COMP491 - Reflective Blog Post

Computer Science 491
Senior Seminar

Dickinson College
Fall Semester 2018
Grant Braught

Reflective Blog Post Introduction

Dickinson College's education mission is "to prepare young people, by means of a useful education in the liberal arts and sciences, for engaged lives of citizenship and leadership in the service of society." Broadly, a Dickinson education seeks to develop the following abilities in its students in service of this mission:

Think critically
Communicate effectively, orally and in writing
Apply analytical skills
Solve problems
See a complex issue through multiple perspectives
Be creative
Work effectively with others
See and use evidence as the basis for inquiry

This course, as a Service Learning / Community Based Research (SL/CBR) designated course, more specifically aims to provide opportunities to further cultivate a specific set of civic dispositions and skills:

Civic Dispositions	Civic Skills
Empathy Honesty Ethical discernment and integrity Personal responsibility Intellectual curiosity Willingness to engage the unfamiliar Desire to contribute to one's community	Listen effectively Apply intellectual inquiry to civic issues Adapt to a changing world Initiate and implement change See local-global connections Distinguish credible sources of information from unreliable sources Engage, bridge and resolve differences with understanding, diplomacy, and civility Work across differences to achieve goals for common good Apply democratic principles to work in groups

Civic Dispositions

Civic Skills

Empathy
Honesty
Ethical discernment and integrity
Personal responsibility
Intellectual curiosity
Willingness to engage the unfamiliar
Desire to contribute to one's community

Listen effectively
Apply intellectual inquiry to civic issues
Adapt to a changing world
Initiate and implement change
See local-global connections
Distinguish credible sources of information from unreliable sources
Engage, bridge and resolve differences with understanding, diplomacy, and civility
Work across differences to achieve goals for common good
Apply democratic principles to work in groups

Two of the learning goals expressed for this course (see Syllabus) connect to the above aim:

Apply computer science skills to an issue of public significance through interaction with a community of developers and users.
Cultivate civic dispositions and skills that prepare them for a life of civic engagement.

Blog Post

In order to provide an opportunity for you to explicitly reflect on the above course learning goals and to help me and the College in assessing if/how the experiences in this course contribute to achieving them please respond to the following prompt in a post to your blog:

How have the experiences in this course and in working with your Open Source Community in particular helped to cultivate the above civic dispositions and skills that will help to prepare you for a life of civic engagement?

Please do not attempt to address all of the dispositions and skills. Instead, reflect on your experiences with the course material (readings/discussions), your technical work (hands-on exercises), your project work (project activities) and your engagement with your project's community. Then respond in depth with respect to the particular dispositions and skills that resonate most strongly with your experiences and how they have connected to the learning goals for you personally.