing sports like soccer and baseball will give students the opportunity to be physically active outside of the classroom, boost self-esteem, confidence, and will generally lead them to a healthier lifestyle; however, it’s not about creating the ultimate athlete. The concept of physical literacy thinks less about competition and more about the overall wellbeing and health of a person.

Physical Education courses should be a diverse course to give the children plenty of opportunities to find something that they feel comfortable with. Giving students the opportunity to work inside and outside is a good example of diversity in the classroom. Allowing students to have different opportunities, like working in a different environment or doing nonstandard activities, gives students the chance to find an activity that they enjoy. Once a child has found an activity that they enjoy, they will start to develop confidence. This development of confidence and comfortability with a certain activity, and within themselves, makes it more likely for the child to continue being physically active for the rest of their life.

Physical Education teachers live and teach by the means of physical literacy. They want students to be confident and motivated to be physically active, but it is hard for a child to be confident when the curriculum requires teachers to categorize students based on their performance. This makes students feel insecure and uncomfortable, exactly what teachers don’t want them feeling like.  Lundvall believes that physical education teachers should stop assessing students “based on how fast, high, or strong a student’s performance is” (116). PE teachers must think back to the idea physical literacy focusing on the development of a child and not how well or poor they perform.  PE educators want their students to develop the fundamentals movements of physical literacy and beyond. They don’t want their students to stop their growth because of a silly test in gym class telling them they aren’t fast enough.

Society’s Impact on Physical Literacy

Along with physical literacy, eating habits are developed during one’s childhood. According to the authors of the first cited article, “A multilevel intervention...,” a little over a quarter (29% to be exact) of preschool students in Canada eat the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables and only 23% eat the recommended amount of grains (2). Children not intaking the right source of food will cause them to not be as physically strong and less fit. The lack of greens and grains could also lead to obesity, which could cause them to be insecure and less confident with the pressures that come from social media.

Our society’s younger generations have established different values and habits than those that are older. Children don’t have play dates in the backyard with their best friend from school. Nowadays, children will spend their entire day inside, their eyes glued to a screen, playing video games, eating Doritos. These bad habits follow children for the rest of their lives and can cause them to become obese, unless they put an end to it. Being aware of and developing physical literacy can prevent this current issue.

Social media has placed an enormous amount of pressure on children, teenagers, and young adults. Once a celebrity is photographed, the photo is uploaded to the internet, where everyone can see, and makes young adults feel the need to look like this celebrity because they have the ‘perfect body.’ What these young adults don’t know is that most, if not all, of these pictures are photoshopped. Most people looking at their favorite celebrities through social media feel insecure and less confident about their own bodies. What physical literacy is made to do is to prevent things like this. People endorsing physical literacy want their peers to be confident and comfortable in their own body and how their body works.

Conclusion

Teaching children the concepts of physical literacy in a way that they enjoy is a start to a healthy life. The goal of PE is to educate and familiarize students with physical literacy, with the hopes of students taking the physical activity and engage in it, in some way, for the rest of their lives. Having a good relationship with physical literacy can help you have an even better relationship with your body. It is well known that the obesity rates in humans all over the world are very high. Being familiar with physical literacy can prevent that. Developing a positive attitude towards your body will boost your confidence extremely. You’ll want to be active and explore new things. Physical literacy can boost self-esteem, develop confidence and fundamental movements that you will use for the rest of your life, and is generally key to a happy and healthy life. 

Annotated Bibliography

Advanced Solutions International, Inc. (n.d.). Physical Literacy . Retrieved October 22, 2019, from https://www.shapeamerica.org/events/physicalliteracy.aspx.

In this article, the representatives of SHAPE America discuss their definition of physical literacy and inform the reader what the national standards of physical literacy in physical education are. The organization focuses on the effect of physical literacy in the United States alone. SHAPE America explains there has been a major change to America’s standards of physical education. The term and goal of physical literacy has been changed. They discuss the standards of physical literacy in PE teacher’s classrooms and curriculum.

Bélanger, M., Humbert, L., Vatanparast, H., Ward, S., Muhajarine, N., Chow, A. F., … Leis, A. (2016). A multilevel intervention to increase physical activity and improve healthy eating and physical literacy among young children (ages 3-5) attending early childcare centres: the Healthy Start-Départ Santé cluster randomised controlled trial study protocol. BMC Public Health, 16(1). doi: 10.1186/s12889-016-2973-5

The authors of this article focus on the health of our world’s current children and how we can put an end to the obesity epidemic. They frequently discuss nutrition and use data from the diet of Canadian students to support their argument that our children’s health needs improvement with the help of physical literacy. The authors refer to an intervention program, Healthy Start-Départ Santé, for the majority of their argument. The program conducted a study on children in preschool or childcare systems to partake in the intervention and evaluate the outcomes. The purpose of the study is to improve their physical literacy and overall health. They supply multiple charts and diagrams explaining the study’s procedure.

Edwards, L. C., Bryant, A. S., Keegan, R. J., Morgan, K., & Jones, A. M. (2016). Definitions, Foundations and Associations of Physical Literacy: A Systematic Review. Sports Medicine, 47(1), 113–126. doi: 10.1007/s40279-016-0560-7

The authors of this article performed a systematic review on physical literacy. They analyzed 50 articles that met their criteria: written in English, “peer reviewed, published by March 2016, and conceptualized physical literacy” (113). The researchers focused on three main areas. This helped them define physical literacy and its properties, foundations, and identity. Analyzing the 50 articles allowed for the authors, Edwards, Bryant, Keegan, Morgan, and Jones, to also identify physical literacy’s role in physical education.

Ellerton, H. (2019, April 12). What is physical literacy and why is it important for children today? Retrieved from https://humankinetics.me/2018/06/27/what-is-physical-literacy/.

In this article, Ellerton asks her readers why physical literacy is important to children in this current era. She explains her understanding of physical literacy and refers to a physical literacy author for her definition. Ellerton identifies the present obesity epidemic and the effect that physical literacy could have on the prevention of obesity. In one section of her article, she breaks down the different environments where physical literacy can be developed with the corresponding activities that can be played in the environment. She uses a chart to display data about a group of sports or activities and compares them to the type of fundamental skills that the activity can entail. In Ellerton’s summary she engages her readers her readers by asking multiple questions about physical literacy.

George, A., Rohr, L., & Byrne, J. (2016). Impact of Nintendo Wii Games on Physical Literacy in Children: Motor Skills, Physical Fitness, Activity Behaviors, and Knowledge. Sports, 4(1), 3. doi: 10.3390/sports4010003

In this article, Amanda George, Linda Rohr, and Jeannette Byrne discuss a non-traditional way of being physically literate, playing active video games. The authors evaluate a study that examines the effect of active video games on children’s physical literacy. They predict that the children involved int eh investigation will increase physical literacy, motivation, and confidence. They use multiple tables from the experiment to show the readers the results. George, Rohr, and Byrne concluded that active video games are a good alternative to traditional physical activity.

Guo, Y., Justice, L. M., Kaderavek, J. N., & Mcginty, A. (2010). The literacy environment of preschool classrooms: contributions to childrens emergent literacy growth. Journal of Research in Reading, 35(3), 308–327. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2010.01467.x

The authors of this article conducted a study on the classroom environment and resources of physical literacy for preschoolers’ emergent literacy. They looked to answer three questions about the classroom’s environment - the relationship between the child’s physical literacy environment and increase in literacy, positives between the physical and psychological environment, and the association between physical and psychological literacy with a preschooler’s literacy improvement throughout a year of schooling. The researchers randomly selected over 200 children from the preschool classrooms. The authors used various tables to display their findings about the literacy and classroom environments.

Lundvall, S. (2015). Physical literacy in the field of physical education – A challenge and a possibility. Journal of Sport and Health Science, 4(2), 113–118. doi: 10.1016/j.jshs.2015.02.001

In this article, Lundvall conducted a search for scholarly articles about physical literacy and analyzes reoccurring themes in the articles. She narrowed down her selection of articles to papers published fifteen years before her experiment was conducted and focused on three specific themes. She also indicates physical literacy’s role in education, evaluation, and the development in sport. The foundation of movement is emphasized in her work. She asks her readers questions that will eventually be answered throughout the paper, making it an interactive piece of text.

Roetert, E. P., & Macdonald, L. C. (2015). Unpacking the physical literacy concept for K-12 physical education: What should we expect the learner to master? Journal of Sport and Health Science, 4(2), 108–112. doi: 10.1016/j.jshs.2015.03.002

The authors present an essay that clearly states the concept of physical literacy and its role in different countries. Physical literacy’s association to physical education is also discussed frequently throughout this paper. The authors use standards and infographics of a health specified organization in America to support the idea of physical literacy being integrated into the world’s education systems. Roetert and Macdonald discuss different ways of teaching and lessons that should be taught to children in order for them to understand physical literacy.

Savelsbergh, G. J., & Wormhoudt, R. (2018). Creating adaptive athletes: the athletic skills model for enhancing physical literacy as a foundation for expertise. Movement & Sport Sciences - Science & Motricité, (102), 31–38. doi: 10.1051/sm/2019004

Savelsbergh and Wormhoudt constructed this paper to advertise the athletic skills model (ASM) as a fabric for the enhancement and development of physical literacy. The authors support their thesis with three implications that they claim the ASM helps improve physical literacy and state the goal of ASM. Throughout the paper, the author focus on a sport standpoint, explaining that an athlete should first be well-rounded, or become a multi-athlete, followed by expertise and specialization in one sport.

Stanec, Amanda. “PE Lesson 1: Physical Literacy Is Not Physical Activity.” Move Live Learn, 2 Dec. 2013, http://www.movelivelearn.com/discover-the-multi-faceted-elements-of-physical-literacy-to-best-enable-the-sum-of-its-parts/.

In this article, Amanda Stanec talks about her experience on the Canadian Board of Directors for Physical and Health Education. She discusses the ways that Canada defines physical literacy. She then supplies the readers with various questions that she asks herself when thinking about Canada’s program and their definition. Stanec gives PE teachers advice for how they should inform parents and their child’s development of physical literacy. At the end of her article, she asks the readers what they would change in their local school’s PE program to focus more on physical literacy.

Sum, R. K. W., Ha, A. S. C., Cheng, C. F., Chung, P. K., Yiu, K. T. C., Kuo, C. C., … Wang, F. J. (2016). Construction and Validation of a Perceived Physical Literacy Instrument for Physical Education Teachers. Plos One, 11(5). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0155610

The authors of this article construct a study to prove a PLLI for PE teachers (1). The instrument is used to look into PE teachers’ view on physical literacy. They supply multiple charts and diagrams supporting their experiment. They define the term physical literacy and its role in PE, describing that physical literacy is the goal of PE. The researchers interviewed three Hong Kong PE teachers. They also had focus group interviews to identify main components of physical literacy and concepts like confidence and communication. The authors used various charts and diagrams to support their study. They discussed the limitations in their study and state that more research should be conducted.

Tremblay, M. S., Longmuir, P. E., Barnes, J. D., Belanger, K., Anderson, K. D., Bruner, B., … Woodruff, S. J. (2018). Physical literacy levels of Canadian children aged 8–12 years: descriptive and normative results from the RBC Learn to Play–CAPL project. BMC Public Health, 18(S2). doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-5891-x

In this article, the authors discuss the physical literacy level and competence of children in Canada from the ages of 8 to 12. The physical literacy level of children in Canada is currently unknown, so the authors used data from multiple websites to establish a number. They give the readers some background information on physical literacy to help them understand why this is an important study. They also provide the readers with a diagram of the physical literacy point system, which helps the authors establish an average physical literacy level based on the children. They concluded that the steps taken in this study can be used in future assessments and supports the fact that physical literacy should be incorporated into more Canadian children’s’ lives.

#physcial literacy #literacy #health #health & wellness #confident #mental health #prospectus #annotated bibliography #pe #pe teacher #society #children #future

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curioucity · 6 years

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tried & tested by yours truly, these are the chrome extensions I couldn’t live without as a college student! in my opinion, studying in chrome without these extensions is like...trying to run without shoes on. sure, it can be done, but it’s just uncomfortable and not as great as it could be. I am always looking for more extensions that give me the illusion of having my life together — so please reply with your recommendations, I’d love to check them out :)

*bolded are my #1 favorites!!*

new tab —

COMMITTED: my preferred new tab! I love this one because it is basically a super simple and intuitive to-do list in a convenient location. you can set recurring tasks that will appear on their assigned days, and also list deadlines next to certain tasks if you so choose. pro tip: the developer is planning to start charging for this extension, so install it now while it’s free!

MOMENTUM: beautiful and functional, it’s no surprise that this is the most popular new tab among studyblrs. perfect for a breath of fresh air every time you open a new tab. includes the time, weather, a to-do list, a motivational quote, a beautiful background landscape that changes every day, and a space to write your goal for the day.

LAGOM: even simpler than Momentum with its grayscale color scheme and the fact that it only features the time, date, weather, and search bar. although this doesn’t provide it a lot of material to work with, it keeps things fresh by changing up the design daily. this is ideal if you’re a true minimalist who doesn’t like an overwhelming new tab.

tab organization —

TOBY MINI: really useful widget for organizing and saving your open tabs. if you’re like me and you often get lost in the mire of tabs you have created, this is a game-changer. It’s basically like a bookmarking system, but more streamlined, easier to use, (cuter), and it closes a tab for you once you save it in a collection, thus decluttering your workspace! refer back to your collections of tabs by opening the widget from your toolbar, e z p z.

sticky notes & highlighters—

OURSTICKYS: i have literally always dreamed of sticky notes that stay static on a webpage and remain there even after closing the page and coming back to it later...so this extension is, quite literally, a dream come true. you can change the color of your sticky notes, the font, the size, and you can have as many as you want!! the widget will keep a record of all the pages you have stickies on, so don’t worry about losing your little buddies. god i love sticky notes.

STICKY NOTES: since i love sticky notes, i use two different sticky notes extensions! but the difference is that this is basically functions as an open notebook. surf through as many pages as you like and write down notes in the same place without having to navigate to a different webpage. this little widget will be your constant companion. tbh this extension demonstrates more consistency and trustworthiness than any boy i’ve ever dated.

LUMIO: an total game-changer. an absolute baller. fuckin superb. this is the highlight extension to end all other highlight extensions. highlight your phrase in question, and the yellow Lumio icon conveniently pops up beside your selection. once you click that, your highlight is saved to the Lumio widget. this will also display all the other highlights you make on that page in one place, as well as giving you the option to add notes to a highlight or save it to a collection. uh, yeah, Lumio is that bitch.

SUPER SIMPLE HIGHLIGHTER: however Lumio has one fatal flaw...you can’t change the color of the highlights on a webpage. in the case that you highlight for the visual contrast, i recommend the Super Simple Highlighter. just as the name suggests, highlight your chosen phrase, right-click, and select the color you would like to highlight it. it will remember the highlights you have made on a certain webpage and keeps them easily accessible in the widget every time you’re on that page, so...yes I concede, Super Simple Highlighter is also that bitch.

pdf annotation —

KAMI: e s s e n t i a l if you ever have to interact with pdfs. with kami, you can view, annotate, highlight, sign, and save pdfs to your google drive! I’ve found that it’s better than other pdf annotating extensions because it can read scans, which are notoriously difficult to interact with digitally, and it lets me search terms and highlight on them. basically, kami is a pdf conquerer.

timers & website blockers —

FOREST: although i didn’t believe in Forest at first, it eventually grew on me (cue drum kit). this is funny because Forest encourages you to focus on the task at hand for a specific amount of time by growing a little tree. a little tree that will die if you wander on to a site on the blacklist (in whitelist mode, it will die if you wander off the sites on the whitelist), thus metaphorically killing your focus. I personally use Forest because guilt tripping tends to work on me and I also think that little tree is soo cute!!

STAYFOCUSD: if positive reinforcement a.k.a guilt tripping isn’t enough to enforce some self control, I highly recommend StayFocusd. put any website you tend to waste time on, from a specific page to an entire domain, on your blacklist and set an allotted time per day. once that time is up, that sucker is blocked until your chosen reset time (midnight is default). there’s even an option to make you do a puzzle before you can access your settings, in case you are easily tempted to change them!

NOISLI: creates ambient noise for your study session needs. whether you like the ambience of a crowded cafe, rainy weather, a crackling fire, a rumbling train, or a specific combination of all of the above, Noisli does the job well. it offers sixteen different ambient settings to choose from, so have fun creating your own mixes (which you can save and listen to again and again, of course).

research & writing —

GOOGLE SCHOLAR: everybody searches for sources on google scholar at some point, so make it easier by condensing the webpage into a nice little pop-up widget! makes it super easy to search google scholar without leaving the webpage you’re currently on.

CITE THIS FOR ME: as someone who hates citing her own sources, a bibliography extension is kind of a necessity for me. it kinda sucks that you have to make an account and enable ads in order to save your sources on this one, but it does work better and is less frustrating than other bibliography extensions out there (however it’ll still try to trick you into paying for a subscription—just close the tab folks!!)

ONE NOTE WEB CLIPPER: if you use Microsoft One Note (which you should b/c One Note is the bomb), this is a great way to save information from webpages into a One Note document without interrupting your research flow. you can save entire webpages/pdfs, or specific screenshots of a page, or just the link—all from a nice little pop up window on your toolbar. how lovely. how streamlined.

POWER THESAURUS: highlight a word, click the little blue button that pops up next to it, et voilà, you have all the synonyms and antonyms of the word you could ever ask for!

READING LIST: if you’re anything like me and you constantly stumble upon tons of articles that seem infinitely more interesting than what you’re supposed to be researching and then you end up going down the rabbit hole of whatever that’s about, consider Reading List! resist the temptation to procrastinate with another article by simply saving it for later with one click. more often than not, you’ll realize it wasn’t as interesting as it first seemed once you go back to actually read it. you’ll be glad you didn’t waste your time in the moment.

miscellaneous useful stuff —

ADBLOCK: if you don’t have it yet, baby what is you doin??

GOOGLE MAIL CHECKER: helpful little extenstion icon that displays the number of unread emails you have, so you can notice when you get a new one.

aaaand that’s it for my review of my favorite chrome extensions! as this is my first original studyblr post, please be merciful (lmao). hopefully in the future they won’t be this long & boring, but I do intend to continue creating informational content to help out my fellow students! as i mentioned earlier, please feel free to send me your own favorite chrome extensions—I literally install them left and right like nobody’s business, so please enable my addiction:)

#studyblr #study tips #college help #chrome extensions #productivity #chrome #curioucity #mine

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schoolenthusiast · 7 years

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Some tips I wish I had known before starting grad school

A couple of weeks ago I answered someone’s question on Tumblr about what to expect/what to do when starting a PhD. It gave me the idea to extrapolate about the subject just in case it could help some fellow tumblr grad school enthusiasts.

1. Choose your program and advisor wisely

Before submitting your proposal, do some shopping for your graduate school program. It’s an important step because at this point, your future opportunities will often depend on where you are working and who you are working with. Who are the experts in your field of study? Where do they teach? What is their reputation → this is fairly important: try to get to know them as researchers (how often do they publish? where? what are their current research interests) but also as people (do they enjoy working with their grad students? are they involved in their faculty? are they easy to reach? how do they work? are they perfectionists or slackers?)

The main idea here is to find someone who will be willing to mentor you and bring your research to the next level without shoving their ideas down your throat. I’m not saying you will become friends with them (although you could), but since you will be working with them and even for them for quite a while, it is really important that you choose them carefully. Academia is highly competitive, and you have to be able to trust your advisor.

2. Do some research before starting

Most of PhD students start their adventure during the fall semester, which means they have submitted their candidature during the winter semester, presumably while finishing either an undergrad program or any form of master’s degree. This means there is usually some time between the time you submit your thesis research proposal and the time you actually start as a PhD student. Take it as your advantage. In most cases, you will already have done some topic-related research at this point to submit your proposal. Getting a head start doesn’t mean you should reread everything during the summer, because it is more than ok to take some time to rest. What could be a good idea is to look at your main research material and focus on it so you get a better understanding of what you know and what you need to know.

Example :

Let’s say you’re a lit student (like me). You know you want to work on Author X and have a critical approach inspired by the research of Y and W. Now, this has already been stated in your research proposal and you’ve read the necessary works before then (normally).

A good place to start during the summer would be to reread the books of Author X to a) single out the ones you will be focusing on and maybe even annotate them and b) get a better understanding of their work as a whole.

Then, you could reread the books by Y and W to make sure you understand them well.

Once this is done, try to find the alternate theories about their research: is there anyone who contradicts them? what flaws are there in their ideas? how could the same mistakes be avoided? is the research usable in your given context? what are the precautions to take while using their methods? etc. → This will save you a ton of time later when you have to defend your methodological choices to research committees and similar academic boards.

If you have time and energy, you can even start to take notes about your different choices about the things you encounter during this phase (especially concerning step 4, since you will more than likely have to discuss it in your thesis later)

3. Get involved

Motivation is often hard to find in this incredibly long process (4-5 years for most of PhD programs... when things go well! imagine having a child or an illness during this time!). One thing I found that helped me was to get OUT of my research bubble and participate in things organized either by other students or professors. It can be attending a book launch, or just the end of semester party, or just attending the lecture your advisor gives to undergrads. Although these are sometimes time consuming, getting out of your place for a couple hours, breathing fresh air while you commute, talking to people and looking at something else than your computer screen helps a lot. You’ll come back from these events rested, and it will help you focus more.

Is your field so narrow there is literally nothing available for you to participate in? Organize one ! Most universities have special funds for organizing conventions and colloquials. You will get experience in diverse skills (budget, marketing, communication, etc.), meet people (who will most likely be impressed of the work you did to make this event possible) and make sure your implication stays in your uni’s history. If you feel like you don’t know your professors/advisor that much, this is a great way to get to know them: invite them to be keynote speakers at your event. This might help you attract even more “renowned” people to the event, as their circle of acquaintances might be broader than your own. Organizing a set of conference sure is energy and time-consuming, but the rewards are huge when it comes to your career. Who knows, maybe someone you will meet there will become a future colleague or a friend?

4. Do other things

What usually happens when people get into grad school is that they start wearing blinkers. Although I’m not sure if the idiom translates well to English (^^), it means that they get so focused on their research subject that they don’t notice anything else. They read only research-related stuff, attend research-related events, and meet research-related people. Although it might not seem dangerous (after all, you get to learn a lot and you get closer to your goal!), it can lead to completely overlooking something that could be crucial to your research! Reaching outside your traditional field of research will let you encounter new theories and methodology, new thinkers and new ideas. When you feel like you’re stuck on a problem, taking a step back can often let you reconsider and see it differently. Talk to your problems to the people around you, but not necessarily people in your field. Their ideas and insight might help you get out of your research slump.

5. Plan wisely

Planning takes time and we all know we don’t have enough of it. BUT it will help you feel like you have a hold onto things (because you will, duh!). It will also be a source of motivation (grad school often feels like everything in our life is on hold, but making a daily to-do list will prove it is not). Planning early (and sticking as much as possible to your schedule) will let you have more breathing room when it comes to surprises in your life (a surprise teaching job? a travel opportunity? illness? an invitation to your annual field symposium? a child?). If these happen, you will have to do more work, that’s for sure, and you don’t wanna be so behind that you have to decline or quit.

Plan:

Daily things (chores, reading time, lab time, errands, FREE TIME)

Upcoming deadlines (keep track of them ! make sure you know all the requirements!)

Upcoming interesting events (either a research-related conference coming to your university or just a concert with friends)

If you have a job while you are also in grad school, try to take note on what you can do and when. If you have a teaching job related to your field, see how explaining things to undergrads can help you better understand your own research.

Required reading for your thesis (got dozens of pages in your bibliography? better get cracking! But let yourself some time to digest the information you read. There’s no point in reading so fast you end up skimming the whole thing and then having to reread it months from now when you’re supposed to be writing your thesis). Take good notes and create a system that works for you.

6. Take some time off

DO. SOMETHING. FOR. FUN. EVERYDAY. (Even for just 5 minutes! TREAT YOURSELF)

7. Get feedback

Show what you write to your friends. Talk to them about what you want to do next and ask if they know things that could interest you.

If you participated to an event related to your research, think about what you could have done better and think of ways to improve for the next one. Consider the questions people had for you and try to figure if they were overlooked in your presentation because of time issues (as it is often the case) or just because you never thought about them before.

#1 is really important here. Talk to your advisor. Have a chat in their office from time to time, just so they can keep up with you and see you’re involved (or still alive!) Send them drafts early in your process so you can assess how much time it takes before getting A) an answer to your email (this can take a while) and B) annotations and suggestions on your draft. You DON’T want to work for months on end only to scrap everything and go back to where you started.

8. Ask questions

“There are a whole lot of things in this world of ours you haven’t even started wondering about yet.” — Roald Dahl

It was true when you were a child trying to understand the world, and it is still true now. Don’t allow yourself to become mediocre. Don’t ever be satisfied with half-assed answers. Sometimes the key to motivation is to stay curious.

9. Always bring a (leisure) book with you

This is directly related to #6. This point is especially important if you work in the humanities or any field that basically only requires a lot of reading-related research (i.e. not labs, because grad students working in labs do spend a lot of time in there, but they sure don’t bring it back home with them). If you’re really stressed about not doing enough research, it’s fine, but you have to admit that when you’re just waiting for the bus or in a line to get your lunch, doing research-related readings is simply not worth it. Hence the leisure book. Allow yourself some breaks and renew your love for reading!

10. Look for scholarships and other funding resources

I can’t insist on this enough. Being a grad student takes a lot of time and dedication. The few academia-related work opportunities you will get most likely won’t pay for your daily needs, much less your total tuition. Getting a part-time job can also be risky, as it will reduce the time you have for research, drain your energy, and also make you less available for occasional activities (conference, research trips, etc.). It doesn't take a lot of research to see that student loans are a huge source of stress and although it might be necessary for you in order to survive, taking less money from loans because you’re getting it as grants is the best opportunity. You can ask your advisor for suggestions, or look online either on your university’s website (they usually have a list available either for all of their students or to a specific group you might be part of) or other organizations. Some governments also have research grants available.

This is something you should do before starting your grad school program or even in your first year, as some of the grants are renewable over a specific span of years (you get an amount of money for 3-4 years), so you should definitely try to get it as soon as possible. Doing research early about grants can give you a better idea of what you can expect and how to budget. Keeping a budget is the key, since for most of the grants you will have to submit one to prove that you could benefit more from that money. Also, knowing your needs and the possible savings you could make is a lifetime-useful skill.

Your advisor can help with the process and give you advice on what to write in your proposal (they’ve most likely written a ton of those, or even been on selection committees before, they know what will be expected).

You’re already a grad student and have never asked for grants before? It’s never too late to start. Sometimes grant organizations will prefer giving the money to someone how has never benefited from it before, and this person might be you!

11. Stay or become friends with people outside your field and out of grad school

Grad school can be is hard on mental health. Students often have depression symptoms or other mental health problems during their grad student years. Grad school will most likely make you feel isolated, especially if you’re working a lot from home and/or in a very competitive field (who am I kidding, they all are). There is no magical solution to this, but keeping in touch with people might help you. Share how you feel with people you trust, either from your field or, preferably, your ‘outside’ life. Take time to visit your family if you’re living away from them. Take breaks to send stupid faces on snapchat. Play video games with your friends. Take your nieces, nephews and/or kids to field trips. Go grab a drink with someone you’ve met in college but haven’t seen in a while. Take up a class to learn something new.

Surrounding yourself with people who are not experts in your field or have no graduate school experience will prevent you from spending all your precious free time talking about your thesis or your grant proposal. It might not seem useful at first, but trust me, it is.

If you’re still struggling with mental health issues related to grad school, please look and ask for help. You will not regret it.

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unit8rosiefryer · 5 years

Text

Evaluation

For my final major project, I created an animated music video which could better be described as a motion graphic. It’s visually narrative, as it follows along with the lyrics of my song of choice, and is therefore both informative as well as aesthetically pleasing. When designing this piece I imagined it joining many other music videos on YouTube, which meant that the audience would likely be younger people (25 or under) as they are the current primary demographic for this site. However, due to it’s storytelling nature, I also believe that those old older generations will enjoy watching it and learning about the story within the song. In fact, when I showed it to my family, the majority of positive feedback came from people aged over 35.

I went into this project with a very basic understanding of the software that I chose (Adobe Illustrator and Adobe After Effects). This was actually quite motivating to me as it meant that if I wanted to produce something that I could be proud of, I would have to research, practice, and learn to expand my skills. For the most part I think that I completed my plan well, as the end result was fairly accurate to the image I had in my head. Having said that, if I could go back in time and chose what I was going to create again, I think I might have chosen differently. This isn’t because I didn’t enjoy the challenge - I actually found the progress very rewarding - but because I discovered that the reason I enjoyed this was because it involved visual story telling, and not because of the animation aspect of it. Following this, I believe I would chose to do a form of info-graphics next time, perhaps a series of advertising posters with an underlying satirical/sarcastic tone. I think that this would play to my strengths more, as I enjoy the cryptic aspect of designing something that has to be thought about to be understood, but could also be interpreted differently by various people.

When it came to researching for this project, I was reluctant because I didn’t know where to start. I knew that I had seen motion graphics used in advertising before, but I couldn’t remember where or when. However, luckily for me advertising is everywhere, and it didn’t take long before I saw an example that portrayed exactly what I enjoy about the style. From here I searched digital art websites and found many more portrayals of what I wanted to create: a simple, visually pleasing motion graphic, which had smooth transitions and told a story. Finding inspiration for my elements was even easier, as I had a solid image in my head of what I wanted them to look like, I just needed a guide to make sure some pieces were recognisable for what they were. Both of these instances refer to secondary research. I found primary research harder to acquire, as there is very little around me which I could have gathered to use as inspiration for my design, as it is set on a hillside and I live in a city. However there is one scene containing a skyline of city buildings, and I could have explored my home further to find inspiration for this instead, of just using the internet; which is what I did. I was able to obtain one source of primary research however, and this was in the form of a survey. I asked people around me of varying ages and occupations how they felt about animated music videos. I believe that this sample was fairly representative as some of the people have knowledge of this area, whereas others have none; and both of these groups were a mix of ages. I used my findings to approach my project in a way that would please as many people as possible, as that is one of its primary functions - to be viewed and enjoyed.

As stated earlier, during my time collecting secondary research, I mostly used the internet, as it contains anything and everything I could want. For one occasion, I saw some inspiration on an advert when I was in the cinema, and then found the link to it later on YouTube. I didn’t use books at any time, but I feel that this is justified because of the digital field that my project is set in. I was sure to reference all my research in my bibliography, although I think I might have lacked mentioning it during my reflective journals, and expressing when and where it had inspired me. For another project I would be sure to gather more primary research, because I think it can give a project a more personal impression, as it contains elements of my life, not just ideas from already existing sources.

During my time creating this animation I ran into quite a few problems. I decided to alter my plan in the first week of animating, by removing a character that I had originally wanted to be in there. This meant that I had to redesign some of the frames on my storyboard to be as expressive without using a face to portray emotions. I suppose this was less of a problem and more a consequential decision, but even so it put me a little off-track. Further issues arose at various points, for example, the format of the software I was using was accidentally altered once, and I didn’t know how to access my work, but a classmate helped me to fix that. The biggest issues came about in regards to my memory stick. This was a large project storage-wise, and when it came towards the end I had to get a new one to save my rendered version on to. There were also complications when I (foolishly) moved some files around, and made them inaccessible to the original piece of work; which meant that none of my elements were visually available, but again this was fixed within the hour.

Due to the removal of the character in the beginning of the project, my end result is a bit different to my original sketches and storyboard. However I don’t think that this is a bad thing; in fact, I think that it ended up better than I had planned, as without the characters face to express emotions on, I had to think of creative and subjective ways to do this, which can be interpreted by each viewer differently. I truly don’t believe that I could have dealt with any issues in a more effective way. They didn’t set me back too much and ultimately, allowed my project to become what it is and I’m happy with that. I learned a lot from fixing them, for example I should never alter the placement of files during such a big project, without being sure that I had multiple copies saved first in case anything went wrong. I also feel that I have become more confident when asking for help, as it just allows me to progress faster and doesn’t (often) effect anyone else.

To produce this project I planned a reasonable amount. I created sketches and storyboards for each scene of my animation, as well as annotating to show how one would morph into the next. My schedule was broken down into weeks which were spent creating the elements, and then creating the animation. In reality these two activities overlapped a little due to some changes to the plan, but I still managed to finish with comfortable time in-hand. In this sense, I feel like I was efficient, because if I hadn't been then I would have either struggled to finish, or the quality of my end product would be affected more than it has been. If I had to complete this exact project again knowing what I know now, I don’t imagine that there is much I would change. The digital quality of my animation could be clearer, so if I were to repeat this I may do some more research into how to make this happen, but i don’t feel that the lack of research in this area has been particularly detrimental to my project.

For the whole of this project I used software that I had used before, and knew vaguely, as the original time pressure to get everything finished felt like enough of a challenge, that didn’t need adding to by using unknown software. If I had wanted a challenge, there are many pieces of software in which to create animations that I could have researched and used; but as After Effects was the only one I knew (even though I was only introduced to it in the last 6 months) I decided to stick with this, and to challenge myself by learning new skills and techniques. I did this by following YouTube tutorials, one of which for example taught me how to create the simple motion graphics of the expanding circles and stars that I used to imitate the beat in the intro and chorus. Now that I know how long this process takes, and that I was able to finish a 3.5 minute animation in 6 weeks, next time I might venture into new territory software-wise, as I feel that this could be interesting, but may also allow me to complete this to a higher standard than After Effects did.

I used my blog as a journal throughout this process, by writing up how each week had gone. In these entries I included how far along I was, any problems that had occurred, how I solved these as well as how I was feeling about the whole process. My evaluations were an honest reflection of my performance that week - if I hadn’t been overly motivated then I would mention it because I wanted to admit when I wasn’t trying my hardest, and use this as motivation to do better next week. For a future assignment, I may use a rating system to show how each aspect of my project is coming along, for example I would use headers such as ‘progress’, ‘problem solving’, ‘timekeeping’, and ‘personal feelings’ under which I could describe the week, and then give a rating out of 10 for each section. Doing this would give me both qualitative and quantitative data, from which I could produce a form of chart at the end, so I could see how consistent I was in each area week by week. I could then use this to improve my work methods for anything else that I complete.

I chose to use this layout for my blog as opposed to a grid layout, as I think that having my posts in a chronological timeline paints a better picture of the process I went through, and the progress that I made along the way. I added a profile picture which is the same as the one on my YouTube channel, and my Behance page, as I feel that some consistency across these sites will look more professional. I made sure to use headers for each blog post to explain what they were showing, and used images where I felt they were appropriate. My only issue with this method of tracking progress, was that if I wanted to add in something which was more relevant 2 weeks ago, it had to be at the top of the timeline so everything isn’t as in order as I would like. I considered starting a new blog so that once everything was written, I could put every post in the order that I wanted it to be in, but decided that this wasn’t fully representative of what I had been doing. Instead I just explained in some posts that the content was created a while ago and I just hadn’t had to opportunity to upload it until now. I have learned that tracking my progress is a very good way of motivating me, as I can look back and see how far I’ve come, and remember problems that seemed so dire, as menial and unimportant now. The chronology of my blog allows it to tell the story of how I made each decision, and whether or not that worked for me, and I now find this almost as rewarding to look at as I do my final piece.

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