09 November 2013
Weekly Reflection
Class Format & How Everything is Beginning to Pan Out
Up until this point, there was confusion and miscommunications between horizontal and vertical groups. The past few assignments have helped us understand on a smaller scale the specifics of our class-wide assignment and goals.
This week, breaking into subgroups and pairings within our horizontals was crucial to understanding where each group stands, and the breakdown of requirements we need in order to accomplish our class-wide goals. Using individual horizontals as our main contacts, we've more clearly understood the needs we all are to be helped accountable for. With presenters within each group, a meeting to come together and compile information helped define a more concise communication structure and point of information.
As an analyzer, my group is responsible for looking at earthquake data through analysis with R & downloadable packages ETAS, SAPP, & PtProcess. These packages are crucial in developing different models we can all use to compare and understand the best way of modeling earthquake alarm errors. Bradley G Luen's Ph.D Dissertation presents a starting point, and beginning point for us to use as a comparison point. In addition, the ability to seek a more accurate model in comparison to Luen's model, we want to lower a model between Error and Time.
My group comprised of Disi KOA, John RISKO, Tay SHIN and myself was without a specifically designated presenter. Without one, I volunteered to participate in this position, and met with the other sub-groups' presenters Monday evening to discuss the goals of our various groups and a flow diagram to connect each group and understand what is expected from each of us.
At this point, I don't believe anyone within our class would specifically understand the class goals unless we figured it out on our own. Unfortunately, there has not been an arena that let us sit down and understand our peers' goals until the presenters sat down as sub-group representatives. Holding a smaller meeting of only 9 individuals was necessary to get our points across. Aaron has done a great job in delivering expectations on a semester scale. As students, we are accustomed to being given weekly assignments and check-ins structured as assignments controlled by our professors. At this time, Aaron has left this open to interpretation, but a valuable lesson learned in time with holing us as students accountable to dictating the class-wide assignment. I am grateful for leaving this on our shoulders, yet come crunch-time, individuals have become flustered and lash out selfishly against the individual they expect to guide us over the course of the semester. Gladly though, the need to understand ourselves has value unable to be quantified within our learning, academic careers.
A possible syllabus and project outline for the remainder of the semester needs to be distributed to keep all individuals accountable. At this point, someone needs to stand up and take control because the majority of our class is reliant on others without the backbone to really step it up..