Author: Michaela Reis

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Final Reflection-Michaela

The research in Unit 2 was extensive leading me to a big selection of material to choose from. The way that I narrowed that down and focused on one topic is by focusing on sources and content that was reliable, from credible sources and accredited authors. I also choose to pinpoint the information that I found interesting along with what my classmates seemed to engage with most on the blog. Using tools from this course such as templates from “They Say I Say” and tips from the blog about genre and considering my audience. From those resources, I was able to create a presentation that I think has a clear purpose of educating those entering the workplace about empathy and perspective and a consistent voice that targeted my audience of college juniors and seniors.

As a college senior myself hoping to start a job when I graduate I learned a lot from researching the topic and creating a presentation for an audience that I am apart of. I learned how important it is to have empathy and perspective, especially when attempting to partake in an environment where all different people coexist. Since I am apart of the audience I was writing for I learned a lot about writing for my age group. I tried to keep my language and format short and sweet, with keeping the reader engaged as a big focus. Adding large clear graphics with my text was something I felt strongly about adding because I had read so many scholarly articles and journals during this class. Though I found those articles deeply interested I also know I am more motivated to read something eye-catching that highlights the important information to show the purpose. Summarizing the most important information from all of the great sources I found was a challenge, there were paragraphs of information throughout my research that I felt would add to my presentation, but after I referenced the tips about summaries that we used in this class I had a clearer focus and was able to pinpoint what was the most beneficial.

The blog was very helpful when crafting this project especially when I ran into challenges. If I was stuck on something I could look back on past posts from peers as a reference point. Along with the posts, feedback and comments were critical because without the critique I could not have improved on my draft, it allowed me to see what was working and what wasn’t. Many of my classmates are also apart of the audience of my project because some are college students so their opinion was of great value.

Overall this course taught me how to write with my own voice while keeping the purpose of my work clear. The readings given were valuable in a multitude of ways from the topic to the structure of the actual source. As a design major writing is not usually apart of our course work so the practice that I got from each week’s assignments made me more secure in my work. Before this class, I approached writing as a task that I never knew how to start but I now have the encouragement and resources to know how to start and complete my writing with confidence.

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Final Project-Michaela Reis

For my final project, I created a presentation discussing empathy and perspective in the workplace. The audience for my presentation is college juniors and seniors that are entering the workplace. This would be a resource for them as they prepare to graduate. This resource would be available on LinkedIn’s platform slideshare a popular website amongst those in college. The purpose of it is to show those entering the workforce how empathy and perspective can be a tool for them to create a  healthy workplace culture helping increase diversity and understanding.

Unit 3 Final Presentation

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Unit 3 draft

Unit 3 Draft Link

My project audience would be college juniors and seniors that are entering workplaces whether that be internships or full time jobs. The goal  for my presentation is to be an asset for them as they enter, giving them the tools to make adjusting to the workplace easier. The tools I will be focusing on is how to bring perspective and empathy into the workplace. I will be creating a visual presentation that will be posted on LinkedIn’s platform slideshare. This is a platform where people come to learn and share especially college students, since LinkIn is popular among that demographic. The circumstances that the audience would be in when reading this presentation would be if they are either, looking for resources before entering a workplace, or sent the resource from a teacher or mentor sending them advice. I choose this circumstance because often college students receive information better when they seek it out rather than being forced to read or do something. I hope to achieve my goal along with clear graphics and charts to make the presentation easy to understand and more engaging for the age group.

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Discussion Week of 7/27

The presentation that I found to mirror what I will be focusing on shows how to address the topic and the genre of a presentation about empathy and the workplace. The first source I found is a presentation that discusses empathy in the workplace. The presentation “Empathy At Workplace” was written by Abu Zafor Md. Shaleah, Assistant Manager HR at A Leading Group of Companies and published on slide share which is apart of the LinkedIn platform. I choose this example because I can learn from the features of the writing such as the way that the author addresses the topic. He spreads the terms and points out throughout each slide telling a story and keeping the attention of the audience. The presentation does a good job of introducing topics and defining them before diving into examples and resources, this influenced me to make sure to limit the amount of vagueness in my presentation. I am going to try to incorporate how the author includes common questions on the topic and then respond with answers that way the presentation connects with the audience. Since the bibliography is a large part of this project I made sure to look at how these sources cited the work. In this presentation, the author used a slide at the end to summarize all of the references. Though I like the idea of a reference slide, in the end, I do think that it could be organized better and I will aim for that when creating mine. The platform the source is posted on also influenced me when deciding to have the presentation be published online or presented in person. Publishing my presentation on LinkedIn slide share similar to this presentation seems to be the best choice because it is a platform that is constantly populated with college students. Overall this source is a good reference for me when crafting my work and I will take the positives and negatives from it to move forward.

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Project Proposal

I want to create a presentation for my unit 3 project targeted towards juniors and seniors in college that are making their way into the workplace. I choose a presentation as the genre because I think it is a great way to get the audience, especially young adults, to pay attention to the topic. By adding graphs and images in my presentation I hope to engage with the younger audience, making the topic more exciting and interesting to learn about. This presentation will be based on and conclude research from my unit 2 research portfolio which focused on perspective and empathy in relation to diversity and inclusion. The presentation will touch on that topic and how important it is to think of other’s perspectives and to have empathy towards people and their situations. It will also connect to how they can leave college and go into the workplace with an inclusive attitude that will help support a diverse environment. Think of it as diversity training before going into the workplace, so they can enter expecting to be in a culture that is inclusive. As more and more young people enter the workplace I find it important to have them shape the environment, this presentation would teach them that even though they will be new, their attitudes can rub off on those who have been working at a company and help open people up to new views.

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Michaela Reis-Research Portfolio

Unit 2 Research Reflection

The first step I took when approaching my research portfolio was narrowing down my focus. The focusing flowchart was helpful with that because the prompts were so clear it helped me pick key terms that I had learned from Unit 1 and form a topic that I was interested in. Reflecting on each week of readings and discussions helped me pinpoint what I engaged in with classmates and what I was drawn to. Diversity training has been a large focus of this class and each time it was discussed I found the question of how do we implement it in a way that increases diversity and inclusion coming up. What I ended up realizing was that empathy and perspective were two topics that could help solve the question.

My second step was searching for sources that within the guidelines set would help support and challenge my claim. The sources I found were very beneficial to my research and I found that most supported the claim that empathy and perspective were key to understanding diverse individuals and creating more open attitudes, therefore we would benefit through adding them into diversity training strategies. Even the opposing sources that I found through complication my research helped me shape a better argument and figure out how to respond to oppositions surrounding my claim. I often found that many sources believe that it takes more than empathy to change people’s biases due to things such as cognitive dissonance, leading me to want to extend my resources and locate sources that also discuss that topic. The research plan helped me organize my thoughts along with rounding out the conversation, which helped me recognize the specific benefit of each source I found. I appreciated the structure of completing a few pieces of the research portfolio each week, keeping me on track and allowing me to not leave things till the last minute. Finally, the annotation helped me assess each source in-depth and analyze them in a discussion that helped to fully develop my project.

Annotation #1

Annotation #2

Annotation #3

Annotation #4

Annotation #5

Annotation #6

Focusing Flowchart

Complicating Research

Rouding out the conversation

Research Plan

 

 

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Discussion week of 7/6

1. An article that stood out to me when conducting my research was “The Impact of Method, Motivation, and Empathy on Diversity Training Effectiveness” by Alex Lindsey et al, which examined diversity training methods. These methods of diversity training are perspective-taking, goal setting, and stereotype discrediting along with individual differences and how they impact the effectiveness. Each method is talked about in great length investigating the cause and effects, methods, comparison, and conclusion. Each topic has its sections to first give an overview of the topic and mention general facts, such as how perspective training resulted in increased positive attitudes, along with side comparisons and discussions. These touch on each hypothesis and their findings, along with specific details such as the positive impact reported towards LGB individuals and more.

I found this article very useful to my research because of how thoroughly it investigates diversity training. More specifically it directly discusses empathy and perspective which are the main focus of my topic. When searching for evidence about empathy and perspective as a way to make people more accepting of diverse groups I found a lot of opinions that were helpful but they were also subjective. Using a scholarly journal brings as a source adds credibility along with data and facts. The use of multiple hypotheses and analysis of both successes and failures of the training helps the discussion become more well rounded. 

2. The response that stood out to me was “The pressure to keep up appearances”. I connected to this response because I often find my physical comfort translating to my mental comfort, and if I am not comfortable I find it hard to accomplish and even focus work. Reading how uneasy it made the women feel to be watched all day made me understand that they had many added pressures to their work because of an open office. The writer adds to the ideas of the original article because the pressure to keep up appearances is a direct result of men staring. Schwab quotes “men in particular, often in groups, look obsessively at women” which is similar to the mention of her need to “look proper because I was visible from all angles” illustrating that an open office is extremely exposing for women. 

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Research Plan

Throughout Unit 1 we explored different aspects of diversity in relation to organized culture. From our weekly readings to expanding the canon, there was a plethora of information added to help our understanding of what diversity is, where it can be seen, and how important it is to increase inclusion and maintain it. The sources helped give me a general overview but as the weeks progressed I was still left with questions. One of the questions that stood out to me most was, why it took the world so long to work towards acceptance of everybody? This leads me to focus on empathy and perspective concerning diversity and inclusion because I believe that understanding diverse groups can help increase acceptance. I will use my research to understand the foundational idea of empathy, and why understanding the perspective of diverse individuals is so crucial when working towards a more inclusive world.

In my personal life and career, I see many people, including myself, struggling to think beyond themselves. As a Communications Design major our assignments are focused on creating new ways to communicate through the means of design. One way our teachers push us to come up with better work is to have an audience for our projects that excludes ourselves, that way we have to put ourselves into other’s shoes to think about what they want and how we can target and connect the best. I often find understanding and curating things towards groups I am not apart of difficult, especially when I try to include ones that I know little about. To make this process easier I have to do research on their perspective and figure out how the world affects them and not just me.

For my internship, as a Graphic Design intern at a beauty corporation, I often create content for the brand that must be inclusive and accepting of all. Since I am not apart of many diverse groups that I have to represent on things such as our Instagram feed I often struggle with how to do so properly. The company I work for is relatively small resulting in a lack of diversity so I feel as though if there was an increase in diversity it would allow me to have conversations with those different then me about, how the company can continue to post inclusive and positive content for all. That added perspective would help me do my job better then I could just on my own.

Since perspective is one main focus in my research, the inclusion of one or more primary sources is very important when making sure diverse voices are heard. Along with primary sources, it feels necessary for my source material to consist of a majority of scholarly texts. The effects of something especially empathy can be extremely subjective which is why it is so important to include facts and data to address all sides and provide solid evidence. Scholarly journals that include investigations or reviews on the results of empathy and perspective with diversity are beneficial because they provide solid analysis and include real-life results that will add to our knowledge of how to address diversity in organized culture. Understanding and empathizing with a group is a key strategy I have learned to use in my work and through my research, I hope to show how it can help create more efficient and inclusive organized cultures.

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Discussion Post Week of Week of 6/29

  1. As Wong enters the conversation around diversity and inclusion she adds a few unique points. One specific point she includes is the difference between equity and equality. You can see her discussing equity vs equality in many sections throughout the text, it is most prevalent in the section titled Equity vs. Equality. The discussion of diversity and inclusion often mentions equality and why we need it but Wong’s addition of Equity helps point in the direction of how we do it. A significant part of that section explains what equity is “Recognizing that certain groups of people have experienced (and continue to experience) disproportionate hardship, harm and disadvantage highlights”. This is significant because it shows that to achieve equality we must recognize the differences and not assume that everyone has the same experience. Later on in the text in the Supporting Others to Make Change, equity and equality are mentioned again when mentioning key points that to improve we must “focus on equity rather than equality; acknowledge and affirm differences rather than ignore and deny them; and pay attention to how exclusionary practices show up at interpersonal and structural levels”. That key point contributes to strategies of how to move forward in including and maintaining diverse environments by opening our minds, asking the right questions. seeing differences, and thinking more inclusively.

2.  The way that Wong structures her writing, including headers with clear titles, help the reader map out what the overall message is. This keeps the text clear and concise rarely leaving the reader to wonder what does one statement has to do with the other. Another way Wong keeps everything related is through using certain connective sentence patterns, her transitions are seamlessly connecting her last sentence and her next sentence. For example, when starting a new paragraph Wong uses elaborative terms such as “in contrast” and “Rather than” to introduce a new point in reference to her last.

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Discussion Post 6/24

  1. The main search tool I have been using when researching sources is the SU library databases. I have found this to be the most useful because I know it is credible and that I have access to all of the information that is on it so there is no need to click through to make sure I can get onto the web page. It is efficient leaving me with more time to focus on the sources I am choosing between rather than searching aimlessly. The search screen includes all the databases found along with a feature that allows you to search by title subject area or content type narrowing the results down so that they are just what I am looking for. One other resource I have been using is Google Scholars which focuses on the scholarly literature available. Google Scholars is a bit more open-ended, with less specific filters to search by. While I trust this source because I know it is pulling from publications based on the results of research or studies I get stuck scrolling through pages due to the limited filters making me feel as though my time is being spent searching rather than analyzing the actual content.
  2. Along with a primary, and scholarly source I would like to include
    a secondary source. Since I am focusing my research on
    empathy, including sources that are specific to perspective and
    help with understanding is key. I would like the voices of diverse
    individuals to be shown through primary sources since they are
    usually first-hand experiences or observations. While primary
    sources can give a direct point of view and opinion it is also
    important for me to search for secondary sources, such
    as an analysis of the topic, that has less personal bias than a
    primary source to provide context and give another perspective.
    Lastly, a scholarly source adds credibility through data and facts
    from a professional on the topic. These three sources give a voice
    to the people being discussed, those analyzing the topic, and the
    scholars researching and collecting the data. I will find these
    sources by searching through the SU library database,
    Google Scholar and any other resources I find through my peer’s
    posts.