Knitting: Week 8 Reflection

What I learned about my new hobby:

I thought knitting would be hard, and it was. But it is not impossible. I don't like doing small things with my hands and I get frustrated really easily with things like this, but after getting started and kept going, I was able to keep going. The receptiveness in stitching makes it become easier to do and I'm finding it is pretty relaxing. I think more people should try it out. 

What I learned about myself as a learner: 

I started off trying to learn from Youtube. I've always labeled myself as a visual learner. I knew that I learned better by seeing someone model something to me. While I still consider myself this type of learner, Youtube isn't the answer for everything! I found a great place with teachers who really helped me get started. I found I learn best when I have someone who is an expert present. My next challenge came when I tried to learn a new stitch, and I tried to resort back to Youtube, but again I was successful when I was able to go back to the experts to help me a long the way. It is still pretty intimidating for me to be around people like this, but with more practice I realize that I can be like them one day. In just 8 weeks, I learned 3 stitches and knitted 2 hats and half a scarf. 

What do I understand about learning theories:

Motivation: The more I learned, the more I wanted to keep learning. As challenging as a lot of my experience was, I wanted to keep going. I've kind of toyed with the idea of knitting before, but I didn't think I would actually want to sit and learn how to knit. Sure I am still motivated by making things for myself and making things for others for Christmas, I am seeing the intrinsic motivation from this process.

Zone of Proximal Development: I had some challenges in this learning experience. I messed up and had to start over many times. But those struggles and frustrations were me learning. I was expanding my skills by getting more complex. I could have just made a scarf from the basic stitch, but in order to stitch the scarf I wanted, I had to get out of my learning comfort zone and do hard things. 

Cognitive Apprenticeship: I had a lot of help in this process: the nice people at Blazing Needles, my friend Allyson, and my grandma. These people show expertise in this skill and they were able to help me along my way. I started basic and I was able to move on to more complex stitches. 

I really enjoyed this learning opportunity. As I am looking back on my experiences, I honestly thought that I chose really impossible goal to knit a scarf. I don't usually enjoy/have patience for doing activities like knitting so, while it interested me, I didn't bother with it. While I had some really stressful and unsuccessful moments in my learning, I find myself confident in my new skill and I look forward to keeping it up and creating more.