Week One:
As you set out on your research or community engagement project, do you find yourself experiencing any worries or insecurities about saying something that’s already been said? How do we as researchers and/or volunteers learn to address or set aside those insecurities or, better yet, to use them to our advantage?
If your project this summer differs from your project last summer, has last summer’s project influenced your project this year, and if so how? If your project is different, what tools have you developed to help you work on this project?
Week Two:
If your project connects with your research from last summer, explain the ways in which it picks up on themes, issues, or questions that are important to you. How are you expanding on your project from last summer? How is your understanding of this topic evolving?
If you are doing a leadership-in-action or community engagement project, how do you interact with community members, and what kind of conversations are you having? How do you connect with this community of people, and what common cause do you find?
Week Three:
What does a typical day look like this summer? Aside from a narrative description, upload a photo, video and/or other media submission!
Week Four:
What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.
Week Five:
What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?
Week Six:
For your final post, upload a video presentation or create a written or photographic narrative in which you discuss your project: why did you become interested in this project, what was the goal of the project, what was its significance or impact (real or potential). How did the project evolve or change over the course of these six weeks? Finally, please consider how your understanding of leadership (curiosity, empathy, teamwork, resilience, etc.) has informed your work or been deepened by your work.
Things to keep in mind if you are posting a recording: do not speak too quickly! Try to record in a quiet space with minimum background noise. While you should not read from a sheet of paper, practice your speech a few times before recording. Also, be sure that you describe your project in a way that is accessible to viewers who are not experts in your field, and who may not be familiar with your project. Your video should be relatively short–2-5 minutes is ideal!
Please answer these questions by creating a post of your own each week! In addition, please plan on responding to another student’s post that you find interesting. Scroll down to the bottom of the entry and hit “Leave a comment”. Leave your reply in the box provided.
Remember: you should post your own responses by Thursday. You should respond to another student’s response by Friday.