Coming into this class, I had no idea what to expect. I am a business major with no real background
or former knowledge on the conflict in Jerusalem, and initially was only taking
this class to get my general education credits that were required. After being in this class all semester,
writing blog posts, reading articles, watching documentaries, and listening to
the thoughts and opinions of my classmates, I can say that I have walked away
from this class having actually learned something,
which I cannot say about every class that I’ve taken during my time here at
IU. I am walking away with a better
understanding of a very complicated topic, and also with a new-found initiative
to try to stay better informed on what is going on across the globe. This paper focuses on my personal reflections
on the class—my likes and dislikes—and any suggestions I may have to better the
course in the future.
The
one thing that I think that I enjoyed the most about this class was listening
to the thoughts and opinions of my classmates during class discussions. As someone who has absolutely zero knowledge
on this topic, listening to students who have a real passion for Jerusalem and
the conflict surrounding the city was a very enlightening experience for me. We had the privilege of listening to stories
from students who have actually traveled to Jerusalem, and also got to listen
to a student speak about the struggles that she faced being considered a
Palestinian citizen. These discussions
and stories really helped me better understand the conflict and put things into
perspective for me. I hope that, if
anything, these class discussions continue in future classes and hopefully
happen more frequently.
Another
part of the class that I really enjoyed was listening to scholars we got the
opportunity to interact with during the video conferences. I enjoyed listening to their thoughts and
opinions about the different topics we had been discussing, and I feel like it
was another way for me to really learn about different aspects of the conflict. I also enjoyed listening to the questions
that some of my classmates posed to the people that we spoke with.
The
group projects that we did at the end of the semester were all very beneficial. I think that being broken down into smaller
groups helped stimulate more conversation on the topics that we were discussing
in class, and it also made it easier for some students to voice their opinions
without having to do so in front of a larger group of people. I enjoyed watching the presentations and
seeing the different types of media that students used to present their
topics. I liked that everyone got to
choose something that they felt was important to them—or something that they
could personally connect to when it comes to the conflict in Jerusalem. All of the presentations were very
stimulating and I feel like I came away with better knowledge of different
aspects of the conflict. I strongly
believe that these group presentations should continue in future Living In
Jerusalem classes to come.
Although
I sometimes found it to be a pain, I do think that the class blogs made a
valuable contribution to this class. For
me personally, it was much easier for me to discuss my thoughts and opinions on
the blog than it was to discuss in class.
I could freely state my opinions without feeling like what I was saying
was inadequate compared to some students in the class who have very extensive
knowledge on this topic. I also enjoyed
viewing other students’ blogs. Many went
above and beyond what was required when it came to posting. I saw many students post videos and
photographs that they thought were appropriate for the class to see, and I
thought that was very enlightening. I
think that it would have been beneficial if the students who posted these extra
videos and photographs got to share them in class so everyone was aware of what
they were posting, in case some students had not viewed other blogs. I also think that requiring students to
comment on three different blog posts every week turned out to be less
beneficial than what we thought they would be.
I feel as though most people were commenting on blogs because they had
to fulfill the requirement, and not because they had a valuable response or
opinion to contribute. Maybe limiting
the comments to one a week would be more beneficial, and we would see more
thought-provoking comments and questions instead of the standard ‘I agree’ or ‘I
disagree.’
Although
this class had many very strong parts, other aspects of this course were not as
beneficial. I am sure I will not be the
first or last person to say this, but Karen Armstrong’s book was very difficult
to read and understand for everyone, and even more so for students like me who
have no prior knowledge of the conflict or the history of Jerusalem. Trying to keep track of the different people
and places discussed in the book was very difficult, and at some points I found
myself thoroughly confused as to what was going on. I think that it would be in the best interest
of the class if a new book was chosen, or if there were any documentaries of a
similar nature that could either supplement or completely replace reading
Armstrong’s book or a book similar to it.
I think that in most cases it is easier to understand something when you
can visually see and hear it, instead of reading and trying to work ideas out
in your head. Also, I think that
watching a documentary would cut down on the time we took during the course to
read Armstrong’s book, and could allow for either more class discussion or more
video conferencing.
Another
aspect of the class that I did not feel was very beneficial was the
conferencing that we did with Ohio State at the beginning of the semester. I feel as though a lot of time was wasted at
the beginning of class each day trying to set up the connection between our
class and Ohio State’s, or we were waiting for Ohio State to settle into class
since their class started later than ours.
Although we both listened in on the video conferences, we had no real
class-to-class interactions with the group from Ohio State. Also, after our video conferences were done
and we began to just have class discussions, we would just immediately mute or
end the connection with Ohio State at the beginning of each class. I think that if we had more interactions with
them it would have been slightly more beneficial to video conference with them
every day, but I believe that the way our class-to-class communication was
utilized during this course was not very useful. I think that if this course continues to have
this interaction with the Ohio State course, it would be more beneficial to
have a combined class blog of both IU and OSU.
This would stimulate more interaction between the two courses, and then
maybe even stimulate class-to-class discussions via the video conferencing
about topics students have blogged about.
I think that having the same course going on simultaneously at another
university is a very good idea, but it just needs to be better utilized for the
idea to have a more beneficial impact.
Overall,
I feel like this class pushed me and stretched my boundaries in ways that other
classes have not. The general set-up of
this class—the blogs, the video conferencing, thought-provoking in-class
discussions—was very new to me, and definitely not like the normal
lecture-homework-test class set-up that I am used to. Although there were set-backs when it came to
using the class technology, I think that it was a good change of pace for
me. I can walk away from this class with
a better understanding of a topic that I formerly had no knowledge of, and I
can also walk away with the realization that I need to make myself more aware
of my global surroundings. I have
learned a lot from the people we held video conferences with, from my
professor, and most importantly from my classmates. I hope that this class continues on and that
this project—in some way or another—has an impact on those who are involved.
