Katie Baker's Blog of Inquiry

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Final Product

What I did:
I was not really sure what I should do for my final product. I believe a product should communicate your findings to the intended audience. Well, the audience for this was me. I need to know about my findings so I can apply them to my weight management.

One of the things that I learned about plans/habits of people that have been successful at weight management and healthy eating is they all have kept a food journal. Even Christina said that it helps you become aware of how much you are eating and how much those “little extras” are actually a lot of extra calories. I thought that the best way for me to apply what I have learned is to make a journal. In that journal I need to write about the good nutrition and healthy habits that I have read about, which are: counting calories (to balance them), portion size determines calories and number of servings, balanced meals are key, there are a certain number of servings for each food group, you should drink at least 8 oz. of water a day, exercise boosts calorie output, eat at least every 3 – 5 hours to avoid binging, and plan meals ahead. To combine all of this, I created journal pages where I have to plan each meal, including snacks, out ahead of time. For each meal, I will count the calories and cross of the servings I am eating. For each meal, I will aim for a grain, protein, and veg/fruit. For each snack, I will aim for a grain or protein plus a veg/fruit. I will also track the amount of water I drink a day and the exercise I completed including approximate calories that were burned. To "think outloud" before I actually made it, I drew some pictures on paper to figure out what was going to be the best way to organize the journal page. By sketching out what I was trying to accomplish created a plan for me to follow when I was creating my journal pages in Word.

Click here for my finished journal pages: http://portfolio.iu.edu/kaabaker/final.project.doc

I will print these pages out and have them in my kitchen so I can plan my meals the night before. I will take that one slip of paper with me in my purse so I can add/subtract from it as necessary. I will hole punch my slips and put them into a journal to have a written record of my eating habits for weight management.

Another important portion of the final product is my Blog. It has allowed me to reflect on the experiences of a personal inquiry project as well as helped me focus my thoughts on the inquiry process, not just to the topic that I am learning about. This journal has allowed me to learn a great deal more about the inquiry process then if I had just produced one final product that displays what I had learned about my topics, nutrition and weight management. I believe that reflecting on the process helps develop independent and lifelong learning becuase the understanding how to use the process is more important then the actual topic. The I-Search model, developed by Macrorie, includes reflection on the process as part of the product. The final product needs to exibit these things: the questions, search process, what I have learned, and what it means to me. A journal, much like the one that I have done, allows for all of these things.

What I learned:
Start with the Audience first:
This will determine the success of your final product. I don't think my final product idea would have been successful if I hadn't realized that I was the intented audience. When I picked me as the audience, it really helped me focus on what I needed as a product. I needed a way to journal, so I made one. However, if I had skipped the audience focus, I would have probably just made a website about what I had learned, but...I already know what I have learned and that would not have been useful to me.
Have a plan for your product:
Even though my planning was very short, it organized my thoughts about how I wanted it to look and it organized what ideas I wanted to include. Even though this seems like an extra step, it really saves time in the end becuase making the product didn't take any time at all.


What I can apply to my teaching:
· Have a product planning worksheet for students to fill out that will get them to determine the audience, what the audience needs to know about their findings, ways to organize the appropriate information (in a list), and have a space for them to draw, write ideas on organization and design, and use it however they wish to help them create a plan for their product.
Incorporate a way for students to reflect on the process through part of the development on the final product.