Challenges during Task One
As I said in last week’s blog post, I though Task One was challenging. One of the reasons I found it challenging was a lack of personal experience with my system of interest: the corporate university. However, I realize that there will be many instances in the future that I will be asked to analyze a system that I am unfamiliar with the system from a personally standpoint, and I must learn to overcome this challenge. Thinking back, I realize that personal experience isn’t necessary when analyzing an educational system. In fact, it may allow an unbiased look into the strengths and weaknesses of the system and allow for a better analysis of system in question.
While working on Task One, I discovered myself thinking more about the potential of corporate universities as a co-evolutionary learning system than about the system components as a whole. In talking with classmates, I learned that I wasn’t the only one who ended up going further in one direction than was actually necessary for the assignment. I realize that our personal bias and opinions can cloud our vision when it comes to analyzing systems. As a budding research analyst, I realize that I must separate my personally thoughts and feelings from the facts. In order to develop an unbiased analysis, I must learn to draw conclusions and determine patterns based on the details, regardless of what I would like the end results to be.
What I Learned
I am not sure how I did on Task One. As I mentioned above, there were elements that I struggled with, including the lens used to analyze the system. I believe that will be the area that I will lose points on in grading. In preparing for Task One, I grappled with understanding exactly what was expected of me for the assignment. Truthfully, I went back and forth several times, trying to decide what system to use for the assignment and how to present the information. By being indecisive about my topic, I don’t feel as though I was as thorough as I could have been in describing the parts of the system and how they all connect, internally and externally. In the future, I know that I need to make a decision sooner, so that I can really spend my time learning the system.
Conclusion
Task One was not an easy assignment for me. I struggled throughout trying to figure out my system, what I needed to include in the analysis, and how to create a systemigram that represented the system and its connections. Regardless of my struggle, I learned a lot about corporate universities and their complexity. My interpretation of corporate universities was based on one perception, my own, and my analysis was potentially clouded by my own thoughts and ideas. I have come to believe that lens we use to analyze the system can sway our observations and interpretations. It is my opinion that all systems are complex and to fully understand how the systems works, we need to consider it from multiple viewpoints.
