Thursday, September 24, 2015

Discretionary Balance

I decided that with this post I wanted to talk about a part of my internship that caused me to think slightly out of the box in order to deliver an outcome that everyone was satisfied with. I had lots of different things that were required to be in the curriculum for this course. There were times that because of the nature of what my supervisor was doing contact was not possible.

This led to me having to make direct decisions over how the course was going to look. I will admit that there were times when I questioned whether or not I had the authority to make some of the decisions I did but I just took charge because I had no other choice.
My biggest concern was the amount of content that the university and the college wanted in the course but also understanding that it is a one credit hour class. I felt going into this that ASU101 needed to be a resource not a burden to the students so my goal was make the class useful to them so that they didn’t feel that the course was just a stupid university requirement.

I call it discretionary balance because I was basically given a list of everything the class needed to cover and it was my job to find a balance between what was needed and not overwhelming the students. In the end I felt that I achieved what I set out to do and the positive response I had from those I reported to was very reassuring.

2 comments:

  1. Anthony,

    I have also had an experience regarding taking action and doing something, yet still being unsure of whether that is within the realm of your abilities and expectations. As an instructor for the ASU101 class and using the plan that you have created and put together, it is very apparent that you have your mind in the right place for the freshman students. While they may not see the benefit of everything immediately, they definitely will as the semester progresses and they move through their college careers.

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  2. Hi Anthony,
    I think it is exciting that you are thinking outside of the box and taking ownership. You are right at times we don't know if we have the direct authority to make a decision but the circumstances require a decision to be made. It sounds like you did the right thing by weighing possible solutions to reach the desired outcome then sought out feedback to ensure you were on the right track.
    Well done!

    Kind Regards,

    Robin

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