Coming from a high school that seemed like a revolving door for teachers I didn’t have the stability of an instructor to teach me Calculus 1, chemistry or biology. Hence I found it difficult to understand some of the topics that I’ve been taught throughout this semester, this however was no excuse for me to back down in my academic learning in college, I knew that this wasn’t going to be an easy road, no one said it was, I started building habits to help advance in the SMART program, such as going to office hours, asking help from my peers, and watched YouTube videos with practice problems to get better in my assignments.

Developing a growth mindset and learning from mistakes:

A learning target that I struggled on a lot was LT6 which consisted of The Elementary derivative rules and derivatives of basic trigonomic function. When i first got introduced to this topic it was an eye opener for me because i didn’t know the basics of trigonometry, when i look back I feel ashamed because it is a very easy topic to understand, but in the moment i cried because i didn’t understand the:

•  Constant rule
• Exponential functions rule 
• The rule of sums, and constant multiples 

These are basics that I should’ve understood already but unfortunately, I didn’t because of the lack of stability from my calculus teachers in high school. I Was on the verge of giving up, but I didn’t. Instead, if asked for help from one of my friends, she explained to me the basic rule of the question problems. Example

 

My Friend explained every detail that i needed to know and recommended me a website where I could practice problems and at the same time check to see if I had the correct answer, the name of the website is Calculus I – Differentiation Formulas (lamar.edu) I watched YouTube videos as well to get better insight, along with teacher’s notes and study guides she would post. This is something that has definitely helped me succeed in calculus 1. I saw a big improvement when I compared my first test vs. the last test. Hence, not only did I improve in my learning skills, but I also improved on my overthinking and on my confidence to do my work because I used to be so scared and nervous to the point where my stomach would hurt because of my overthinking. I was not confident in my work at all but with time I started to let go of my worries and I reminded myself to breathe when I felt I was under pressure.

Growth in self-efficacy:

When I came to college, I didn’t understand the importance of looking at the syllabus because I thought that if I read the syllabus, I was going to stress myself even more than I already was. This was a big mistake that I’d made, and I noticed this when I began my first class in biology. I noticed that my peers knew every single thing that Dr. Pierce, my biology teacher, was teaching. I honestly felt stupid because I didn’t know if i wasn’t forcing myself to pay a little extra attention or if I was taking my notes incorrectly, this happened for a week and a half until I went up to my teacher and asked if there were any videos that I could watch to succeed in his class, and he said “ I upload videos on my teachings in a box, and there is a calendar that has links to all of my lectures. I put this on the syllabus”. I felt a little embarrassed not to lie but at the same time I didn’t know how to navigate the box, but once I understood how to navigate said box, I started to make routines, where I would see every single lecture and take notes on everything. I started to see a big difference from my first test to my most recent test including the way that I had confidence to participate in class and answer Dr. Pierce questions.

At the beginning I found it hard to build a routine of studying every single day, I knew I had to build one since I didn’t know the basics of biology, chemistry, and calculus. Not only did I have to build a routine for studying but I also had to find ways to make time for myself and time for socializing, before that I didn’t have that routine, so I did get stressed and anxious because I was spending more time on my studies that I started to burn out. When I noticed this, I started to plan my day a day before and this did help me. I know that I can do things to improve my routine but for now I think I have a good balance in completing my homework, going to the gym and de-stress which I consider to be me time, and I also make time to go to social events.

Contribution to community learning and problem-solving: 

When working on team quizzes I was always nervous because we were only given 10 minutes to complete the questions. I was mostly nervous because I would overthink about my work, and I always took my time doing the questions and even though I sometimes got the answers right me and my teammate would compare our work between us so we would both contribute helping each other. When either one of us didn’t understand a certain question, we would explain to each other the rules and how to do it, even if it was during or after the team quiz. I was never afraid to ask my peers for help because it’s better to ask for help than to be wasting my time just staring at a paper not knowing what to do.

The way I contributed to my community was by helping my peers and friends when they needed help, if I understood the topic. By teaching my peers the material it helped me practice at the same time because if I taught them the material then it made me feel satisfied because this meant that I understood the lesson myself. Something I have to work on is to learn how to work under pressure. I want to be able to finish my math problems without getting nervous and overthink whether I did my work correctly or not, and just be confident with my answer. 

Improvement in the quality of your communication of technical material:

When it came to my tests, I lacked my written communication. For example, I didn’t always show my work in my exams and I only used the methods I learned in algebra to get to my answers. By doing this I thought that I was going to be able to pass my test but I didn’t. Dr. Torres explained to me that even though I had the correct answer she wanted me to explain my work the way she had taught us, by using Calculus 1. The reason I had to do this was because in future lectures I would get confused about how to do a math problem. I honestly got mad because I still had the correct answer but I did understand her point.
When Dr. Torres gave me the chance to revise my test I read the comments that she gave me to improve my work. I also started going over the notes that I took during her lectures, and I watched YouTube videos to have a better understanding of the lectures. Once I started to apply her work to my revision test, I passed my test. I started seeing that all the lectures were connected in a way that required them to do almost the same steps as the previous lectures. In addition to this, I compared LT2 Vs LT3 and they both had the same math. As shown in LT2 I did my work as Dr. Torres had asked me to show my work and I passed the test. In contrast LT3 I did my work as I was taught in the past and I didn’t pass that test, from there I started to see the connection between all the LT and I started to get better at my tests and in my revision tests.