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Chemistry Reflection

This has been a difficult semester to learn a new subject. My evolution of my learning

skills and strategies have changed over time. There is also a new perspective I have gained

regarding the world around me. I think I can sum up this semester down to many poor choices.

I have grown as a student because this it was a try and don’t quit trying kind of

semester. I kept getting confused on learning new concepts in chapter 1 and then just as I

about had it figured out, the next chapter 2 would start up. But I would still be in the, “Let me

get this mastered stage.” So, I would continue to study and study in the previous chapter, while

the next and the next would keep going. Poor choices, when I was confused. Then I would take

a break and try again on another day.

Another way I have grown as a student is that I plan to keep a printout of courses

deadlines, course expectations and graded system and put in the first page of all my notebooks.

I need keep better track of the grading system for sure, so I don’t have a situation like yesterday

happen again. I made a poor choice when I discovered after struggling for 12 hours to finish all

my Critical Chem assignments, I should have been working on this Reflection/Experiment

Assignment/ePortfolio first. As of yesterday, my overall grade dropped from a C to a D because

I choose unwisely. My two past due assignments of - Critical Chemistry got me 67 points

whereas I my Reflections/Experiment/ePortfolio was 90 points. Now which assignment gave

more bang for my buck? Did I choose wisely?

My third growth came through the many different learning methods that I used this

semester to learn this new material instead of the one right in front of me, was your lectures.

In the beginning I went to online lectures but didn’t take great notes and just listened. I trusted Open
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Stax video lectures more and I listened to all their videos when I was in the car, in hopes it

would register and start to make more sense. Chemistry sounds like gibberish to me, so I would

listen 3 or more times until I made a connection with it. I started also taking screen shots of the

OpenStax Online lectures and paste them into a word document. Then the tests would come

up and I still couldn’t remember what I needed to know from these great notes. Then I finally

decided, “Hey what if I start taking better handwritten notes during lectures. So now they take

4-5 hours to write down and understand 1 of your lectures. I learned I learn best while taking

handwritten notes instead of just listening and forgetting.

Towards the end of semester, my fourth growth came when I discovered the study

materials in the Supplemental Materials section of each module. They were very helpful. They

are straight forward and to the point. This is just how I like it. One learning method that

seemed to work well towards the end of semester was the following: 1) I would print Slides out.

2) I would make one pass at the Pre-Reading Quiz test and figure out which ones I missed. 3)

Then I would listen to one of your online lectures with the Slide printouts and then try to figure

out each problem missed one-by-one. I felt more successful using this last method.

A hard course subject and poor choices may have led me into my predicament of today.

I may be failing this class as it gets done this day, but I will go out trying to do whatever it takes.

There is always a chance I may finally get it right. Thanks for being an awesome teacher.
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