Catherine – Portfolio

Week 12 Reflections – Peer Feedback

Catherine November 26, 2023 0 Comments

Thanks to those of you who were willing to go on the peer review assignment journey with me - This is one of the exercises that I continue to modify. The course used to have people review the presentations AFTER they were submitted, and I feel that this approach misses the opportunity for students to learn from others as well as submit a better work product. If we connect this exercise with...

Week 11 Reflections – Discussion on Climate Change

Catherine November 18, 2023 0 Comments

I find last week’s topic on climate change to be fascinating from the risk perception/risk communication/risk appetite perspective. Climate change is a great example of an extended risk as opposed to an immediate risk. I’m not sure I see the difference in how people prepare for natural disasters in their own communities vice how we prepare for something that has much more of an extended...

Week 10 reflections – the conundrum around risk matrices!

Catherine November 18, 2023 0 Comments

Can you believe it's almost time for Thanksgiving? Wow, this semester has flown by... Week 10 is one of my favorite risk communication topics – the conundrum around risk matrices! I’ve mentioned this in several individual comments, but it bears repeating as a class comment. The consequence table (as well as the likelihood table) can absolutely be modified to reflect the size of your...

My reflections on Weeks 6 and 7 Discussion Board/Hypothesis Assignments: Introduction to AI in the course

Catherine November 18, 2023 0 Comments

Class, Nice work as you work through these modules. As always, I enjoyed reading your perspectives. Not being a user of social media myself, I often wonder if I’m at risk because I’m not “keeping up” with crowdsourcing. For me, I find that social media is like the dementors in Harry Potter, and I certainly don’t have time to have the life sucked out of me anytime soon. I also...

Week 3 thoughts

Catherine September 30, 2023 0 Comments

This is the week where students review both FEMA's Whole Community approach and Amanda Ripley's video on her book "The Unthinkable". I wonder if students see the connection between those two products. While the Whole Community approach is about preparedness and "The Unthinkable" is about response, there is still an element of community for those who must react to the immediate situation. ...

Our World in Data

Catherine September 24, 2023 0 Comments

OWD is one of my favorite data blogs to follow. They are open access and open source. They've updated their pages on a few topics that are relevant for this class. Terrorism Causes of Death Influenza Take a look at their primary site if you are seeking data for your decision brief. Cheers! Catherine

Reflecting on the differences between Crisis and Risk Communication…

Catherine September 9, 2023 0 Comments

I appreciate revisiting seminal papers often when I’m thinking through key risk concepts. This document represents the state of the art of risk communication thinking in 2012 and was available as an open educational resource - a crucial element for me in designing a course. One of the many questions that I’m intrigued by is the difference between crisis and risk communication. I...

Balance – Having it all doesn’t mean having it all at once!

Catherine September 9, 2023 0 Comments

Life has been a whirlwind as we've been designing what life in VT could look like. I'm grateful for so many things - the fact that my mother can make the trip with us - that I'll be able to continue to work remotely - and most of all, that we'll be closer to family. Preparing for this move feels as if it's taken a lifetime, and perhaps it has - as we continue to evaluate what makes the cut to...

My teaching philosophy – A blank slate no more….

Catherine December 24, 2020 0 Comments

My teaching philosophy has certainly been a journey, but where to begin? When I inherited my course in Fall 2017, I’m not sure I could have articulated my teaching philosophy other than to say I wanted to teach students about risk analysis. And because this course was an online course and because UAF had e-Campus and because I felt like such a novice (read imposter!) since I had limited...

To post publicly or not…

Catherine December 22, 2020 0 Comments

I would echo what many of my classmates have shared in their posts. I do think there are distinct differences depending on the cohort you are working with - either the K-12 or the secondary community - if only for the concept of “consenting” or not. I agree with those who said that those who oversee K-12 populations need to be held to a higher standard. As a student of online...