Cognitive Compassion is Self-Care!

Essential Question: How can I improve my self-awareness to match the attention needed for each moment, and structure my schedule so that I can DJ these energy levels from rejuvenating relaxing to cognitively taxing creative presence necessary to excel in the classroom?!

Task List Reflection: Most of the tasks that are easy or enjoyable involve something I am confident will make me feel good and achieve a genuine thrill. I define a genuine thrill as engaging in experiences for the pure joy of being myself and finding ways to be naturally high enjoying nature with others without expending the environment. The most difficult tasks involve getting started on something where I don’t understand the why, I am uncertain about the outcome, and I have difficulty determining if it will be a flow igniter or flow inhibitor. I define a flow igniter as something that lifts my mood to be happier and healthier. I define a flow inhibitor as something that lowers my purity genuine health and happiness in the movement

Question #1. Why is online gaming so popular?

Gaming is popular because it allows the kids to a immerse into something where their short attention span is stimulated and they feel empowered, valued, and like they are part of something bigger than themselves.

• Are there drawbacks to being engaged in these activities? Do you think they offer opportunities for learning or are they just passive pastimes?

There are positives and negatives, the positives relating to the amount of enjoyment they are able to bring to a moment unlocking their curiosity, creativity, and appetite for learning. The negatives are that it may start to shift motivation from intrinsic to extrinsic. Students may be distracted and constantly thinking about playing. Students may have less interest in school because they hold each moment to a higher standard of stimulation.. However we can make our classes like a video game!

• Question #2. How do you manage your study schedule when faced with doubt about your capacity to engage, learn, and succeed?

I love John Wooden’s quote on this, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” I try to outline the week ahead and chunk it into smaller blocks so I can enjoy each assignment and feel like I don’t need to rush or do it all at once. This allows me to focus on the quality rather than finishing! At first I get anxious and stressed through writing it out/talking, then I try to find some spark that will ignite the start to the journey where I can get invested and see the process clearly, which helps me get motivated. What I learned is that I need to do more research to understand the content and I am in control of proactively finding articles that meet the criteria and enhance my knowledge. I am always thirsty for learning. When I get down, I refer back to my flow igniters vs flow breakers transition energy states to ones that recalibrate my focus towards things that matter most to me!

• Questions #3. What do you do to help yourself remember new things? For example, do you create concept maps to link connected ideas? Share some of your ideas.

For me, I am going to get more creative with how I organize my information. For example in science, I created curiosity sparks which helps me refer back to my research to remind me of the important details and questions. In Lit, I have started to use a think aloud format for taking notes so that I am over prepared for the async modules. I like experimenting with jam boards and murals as well, which I learned from a process called UX journey mapping, which organizes thoughts in more cohesive themes and organizes in a clear way! This question sparked my own reflection to how I organize information for each of my priority classes so that I retain the most information to feel confident whenever I show up to class or the classroom. When I come over prepared, the lesson or class never goes according to plan, but I am able to embrace and adapt through enjoying the process because I know that I did my best to be the best I was capable of becoming in that moment!