This is Why You Need to Spend Time Understanding Tasks in Grad School

I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth – the traditional territory of the Lekwungen people, and the Songhees and Esquimalt nations, also known as Victoria, BC.

We’re surrounded by gorgeous coastline, and as a result, I’ve started spending more time doing hobbies in the water, like paddleboarding.

So for this blog about task understanding, I thought I’d share a story about a time where the task understanding was quite simple, but led to success.

About two years ago, my partner and I adopted Tiller, a 5 kg, 9 year old poodle mix, who came to Victoria through Raincoast Dog Rescue. She of course stole our hearts right away and we gave her a nautical-themed name hoping she’d love being out on the ocean as much as we did.

One summer day, I pumped up my paddleboard, put Tilly’s PFD on her, put on my PFD, grabbed all my gear and cautiously kneeled on my paddleboard. I didn’t know what Tilly would do on the paddleboard but figured that even if she went in the water, I’d be able to grab her as I clipped her harness to her PFD and the paddleboard.

I put Tilly on the front of the paddleboard. She stood there for a moment, turned around and looked at me, and then sat down once I gave her the hand sign and verbal command to sit. I pulled away from shore, stood up, and started paddling.

Guess what happened?

Tilly after a paddle in the Salish Sea.

She stayed on the board, and before I knew it, we were paddleboarding together!

We spent the next 45 minutes out on the water before coming back to shore. Both my partner and I were amazed at how well she did.

Do you know why she did so well with no previous training on a paddle board?

She understood the task.

We don’t know if she had ever been on a paddleboard or any sort of boat before, but she somehow understood that she needed to stay still and sit down on the board.

In grad school, when we understand the task, it helps us know what to do, set goals to do it, and pick strategies that work. Then, self-regulated learning is happening automatically.

Of course, tasks in grad school are often complex and multi-faceted, increasing in difficulty and challenge, however there are things you can do to increase your task understanding so that you can be successful.

Here are the three aspects of how to improve your task understanding in grad school I’ll talk about in an upcoming blog:

1. Don’t make task assumptions

2. Ask the right questions about tasks

3. Revisit tasks often.