Reflection #1: Initial Thoughts
You’ve made your implementation plan and started conducting some research. What are your
plans for the semester? What have you learned so far about your topic? What has surprised you?
What questions remain?
I plan on connecting with grassroots organizations in Cahokia Heights. I will research the
work that the organizations do and how their work benefits the residents of Cahokia Heights, or
helps them address the issues they’re suffering from. I plan on comparing different grassroots
organizations in the area to collect data. I hope to visit some of the grassroots organizations later
in the semester to see the work they do firsthand and to gain my own perspective on the
organizations. I have grassroots organizations I found on my own, and I have some grassroots
organizations recommended by Heartland. The organizations recommended were Empire 13,
Centerville Citizens for Change, and regular everyday citizens. Since we already have a
connection with Centreville and Arianna specifically, I will use her as a personal contact about
grassroots organizations in Centreville. I plan on going to the library with the rest of my research
team later in the semester. While at the library, I would like to possibly set up interviews with
residents of Centreville who are already in grassroots organizations or have insight about
grassroots organizations.
After I narrow down the organizations that I would like to work with, I want to spend the
rest of the semester researching the organization, doing visits, and collecting insight on that
organization. My group plans on creating a web page showcasing our research that allows
viewers to interact with the different exhibits presented on the website. Since some of our
independent projects are hard to connect, exhibits presenting our individual, different topics that
pertain to issues in Cahokia Heights will be the best way to effectively showcase our research.
The webpage will give viewers a chance to get a glimpse at all our research while also being
informative and interactive. This is the best plan for the implementation because everyone has
various topics that range from different things, and this would be the best way to include
everyone’s work. I haven’t learned much about the recommended organizations because they
don’t have much of an online presence. I did learn that Empire 13 did work with the black lives
matter movement. There is an activist grassroots organization that was formed to fight for racial,
social, economic, and environmental justice reform. Empire 13 focuses more on human rights
and black culture. As far as Regular Everyday Citizens and Centreville Citizens For Change, I
haven’t learned much about them due to their not having a popular online presence. I do hope
going to the library and talking to Cahokia Heights residents will give me a chance to learn about
these grassroots organizations. So far, this is the plan I have come up with for the rest of the
semester. I have a few questions that I can think about when doing the research for this project.
What’s the purpose of this grassroots organization? How can this organization contribute to our
prior research? How can I include each organization on our website?.
Reflection #2: Observation and Inference
We’ve encountered a lot of changes this semester—as we have every semester! In this reflection,
think about how your plans began, how they have changed, and where you hope to see your
project develop. What are you enjoying? What are you realizing you don’t like? Where do you
see these experiences informing how you do research/work moving forward>
Originally, our project was about water contamination. We continued to explore water
contamination, but we took a look at it in the Southern Illinois area. We specifically started to
study and research water contamination in Cahokia Heights. We used sources and did archival
research. While doing the archival research, we digitized old newspapers at the library. While
digitizing the newspapers and records, we got a chance to compare things from back then and to
now. Towards the end of the semester, we focused on oral history reports. We interviewed
residents of Cahokia Heights and gave them a chance to tell their story. The interviewees ranged
from different ages; some of them have been residents for years, some decades, and some were
born there and have been living there ever since. With the interviews, we got a chance to get
firsthand accounts about their experience of being a resident in Cahokia Heights. Originally, our
plan wasn’t to do interviews, but so many things have changed over the course of time. I enjoy
learning about the citizens of Cahokia Heights and their personal experiences. It’s nothing that I
don’t like everything that has been done so far, I do enjoy. My favorite thing overall was
digitizing the newspaper. I never knew how much work and time went into organizing archives
and digitizing them. I learned how fragile archives and paper could be after such a long time. I
believe the interviews were a good step to move us forward, and they gave us a more personal
account instead of just facts. Overall, I want to continue learning more about water
contamination and the effect it causes in the Southern Illinois area. I’m hoping we could do more
work with Heartland’s and hopefully set up a drive or fundraiser for residents who have lost or
damaged homes or belongings due to water contamination and storming.
Reflection #3: Self-Assessment
You’ve completed a few site visits/Teams meetings. Hopefully, you are starting to understand your partners better, building trust, engaging in the work, and learning from your mistakes. Consider your self-presentation during your visits. Have you been confident, nervous, open to ideas, or quick to judge? How have your behaviors influenced the interactions you had? What do you think you are doing well? What could you do better? Give examples and tell stories.
Even though I haven’t had any site visits, my group has been having numerous online meetings with John from Heartland. Those meetings have been giving us a clear direction to work in and where we should focus our time. I have been very open to numerous ideas. Throughout this semester, we haven’t been able to see a lot of our plans through, so it has left me nervous and confused. I’ve been open-minded, and I continue to be open-minded throughout the rest of this semester. After doing research, the grassroots organization that has interested me the most has been Empire 13. Empire 13 is a grassroots organization out of Southern Illinois University. There is a non-profit organization that helps fight civil rights issues, black lives matter, systemic racism, and also helps residents in lower-income areas. I think my research is what I’ve been doing well. I have been using multiple websites and apps to gather information and insight on Empire 13. I’ve been doing research across different platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and news articles. I believe if we had a more proactive plan, things would have been better and more productive. It’s hard to move along with a plan when you’re trying to work with other organizations or people who are just as busy or even more busy. It was a big disconnect this semester with organizations. Getting responses or even the time of the day made doing work this semester challenging because it gave me little to nothing to work with. I’ve realized that self-presentation can shape the research process. Over time, I’ve had a mixture of emotions, at times feeling confused, excited, or even nervous. I knew that the work we had been doing was important and could make an impact on those who need the resources. I knew we were collaborating and organizing something that many people could benefit from, even though plans changed throughout the semester. I remained resilient and adaptable. I was able to adjust to the bumps that came along the way. When things changed at the last minute, I was able to adjust and change my point of view. This newly formed habit gave me a chance to research different things. I was able to learn various information, and even though there were changes throughout the semester, I was able to apply my skills, knowledge, and research to adjust to new challenges that were presented to me or thrown my way. One thing I believe that I’ve been doing well at is showing respect and genuine interest in the research and work. I take the time to understand what I’m researching. For example, the grassroots organization that I picked, I took the time to use different platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and even news articles to find different information about the grassroots organizations. Using these platforms helped me gather information on their history, mission, and work. Overall, this semester and the work I’ve been doing have helped shape the quality of my work ethic and collaboration with my group. I’ve been learning how to stay receptive to new things that I’m learning and researching. While also preparing and doing research, I can have knowledge about the community-based research we do.
Reflection #4: Data Collection
When doing research, data collection can look different for everyone. By the time we reached the data collection stage, the plan had changed multiple times already throughout the semester. My data collection assignment was to collect data on local grassroots organizations and community resources in the southern Illinois area. This meant reviewing the platforms of the organizations and having conversations with them. We did reach out to certain organizations and didn’t receive a response, but I was still able to collect data by researching and looking at their platforms. Although my data collection was different from my peers in my group, I took my research, plus their data collection, and used that to create my part of the website and gather secondary information. Since my group had a collaborative structure, it was easier to come together and build off of what each other had gathered. My team shared a Google Drive and multiple documents that logged interactions, site visits, data, information, and our implementation plan, which was the start of all our research. I believe this helped us stay organized and helped compare different information and results, which made it easier for us in the long run. This helps us gather what should be included in our website, and specifically for my part what residents could benefit from when looking for resources for our aid. Our research ranged from different things, such as grassroots organizations, site visits in Cahokia Heights, Housing and property information, services offered to residents, and many other things that we were able to gather. With everything I collected and my other groupates collected this helped us construct our website. Even though there were many challenges, such as organizations being busy and having a long response time. This slowed down the timeline and also changed the course of things. This experience showed me that answers and collaboration aren’t always guaranteed. Sometimes there can be hesitation, reluctance, or busyness. Also, trying to gather information and connect with so many different organizations in such a short matter of time was a challenge, seeing how we only had this class once a week, if there was no response, then it left us straggling or having to change something else. Despite all these challenges, I was still able to do research and get everything I needed. I learned more than I expected and found many other organizations with good resources and benefits. If anything could be done differently, I would communicate earlier and build a more effective plan with my team, so if I were to fall short or someone else were to, then we would be able to smoothly move past the bumps in the road without having to start over again. Overall, this experience has shown me how to be resilient and more understanding because when doing research, data collection, and partnering with others, anything can change and anything is possible.
Reflection #5: Wrapping Up
With the semester coming to an end, our research has now transitioned into preparing us for CODES 320 and all the work we will do in there, and potential things we can research. I have taken time to reflect on everything that happened this semester, and I was able to learn a lot and realize a lot. This experience has been learning about grassroots organizations and the environmental challenges. Throughout this semester and this project, I’ve become more empathetic because it made me realize you don’t know what someone else is going through, and even though this isn’t something I’ve experienced firsthand, going through the research process has made me feel various emotions for the residents having to endure this. I’ve learned very valuable lessons about communication, teamwork, leadership, and responsibility while also being able to pinpoint my own strengths and weaknesses. I have also seen that there’s room for improvement and realized the areas I can improve in and grow in. One of the many takeaways I had this semester is learning the importance of respect and communication when working in a group setting. Since we’re all coming from different backgrounds, sometimes it could be barriers when doing group work. We learned to use our different backgrounds and skill sets to help one another and pour into the group project. Reflecting on when we first started in CODES, my group and I have grown very far, and just this semester alone, we have all grown. Over time, we developed better communication skills, and we were able to have clarity and honesty. Making it easier to do assignments together but also give constructive criticism and feedback without others taking it personally or it coming off as harsh. Strengthening my communication skills has helped me have better clarity when working with others. Instead of assuming or going based on actions, learning to communicate better has helped with our collaboration. I was able to strengthen my humility throughout this process. At times, I thought I understood the situation or what residents were going through, but as I did further research, I saw that there were many layers to everyone’s stories. It helped me avoid assumptions and not be insensitive to the information shared with us or the conversations had. I was able to discover more about myself throughout this semester. I learned the value of honesty, communication, critical listening skills, and hard work. I learned not to have hesitation or doubt and to respect other ideas while also realizing my ideas are valid too. I was able to contribute thoughtfully and be genuinely interested in my group and the work we do. I had better participation this semester because I felt more comfortable and confident in the tasks given to me. I feel grateful for the experience I got this semester with my group, research, and my class. I learned about different things and got a better understanding of things I thought I knew. I strengthened my collaboration skills and empathy, I also developed more patience and understanding. Overall, I appreciate the opportunity to learn about grassroots organizations and see the great work that is done in the community to help fellow residents.