HIAD 7510 & 8510: Overview of Adult Education

Self-Directed Learning Project: Reflective Evaluation Report

Bhagwani Bai

Learning from the project:

My self-directed learning project Coping with diabetes type two contain main three

learning strategies such as 1. Online search about this type of diabetes, 2. Consultation with

doctor and 3. Joining to university of Memphis Recreation and fitness center. Following the

learning strategies. First of all I started searching about what it is and how to manage my life

with having this disease. What I have learnt from online search is divided into three categories;

1. What is type two diabetes, 2. What are the effects on life? And 3. How to manage the life with

it? And two other learning goals are also evaluated in this report.

Progress Against Learning Strategy -1: Online search

What is diabetes type two? (Adopted from http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes)

When you eat, your food is broken down into a sugar called glucose.
Glucose gives your body the energy it needs to work. But to use glucose as energy, your

body needs insulin.

When you have type 2 diabetes, your body does not make enough insulin or use it well.
Since your body's cells can't use the glucose from your food as energy, the glucose stays

in your blood, where it can cause serious problems.

What are the effects of diabetes type two?

 When glucose builds up in the blood instead of going into cells, it can cause two problems:

Right away, your cells may be starved for energy.

Over time, high blood glucose levels may hurt your eyes, kidneys, nerves or heart.

How to manage the life having diabetes type two?

Type 2 is treated with lifestyle changes, oral medications (pills), and insulin.

1. Losing weight: Overweight or high level of cholesterol cause one of the hindrance in

maintaining blood glucose level. Overweight people should start losing weight

immediately.
2. Exercising: Walking or swimming and other physical activity should be started

regularly. Physical activities, such as walking create contractions muscles and push

glucose out of blood into the cells and maintain blood sugar level.
3. Quitting smoking: Smoking and alcohol increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and

kidney problems in diabetic patients.

4. Relaxing: People with diabetes are at more risk of stress or depression than others.

Stress or depression create hormones in the body cause increase in blood glucose

level. By doing meditation and deep breathing and keeping oneself happy in activates

with friends and family can relax and help in stress management and ultimately

maintaining blood glucose level.

5. Choosing what, how much, and when to eat: Designing meal plan will help in

maintaining healthy life with diabetes. Lowering food with carbohydrate, saturated

fat, and protein and increasing high fiber food is important step in achieving the goals

of healthy life with diabetes.

 6. Monitoring blood sugar level regularly: Monitoring blood glucose level is a tool to

control the serious complications due to diabetes. There are serval tools and strategies

to monitor blood sugar level

Progress against Learning Strategy-2: Consultation with Doctor

As mentioned in mid-term SDLP report I did not consult any doctor in Memphis.

Keeping in view my hesitation in find a reliable doctor, and my insurance coverage I have

decided to consult my doctor back in Pakistan as I am planning to go to Pakistan in December

2015.

Progress Against Learning Strategy -3: Visiting and Joining Fitness programs

Following the learning from online search and suggestions from my doctor (back in

Pakistan) I joined University of Memphis recreation and fitness center and started exercising. I

walk two miles daily and do different body exercises. The information I got form university of

Memphis recreation regarding useful websites for food selection, shopping, eating at restaurants,

and applications for scanning healthy food, healthy recipes and online fitness program, help me

maintaining healthy diet plan and provide me new information sources.

Overall experience of the project

The overall experience went well in some aspect and need attention in other aspects. The

positive aspect of project includes the area of learning meet my immediate requirement and

challenging aspect is that there is no set deadline for meeting the goals. As I diagnosed for

diabetes type two I wanted to work on it so I decided to keep it part of the my SDLP so that I

could work on it systemically. The application of learning motivated me to work on learning

goals and achieve the set objectives of getting information about recently diagnosed type two
diabetes and how to manage it by making lifestyle changes. While working on the SDLP project

I have noticed that time bound learning goals make the progress steady. I was aware that I have

to provide evidence of progress and have proposal in my mind that I have to submit progress

against the plan but on the other hand it is necessary to mention that I have neither compulsion in

setting the learning goals or adopting learning strategies nor have any deadline for meeting the

targets. As a result of unavailability of time-bound indicator and lack of facilitation or help in

taking initiatives in new environment I did not achieve some of learning goals such as finding

and consulting doctors in Memphis.

Keeping in view the progress against project goals I is important to mention that two my

learning strategies such as collecting information about the subject and adopting useful life style

changes were well planned and meeting my immediate needs. I intentionally sought, planed, took

responsibility, controlled of learning and evaluated the outcomes on my own. (Merriam and

Bierema, 2014, p.61) My Self-directed project followed six step of Knowles (1975 as cited in

Merriam and Bierema, 2014, p. 63) and achieved learning objectives. Although I have achieved

two my learning goals completely and I think third goal of consultation with doctor was not

achieved. I think it is because I was hesitated in taking initiatives in new environment/context.

Importance of context based learning is widely discussed in adult education and how different

contexts motivate and demotivate learning process. As my Self-Directed Learning Project was

self-controlled and I had flexibility to modify it during the process but keeping in view its

importance I could not modified it but same time, in new environment I needed help or support

to take initiative on working on my goals. I think that lack of that moral support create difficulty

in the learning process and as a result I could not achieve set objective.

Justification for grading

I think that I am eligible of A+ grade as I followed all of step of self-directed learning and

achieved my learning objectives. It was as self-initiated, self-controlled, self-evaluated project

that I managed the learning process on my own and did needed modification where required

during the process such as I changed the consultation of doctor strategy to my visit to Pakistan. I

feel more safe and confident while discussing this important health problem with my family

doctor. I did not want to be involved in the process that is time taking expensive so I decided to

postpone it to my visit to Pakistan next month. My self-directed plan, mid-term report and

evaluation report are the evidence for timely submission of assignments on the given guidelines

and formats and I deserve A+ grade for SDLP assignment.

References:

Merriam and Bierema. (2014) Adult learning linking theory and practice. Jossy-Bass

http://www.everydayhealth.com/

http://www.diabetes.org/