Exploring The Ocean with The DIVERS

The four-week experience in the Rhetoric course was certainly one of a kind but not all of us would consider emotional journey throughout this course as positive. Approximately 22% of the students in this class faced a downward emotional trend in their own process of crossing the course.

As this co-designing module is somewhat unique, going through it was not easy. Actually, one potential factor was that the Rhetoric module was not really some of the divers’ first choice at the beginning, Overall, this group showed a downward trend in their levels of energy during the course, but they tended to feel good in the first week especially the very first days. One big reason for that was they enjoyed the in-class activities aiming to set up the spirit of co-designing rather than testing prototypes. Gradually, their emotional ratings fell toward the end of this week, especially when a big discussion drained their energy as they didn’t expect the huge workload. The following days all started with discussions, some of us felt like too much group work led to exhaustion. In fact, we didn’t really have any day-off during this module.

In the second week, students started identifying and taking the responsibility of co-designing by working in groups to write research proposals. The heavy workload and lack of guidance and lack of background knowledge somewhat exhausted them. They separated into smaller teams to work on proposals for course objectives, this was the time that the emotions rating in the whole class dramatically plummeted to the lowest score, not only the divers. One of the reasons was they were drowning in the ocean of information without an anchor. Even though instructors provided a research skill workshop to help us, students still felt that more guidance and instructions would be better than just a small workshop. The majority was tense at this time, students felt their lack of skills would somehow prevent them from making a quality product. Mood during class sessions was not much better, the report day seemed like some group were struggling with their information.

Going into the third week, the divers remained in their down mood up until the readout day for the proposals.That day was a slight release before the intense debate on Friday to make decision over final products of the class. That debate exhausted both students and instructors, pushing the energy level to another low point. Despite the emotional low, divers were still highly engaged and contributed to the module. Some of them felt left behind because their lack of skills made them feel pressured and down. Yet, this somehow motivated them to push themselves harder to accomplish their tasks. Despite the emotional lows, this group’s intellectual curiosity and motivation remained high. They generally spent more time on researching and self-learning to be able to contribute effectively to this module.