Journal #15 - Final Impressions

I really enjoyed University Colloquium. A lot of my friends complain that they had to take Colloquium. I’m not just saying this, but I really do think that Professor Davis make the class more interesting. Instead of just telling us what to learn and drilling stuff into our head, Professor Davis gave us the microphone and let us talk together as a group. I did not participate in these group discussions as much as I would have liked to because I am a shy person in front of large groups at times. But, I found myself talking to my peers and my parents about topics that we had discussed in class. I really enjoyed listening to what most people in class had to say on the topics. The activities were very interesting and made me think. Ecological Footprint alone helped me be more environmentally significant.

I know a lot of students would disagree with this, but I do think that if students were called on to talk about the topic, it would help everyone get involved. It seemed like the same people were talking. There were times when I had something to say, but I didn’t get a chance to because it seemed like the same people were always talking on the topics. I am not trying to say bad things about them, I give them great respect for participating, but sometimes I would like to hear the opinions of the people that kept quiet. I think these people might hate getting called on at first, but in the long run in the class, I believe they will be glad they got called on.

One other thing that I could suggest for Colloquium would be to get involved more on the field trips. I would have liked to help out at Corkscrew Swamp more instead of walking around and learning. I think that if we learned before the field trip, and then went and participated, students would get a lot more out of the experience. Besides this and the calling on students for class discussions, I really think this class is great. The way Professor Davis conducted class and gave assignments was very fair and made it enjoyable for me to learn. The David Orr articles were good as well. I think Professor Davis should definitely keep the readings and maybe discuss them a little more in class. Like go over his main ideas and quotes. This was a great class and the way class was set up made it fun and enjoyable for me to learn about the environment and participate on the field trips.