My Reflection on Dossier 2

Dossier 2 is not trying to make things difficult for students. It's not only for the faculties to evaluate students' progress in research, teaching, and service, but also for the students themselves to clarify their own professional goals and academic goals.

I learned a lot in the process of preparing my second dossier. Although I have confirmed that my research interest area is online learning by the end of first semester at IU, and proposed my first-author study when submitting my dossier #1, I had't established my theoretical framework until the later stage of my preparation. When writing my candidate statement, I summarized what I have done (e.g. literature reviews I conducted, my first-author study, projects that I was involved in, etc.), what I was doing (on-going projects), and what I planned to do in the future (following study, long term research goal, etc.). In this process, I was able to synthesize them together, and generate a clear picture of my theoretical framework. This process is also the process of making sense my study. In another word, I was trying to recall and explain why I was interested in this specific area, what were the key concepts and theories in this area, what the gap was, etc. to the audience and myself. In the summary and self-estimation, I identified my strengths and weak points that I need to improve.

Another thing I learned in preparing dossier 2 is: Finish your first-author study as early as possible. First of all, research is the most important perspective among the three perspectives that we should cover in dossier 2. And our progress in research is mostly reflected in our first-author study, which entirely demonstrates our knowledge in our interested area and our ability of designing and conducting empirical studies. Moreover, your understanding and perception of your focus area will be greatly deepened in this process.

Teaching and services should be aligned with your research goal. This is not only the requirement of dossier, it also makes your research relevant and meaningful. What you learned in research can help you improve teaching and services. Teaching and services can also help you confirm and refine your theoretical framework.

Practicing presentation in my research groups was extremely helpful for me. When I presented in my research group for the first time, I just roughly put everything together. Many issues and problems arose in this process. The faculties and group members provided many useful and constructive feedback and suggestion. After I modified my presentation according to those feedback, I presented in another research group. Great improvement was made in just two days. So, don't be afraid of being embarrassed when presenting imperfect presentation. There is nothing to lose in rehearsal. What I gained was much more than I could imagine before that.

It's important to control your excitement level on the presenting day. Don't get excited too early if you are not the first person to present. Adjusting the tempo of practicing could help you get your peak condition when you present.