The content we read over this week is relevant to my own life and especially to other work in CODES in a couple of subtle ways. First, in my own life, it was difficult at first to draw a connection to “Land as Pedagogy.” After the discussion in class about how the reading ties into my aspirations to learn languages, I was able to see more nuanced applications of the text. For example, after thinking about how I’ve learned best in the past, I can draw a clear connection to some of the reading. The passage is heavily centered around the idea of engaging with your environment to get the best outcome of learning, and I believe that I have been doing this in the past, and just haven’t realized it. I have always learned certain subjects better than others, but I’m now realizing that I learn better in those subjects because it’s harder to learn them on my own. When I go through material on my own, I have my own limitations of not being allowed a dialogue with someone else who is on the same page. However, when I do activities such as studying in pairs, I learn the content much better and quicker. This ties in with engaging with your surroundings to enhance your learning experience.
When I think about how the reading ties in with my CODES experience, it’s pretty easy to see a relationship. There are many examples of the themes of “Land as Pedagogy” being present in our own work as a research team. An easy example of this is how in order to complete our research, we needed to interact with our environment to really understand how to tell digital stories. Another example is that we all have to engage as a team rather than acting in our own ways. There has to be compromise sometimes for this to happen, but it’s still an example of the work being reflected in our curriculum.