David Caldwell

ePortfolio Reflection
The signature assignment that I have chosen to include in my ePortfolio is the section 3 group paper. The section papers were helpful to me to learn the concepts in the course, because they presented a challenge to integrate the concepts into a life story. Sometimes the challenge this presented was frustrating because it was difficult to find a way to incorporate the concepts in a way that could exemplify the varied concepts while maintaining a unified flow to a story structure. The benefit that this challenge yielded is that it required me to thoroughly familiarize myself with many more of the concepts than was required by the assignment, in order to be able to find a way to successfully integrate only a few of them into a story, regardless of whether I was actually successful in that or not. In addition to this challenge, the section 3 paper in particular offered another avenue to learning the concepts by discussing them with the other group members, and comparing our different views of them with one another, either in person or in correspondence about the project. Sometimes this method gave me an opportunity to learn the concepts from the others, and other times it helped solidify my understanding of the concepts by providing a chance to teach them to others. I believe that the effort I made toward this assignment, along with the other section papers, will help me retain the concepts more readily whether or not I decide to further my studies in psychology or the social sciences in the future.