Over the course of this semester our
group detailed developments in the news about what was going on during the
Syrian Civil War. At the beginning of the semester Syria was one of the hot
news topics, showing up prominently in stories across media outlets each week. A
lot of this interest stemmed from the seeming possibility that the U.S. might become
involved in the conflict. In reality though, no concrete intervention ever came
to pass. In my opinion, it never even seemed like the U.S. was really going to
get involved beyond Obama’s “limited strike,” and this was mostly just hyped up
by media organizations that knew that they could tantalize their audiences by
talking about the possibility so much. The next stage of news focused heavily
on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s decision to acquiesce to the Geneva
Convention’s requirements on the use and possession of chemical weapons. A plan
was developed and will apparently be brought to fruition over a period of time.
Though violence is still ongoing, with the fading of the possibility that the
U.S. might become involved, the media have seemed to back off significantly from
detailing the events in Syria. Most news stories deal with specific conflicts
on the ground and haven’t seemed to reach the same prominence that they did
earlier this semester.
Generally our group formula involved
meeting once a week to work on the blog or designating one person to write it
themselves. When we met as a group, people would generally have researched or
kept up with the topic throughout the week. It was then interesting to see what
each person thought was the most important event and what everyone had learned
or read about. Thus, this turned into a good format for discussing the topic
with others as opposed to simply reading a few news stories yourself.
I rarely look forward to taking part
in a group project, and if this was an exception it was a small one. Typically you
watch as some people take it seriously, while others contribute next to
nothing. And there is really no realistic way of avoiding this. On the bright
side, though, this group was not too bad in the grand scheme of things. But in
general I do not think that group projects are a particularly effective way of
encouraging learning, though I cannot personally think of any other way of organizing
this specific project. Anyhow, I was able to learn more in depth about the
Syrian Civil War than I would have been likely to learn otherwise, so I see it
as relatively worthwhile.
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