Wow, it is the end of my first semester at UR. I am so proud of myself.

My Calculus 1 journey has been an interesting one. It was a time-demanding course as I talked about in the Course outline 

I shall write about my general reflection on the course structure in this blog. Again this is how I feel and if you have different opinions you are welcome to leave a comment in the comment section below. Unlike other classes where you can zone out for a week or so, Calculus 1 was not like that. Dr Torres made it such a way that I had to be present( know what was happening) throughout the entire semester. Below is the screenshot of the work that was expected to be done. As you can see it is almost an everyday subject. It was very tedious at first but once I did my first journal entry it changed my perspective and attitude toward Calc, I recommend you read my journal

Now that I look back, I have grown more than I expected, the growth is evidenced through my work as well as my journals. Early in Calculus, I learned why we do the calculations we do. It is no longer just about memorizing formulas but understanding what and why we are doing in class.  In this growth process, I encountered challenges and I reflected on them in my 2nd journal entry. I was not taking enough time to read the protocol and do the pre-lab for Biochemistry which resulted in me not understanding what we were doing in the labs. We use data from Bio/Chem lab in the Calculus lab, hence I struggled with the Calculus lab as well

It is a good thing that the SMART course is designed in a way that we use information from one class in the other however this can be a problem when you are struggling in one of the classes. One incident occurred when I did not properly understand the UV-induced mutation Biology lab and we had to use the data for our Calculus Lab 3. As I said earlier to get through the work in the SMART course understanding is crucial, hence I struggled. Fortunately, my teammates explained it to me and that helped a lot.

My best memories in Calculus 1 were the team quiz on Mondays mostly because of my bubble partner Dulce. To be honest, at first, none of us prepared for them and we were the last group to finish, I would like to believe that we did not prepare because we were still trying to understand how things really work in the class because it was different from most of our classes. We understood what we were taught in class but neither of us prepared for the team quiz hence that comment from Dr Torres on the first screenshoot of the team quiz (TQ.)  After a few failed quizzes Dulce, my partner, and I sat down and then we became accountable to each other. Constantly reminding each other to study and sometimes studying together as well. It did not only improve our TQ checkpoints but it also helped us in understanding the concepts we were learning. Understanding this concept helped in getting other checkpoints and mock quiz marks. This is evidenced by my Learning Target tracking sheet, which shows the earned points at the same time we started earning the TQ points. The team quizzes were on Monday hence that gave us a kick-start into the academic week.  TQ checkpoint and the other checkpoints as well because of the accountability plan.  I also found myself writing answers on the board and asking questions in class for clarity.

Finally, I am happy about the skill of  Integration of ideas that was instilled in me throughout the semester. SMART enabled us to link the information we were learning in each course. We measured the bacterial growth rate in the Biology lab using turbidity measured by spectrophotometry. We took the data and modeled the bacteria growth rate using exponential and logarithmic functions to transform the data. We applied logarithmic data transformation to determine the relationship between growth rate and temperature. This skill was encouraged such that I ended up linking with my other non-SMART classes such as Sociology and FYS intergrating the concepts is actually mentally stimulating because it’s talking or thinking about the same idea but through a different lens which can help in the consolidation of the information.