Directions:

Review the Model Essay document in the online classroom. Use the sample as a guide to complete your own. Then, in a five-paragraph essay that is three to four pages in length, address the following:

• Paragraph 1: Your identity as a learner has a major impact on how you engage in learning. How can awareness of your Learning Patterns, skills, and experiences help you be successful in your degree program and beyond?
• Paragraph 2: Soft skills are not only present in a career setting as discussed in Chapter 5 and the Week 5 Instructor Guidance, but are also utilized in personal interactions. By developing your soft skills, you are working toward becoming a more intentional learner.  Based on your future goals, prioritize the five soft skills in the order you think will be most critical to your future success and describe why.
• Paragraph 3: Review the following articles: Becoming a critic of your thinking (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. and Critical thinking in everyday life (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. and consider the six developmental stages of critical thinking. Where do you most often fall in the process? How could further developing your thinking enrich one of your many roles (i.e., parent, employee, friend, spouse, etc.)? Using the self-assessment in Section 4.2 in your textbook, choose one behavior and explain how it can help you further develop your critical thinking. Finally, describe how critical thinking can contribute to academic integrity.
• Paragraph 4: Metacognition refers to your internal talk or, as Vygotsky described it, “learning to direct one’s own mental processes with the aid of words.” Throughout this course, you have engaged in a metacognitive forum that challenged you to think about how you processed the learning from the previous week. Describe how you approached the metacognitive forums. How did your approach change from week to week? How was value added to your learning process by participating in the metacognitive forums? Explain how continuing to complete these reflective sentence starters can enrich your learning.
• Paragraph 5: Reflect on the past five weeks. What were your expectations when you began this course? Were they met? Why or why not. If you could change one thing about this course, what would it be? Considering the course content, online learning platform, and interactions with your peers and instructor, what advice would you give to someone who is just starting this course to maximize their learning experience.

This assignment must be double spaced, written in Times New Roman 12-pt. font, and submitted to Waypoint as a Microsoft Word document. Carefully review your essay before you submit and take some time to honestly complete steps 1 through 5 of the Metacognitive Self-Check. This is a self-evaluation and you don’t need to submit it.

Late Policy: Waypoint assignments (Personal Learning Profile, journals, final assignment) are due on the specified days in the course. Waypoint assignments will be subject to a late penalty of up to 10% per day up to three days late. If Waypoint assignments are submitted after 72 hours past the due date, instructors can give a penalty up to and including a grade of 0 for the assignment.

Carefully review the Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.