my learning fall and rise
This semester was a roller coaster, as well as a rocky mountain as the year went on. When I first stepped foot into the classroom on August 12, I was really nervous. I had took honors English the year before, and even in elementary, so I thought it was right thing to take AP this year. When I signed up for the class, I saw it as a challenge that I knew I would be able to overcome. I was also mostly ready to expect for a lot of workbook, essays, and a lot of writing, because in all my previous classes it was the norm. When I first stepped in my heart was pounding. My reyes quickly scattered across the room to find anyone familiar. I saw my group of friends and I quickly hurried to them. I smiled, and nervously waited for the next 55 minutes of the same things all the teachers talked about in the first day is school.
It took me by great surprise that my teacher started off my giving us a choice on the first day. A choice to do our work with an open source learning method, or go by the traditional textbook way. At first, I was a little hesitant, because I was not really that familiar with it, and did not like dealing with technology. He told us that he was going to step out of the class room while we discussed our decision. I though this was really cool because he showed that he really wanted us to think hard about it, and he didn't want his presence in the room to affect our decisions, by feeling pressured to choose the open source learning. The class voted, and the open source learning method won, so I braced my self for the next 4 months.
Many new challenges came along with this new way of learning. At first, the idea of journals seemed dreadful to me, because writing is one of the least things I like to do. At first, it was difficult for me to write half a page, but as the semester went on, it started to get easier and easier, although some days it was harder to come up with things to write, I could still manage to write a small amount, but I knew that is was the best I could come up with. As a matter of fact, now I actually enjoy writing because each day is a completely different topic, and they allow to write about things students wouldn’t really write about. It is a way to get my mind off of the stressful things about school. Many other challenges cane up as the days went by. When I learned that we were going to have to memorize poems, and recite them, I was relieved that we had the option of recording ourselves and recite the poems and posting them on our bogs. I am personally very shy and awkward when it comes to public speaking. I tend to get very red and I feel the heat biting my face, so I was happy to be able to record myself .
A big obstacle I faced was to ignore my instincts when writing an essay. I had been programmed to write a 5 paragraph essay. When I was assigned to witw the pedestrian essay, I though it was somewhat easy because it just had to be 5 paragraphs. The next day our teacher showed us his essay and I was shocked. His essay consisted of a lot more paragraphs than 5 and some were really short while other were longer. He read it out loud and I instantly saw a difference, it flowed more. It didn’t seem forced. After this , I went back to my essay and tried to improve it the way I felt it flowed better. This was a really big step into improving my writing.
As more days and weeks went by, things started to add up and as more blogs were presented, I was harder for me to keep up with the blogs becuase I wouldn't prioritize the class and I would forget to do the blogs. I would think to myslef that it wasn’t that important, and I would do them the next day, because it’s not like we woud have to physically turn them in, so I wouldn’t feel pressured. As the weeks passed, they woukd strart to add up and I decided that I was not putting all my effort into the class so I decided to do as may blogs as possible each day. I didn’t want to end up like the year prior because I had procrastinated and brought up my grade to an A until the very last minute. I didn’t want the case to be like this again, so tried really hard to catch up. I soon learned that it was difficult because I had completely forgotten what the topics were about and I would have to keep going back in to the website and it was harder since it was online. It wasn't like a book where we could just turn to any page. I learned that procrastination is really something I should not mess with because I always immediately regret it.
Looking at it now, I know for a fact that I have greatly improved. This class has been relly helpfull, not only academically, but also in the real world. For example, I learned not only how to have strong passwords online, but also how to keep your personal things online safe. I also really like that we had experiences like the interviews, which give us a glimpes of real life challenges that will will soon have to face. Overall, my writing s improves and I have more confidence in my writing.
This semester has been something really different. Good different. When I first stepped into the classroom, I would’ve never thought that I was going to end up in the place I am today. All of the skills I had have tremendously improved, and I have also developed new skills. I hope the next semester is better as I keep improving. Overall, even though I had some bumpy downs throughout the semester, it was a good one.
It took me by great surprise that my teacher started off my giving us a choice on the first day. A choice to do our work with an open source learning method, or go by the traditional textbook way. At first, I was a little hesitant, because I was not really that familiar with it, and did not like dealing with technology. He told us that he was going to step out of the class room while we discussed our decision. I though this was really cool because he showed that he really wanted us to think hard about it, and he didn't want his presence in the room to affect our decisions, by feeling pressured to choose the open source learning. The class voted, and the open source learning method won, so I braced my self for the next 4 months.
Many new challenges came along with this new way of learning. At first, the idea of journals seemed dreadful to me, because writing is one of the least things I like to do. At first, it was difficult for me to write half a page, but as the semester went on, it started to get easier and easier, although some days it was harder to come up with things to write, I could still manage to write a small amount, but I knew that is was the best I could come up with. As a matter of fact, now I actually enjoy writing because each day is a completely different topic, and they allow to write about things students wouldn’t really write about. It is a way to get my mind off of the stressful things about school. Many other challenges cane up as the days went by. When I learned that we were going to have to memorize poems, and recite them, I was relieved that we had the option of recording ourselves and recite the poems and posting them on our bogs. I am personally very shy and awkward when it comes to public speaking. I tend to get very red and I feel the heat biting my face, so I was happy to be able to record myself .
A big obstacle I faced was to ignore my instincts when writing an essay. I had been programmed to write a 5 paragraph essay. When I was assigned to witw the pedestrian essay, I though it was somewhat easy because it just had to be 5 paragraphs. The next day our teacher showed us his essay and I was shocked. His essay consisted of a lot more paragraphs than 5 and some were really short while other were longer. He read it out loud and I instantly saw a difference, it flowed more. It didn’t seem forced. After this , I went back to my essay and tried to improve it the way I felt it flowed better. This was a really big step into improving my writing.
As more days and weeks went by, things started to add up and as more blogs were presented, I was harder for me to keep up with the blogs becuase I wouldn't prioritize the class and I would forget to do the blogs. I would think to myslef that it wasn’t that important, and I would do them the next day, because it’s not like we woud have to physically turn them in, so I wouldn’t feel pressured. As the weeks passed, they woukd strart to add up and I decided that I was not putting all my effort into the class so I decided to do as may blogs as possible each day. I didn’t want to end up like the year prior because I had procrastinated and brought up my grade to an A until the very last minute. I didn’t want the case to be like this again, so tried really hard to catch up. I soon learned that it was difficult because I had completely forgotten what the topics were about and I would have to keep going back in to the website and it was harder since it was online. It wasn't like a book where we could just turn to any page. I learned that procrastination is really something I should not mess with because I always immediately regret it.
Looking at it now, I know for a fact that I have greatly improved. This class has been relly helpfull, not only academically, but also in the real world. For example, I learned not only how to have strong passwords online, but also how to keep your personal things online safe. I also really like that we had experiences like the interviews, which give us a glimpes of real life challenges that will will soon have to face. Overall, my writing s improves and I have more confidence in my writing.
This semester has been something really different. Good different. When I first stepped into the classroom, I would’ve never thought that I was going to end up in the place I am today. All of the skills I had have tremendously improved, and I have also developed new skills. I hope the next semester is better as I keep improving. Overall, even though I had some bumpy downs throughout the semester, it was a good one.
Comments
Post a Comment