Metacognitions! Post here as comments!

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Metacognitions! Post here as comments!

June 2, 2009 at 2:39 am · Filed under Homework

Your metacognitions are due posted in your blogs and my email inbox by Thursday, 5 PM. I would also ask that you post them here as comments and to comment on each others’ reflections.

You were to reflect on the National History Project’s Habits of Mind and write about: (a) which skills you developed/refined in APWH and through which activities and/or topics (in your response, please be sure to discuss and challnges or obstacles that you faced and your strategy to achieve a positive outcome; and (b) choose the skills you would like to refine/strengthen next year in APUSH. Imagine the kinds of activities, essays and projects that will help you reach these goals.

After taking this short poll, post your metacognition as a comment please.

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15 Comments»

zbergs93 wrote @ June 2, 2009 at 7:52 pm

Throughout the AP World History course I developed many new habits of mind. While learning about different societies, I often found myself “perceiving past events and issues as they were experienced by people at the time, to develop historical empathy as opposed to present-mindedness.” Every historical event that I read about, I would always wonder it was like to be living in that society at that time and I considered how I would have reacted to this event. Being very patriotic and proud of my religion, Judaism, this was particular whenever I learned about Jews, especially during the Holocaust, and about events in American history. Another habit I displayed was having a good sense of understanding how things happen and how things change. The thing that I will take most from this class is that I greatly improved my critical thinking skills because I analyzed situations in world history to determine the reasons, processes, reactions, and outcomes of historical events. I also was an expert of understanding the relationship between geography and history. I have been a geography fanatic my whole life, thus whenever geography was mentioned in our studies, it ignited my interest in learning, and I used the critical thinking skills I developed to comprehend the relationships between geography and history. One habit that I was not able to fully develop is the ability to “distinguish between the important and the inconsequential.” One of my main goals this year was to get rid of my problem of trying to memorize very last detail. While I did not fully accomplish this because I do sometimes try to learn more than is necessary or even possible, as seen on some pages of my textbook where I “highlight the entire page,” I did get much better at determining what is most important than I was when I started this class and it is a skill that I will be sure to work on and focus on in AP US History. In general I think I tremendously benefited from this class because I transitioned smoothly into an AP course and was able to develop many critical thinking skills that will help me with everything I do in the future. Although I still need to learn to single out and concentrate primarily on the more important things, I still made big strides in that area and now i only highlight 3/4 of the page =). But there have been times this year where I have been successfully able to focus on the most important aspects, and not surprisingly, those were some of my strongest chapters or civilizations.

boltonm wrote @ June 2, 2009 at 9:41 pm

Besides learning solely history throughout my time in the AP World History course, I have additionally learned things about myself as a history student and developed various habits of mind. I have realized as a result of this course that it is a strength of mine to be able to understand the way people felt in the past and I realize how issues were handled during the events being studied. I have expanded my mind while opening it to new things about the past, and am now not one to be stuck on the idea that the present is best. Throughout the past school year I have additionally refined my understanding of connections throughout history. Whether it is connecting the geography to the lives of the people and understanding the effects, or even just the connections between cultures I feel that through the course I have built a better grasp on how everything in the world is interconnected. I hope to expand on these strengths of mine in the upcoming years and courses that I am going to take in the future, and additionally become better at distinguishing between the important and lesser and read more widely instead of focusing on every specific thing.

hersh3y wrote @ June 3, 2009 at 3:59 pm

As a student of world history, I truly believed I have developed several habits of mind and other useful analytical skills that will help me not only in future courses, but in life itself. In world history, one sees the rise and fall of civilizations. The most interesting aspect of civilizations, in my opinion, is the “fall”, or decline, of civilizations. I believe that when a civilization falls, one must always question and say “why?”. If you truly understand why and how a civilization fell, then you can prevent it from happening again. The irony is that people don’t learn from each other, and many civilizations end up falling the same way. It kind of made me feel like a political science student, analyzing politics and what works and what doesn’t. It is quite the difference when before I never questioned why things happened and just let them be, when now I want to learn why certain decisions were made and why certain things happened. Also, this course gave me a broader perspective of the economy, and of what one truly means in society. This course showed me how one individual can make a difference when given the opportunity, and I really want to strive to be an individual and not just a piece of a puzzle. I go into next year’s course (AP US History) wanting to widen my horizon in terms of understanding politics and the economy, since those are my two favorite characteristics of society. I also want to know more about the country I was born in and the country I live in. I want to learn about decisions which were made that changed the face of this country and why they were done. Basically, I want to figure out why things are as they are now, and how we got here. However, I will not forget the habits of mind I learned this year, and the analytical skills that have guided me through this course will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Alan Herskowich

emet wrote @ June 4, 2009 at 1:05 am

I think that you will enjoy APUSH very much. Hopefully, we can get an AP Govet & Politics: Comparative by the time you are a senior. I think had you’d love it.

clancyc wrote @ June 3, 2009 at 4:46 pm

Throughout the course of the year in AP World History, I feel as though I have refined specific skills that are essential for any AP history student, but I know that there are certain habits of mind that I must improve as I continue on the path of advance placement courses.

This course has allowed me to refine my ability to comprehend the interplay of change and continuity over time. The writing portion of the AP exam included a change over time essay, which made me focus in on the aspects of civilization that had remained the same as well as those that had transformed. Another skill of mine that has improved is my analysis of readings based on point of view, time written, and historical events of the times. This helped me in the DBQ portion of the exam because I was able to quickly analyze a document that I had never seen before.

Despite this progress, there are of course areas that could use improvement. I think I sometimes continue to make hasty generalizations, which should not be done. I should also improve in geography so I can better understand how the placement of people affects history. If I work on these areas, I think I will be able to excel further along in my advance placement history classes

emet wrote @ June 4, 2009 at 1:24 am

Who doesn’t make hasty generalizations once in a while. I don’t think that I see you as that type of student. You are very ambitious and a natural leader. Perhaps, one habit of mind that you would enjoy refining is that of habit of reflecting on your learning/experiences through conversations. I write this because

I feel that you would enjoy the freedom that reflection allows

I know from working with you this year that you are a courageous student who believes that encounters with new ideas, experiences, developments and challenges will teach you and help you. So, why not practice the habit of “Doubting” – that is, when you doubt in a new experience (only after having learned as much as possible from believing) you discern, make judgments and find “holes” in the encounter. This sets up the habit of mind that I think is very difficult to master, but that you can achieve with practice: “Re-Storying by Languaging.” This is a habit that will serve you well at Breakout this summer. It’s the habit of using reflection on new learning and prior experience to write a new story of meaning from the experience that exceeded what was intended.

Why don’t you try these habits of reflection and tell me about World History as you rewrite it in reply and your blog?

perezv wrote @ June 3, 2009 at 6:58 pm

At the start of my sophomore year, I had a different, superficial approach to classes. Getting the grades was my single purpose and I stressed myself over the smallest things. I came into history, more eagerly than other classes, but I was still under the impression that whatever I learned from the teacher was whatever I would study and that would be it. Early on, though, things started to change. The course required students to be responsible for themselves and to “grow up.” I had to start thinking out of the box, I had to be the most efficient I could possibly be to get things done. And the strangest part was I did not mind doing all the work at all. Over the months, I had my ups and downs and the class had its ups and downs, yet I still managed to continue. I developed and worked on my habits of mind without even knowing that I was doing so.
Going into the course, I already had a comprehension of diverse cultures and of shared humanity. The way that I was brought up as well as the fact that I travel a lot really opened my eyes to the cultures around the world. I was also very familiar with uncertainty and the idea that not all problems have solutions. Several personal experiences helped me realize we can’t solve everything. The last habit of mind I was already using was perceiving past events as they were experience by people. Of course I knew it was impossible to know how people felt in history if there was no proof of it, but I was always interested in the human part of history, not the settings, events, etc. When I look at past events, I try to be as unbiased as possible because people’s ideals were different and so were their perceptions.
The last several months, I also developed habits of mind new to me, the most important being the comprehension of change and continuity. Throughout the course of our history class, we would always try to make connections between the past and present, and we would try to analyze what changed and what continued. We would then try to understand why. Looking at history this way was definitely more analytical than past classes in which we were just fed facts. I also began to understand the relationship between geography and history as a pattern of time and place, and as context for events. I became very familiar with developing the “discriminating memory” in which I had to distinguish between the important and inconsequential. It was a way of sorting things out by relevance and importance in order to have a clearer picture. Not only was this useful in history, but I used it in several other classes as well as my own life. Reading was a crucial part of the class and so was doing document-based questions. The habit of mind I developed from those was how to read widely and critically to differentiate between fact and conjecture, and evidence and assertion. We analyzed several types of documents in order to question the bigger picture. Through leader analyses, I also learned to recognize the important of individuals and their impacts on history and the way it turned out.
Although we profoundly worked with many of the habits of mind, there are a few I would like to examine more, and I hope that these few will be revisited next year in AP US History. The first is appreciating the uncertain nature of certain judgments about the past and then forgoing the urge to use them as lessons for present day problems. It always annoys me when people say we learn from the past so history won’t repeat itself. It obviously doesn’t work. We still see the same things happen again and again. I would like to work more with this habit of mind, however, to try and understand what first gave people the impression that they could fix every modern problem studying historical problems. I would also love to further understand how things happen and how things change when the process of carrying them out affects them. In class this past year we vigorously studied how things happen and how things change, but with weak emphasis on how outcomes are shaped by the means of carrying them out, in a tangle of purpose and process. I hope to further these skills through projects as well as class discussions because I feel like class discussions were what allowed me to develop all the habits of mind I did in AP World History.

http://perezv.wordpress.com

Bradley Jean-Baptiste wrote @ June 3, 2009 at 10:24 pm

Through this year’s social studies course, AP World History, I feel as though I have developed and reinforced a number of history’s “habits of mind,” enabling me to become a stronger history student overall. Entering the course, I admit I was not as strong a social studies student as I wanted to be, but through recurring themes in the course like the rise and fall of civilizations and the role of women, I have been able to develop a highly curious and thoughtful mind, helping me to succeed in this class. Over the year, I think I have improved my note-taking skills by learning how to take both short and efficient notes from the textbook and movies and I have learned how to proficiently and resourcefully study (and not stress ) for an AP exam.

With the knowledge of the inferiority of women in each empire studied this year, I have indisputably learned how to perceive past events and events and issues as they were experienced by people during certain times, a key habit necessary for achievement in an AP course. I questioned how certain leaders dealt with women and reinforced their inferiority and traced the rise of female leaders over time. Through films watched in class and project-based learning assignments like the Revolutions project, I was able to witness and full on witness how women suffered and how their treatment improved over time.

Another habit of mind I developed this year was the ability to understand the importance of individuals who have made a difference in history, and the significance of personal character for both good and ill. This habit of mind progressed, in my opinion, through the constant use of the leader analysis provided by Ms. Borchers. Because the sheet required us to trace changes with leaders and the rise and fall of civilizations, this learned skill will help as I move onto more difficult AP courses and other social science courses in my future.

As I move into my next AP course in the social studies course, AP United States History, I think reading widely and critically in order to recognize the difference between fact and conjecture, between evidence and assertion, and thereby to frame useful questions is something I can improve on. Unlike World History, which focuses heavily on a number of continuities and changes within given regions over time, US History focuses on exact people doing certain things on specific dates. For continued success in the class, this habit of mind is surely something I will need to strengthen over the summer in preparation.

Through profound class discussions, project-based learning assignments, short videos, and reading and taking notes from Barron’s and our textbook, I think I have developed positively as a stronger student of social studies student and have become ready to advance to more challenging courses in the future. Thanks Ms. Borchers!

emet wrote @ June 4, 2009 at 1:02 am

Wow! Thank you! You were a JOY in my course.

chapline wrote @ June 4, 2009 at 12:20 am

Metacognition
In Ms. Borchers AP World History Class this year, we’ve learned and expanded our individual and unique habits of mind. It has allowed us to advance beyond the formal skills of critical thinking and explore our own ways of learning. One of the habits of mind that I’ve been exposed to this year is being able to recognize the importance of individuals who have made a difference in history, and the significance of their personal character for both good and ill. In all civilizations that we have studied we went into depth and fully understood the importance of different people to their civilization’s survival, existence or in some cases, even their downfall; from Ivan the Terrible to Hitler in Germany. Another habit of mind that I have acquired is the ability to be able comprehends the interplay of change and continuity. These skills really made the difference when learning how to write the AP change over time essays. I believe that what I need to improve on for next year is being able to distinguish between the important and the inconsequential, to develop the “discriminating memory” needed for a discerning judgment in public and personal life. A lot of times when I’m reading chapters in a textbook I tend to highlight everything, thinking to myself that everything is important. So, what I think I need to work on the most is distinguishing between details and important facts. Developing these skills and habits of mind over time will allow me to increase my knowledge and abilities well beyond formal skills of critical thinking.
-Elizabeth Chaplin

Raquel Papu wrote @ June 4, 2009 at 5:25 pm

As I swiftly moved along through the Advanced Placement: World History course and thoroughly analyzed my behavior during the class, I found that my habits of mind include the following: I have learned to understand the significance of the past to my own life, both private and public, and to my society, to perceive past events and issues as they were experienced by people at the time, to develop historical empathy as opposed to present-mindedness and to understand the relationship between geography and history as a matrix of time and place, and as context for events. These habits were attained through constant reading and associating that which I read with my life, not only as a student, but as an ordinary citizen, for I took that knowledge and applied the historical past to my present life. As I did so, I noticed a pendulum; I found that the history of the world does not change, but instead revolves in one circle, going through the same cycles over and over again. Next year, during the Advanced Placement: US History course, I will be achieving more habits of mind in order to become an increasingly better student: the most important habit of mind I want to attain is learning to prepare to live with uncertainties and exasperating, even perilous, unfinished business; most importantly, realizing that not all problems have solutions. This is important to know that life is not perfect and that not all problems can be fixed; a lesson that will help me, not only in school, but throughout my entire life as an ordinary person. This class has really changed me into a better student, for I learned study habits that will be helpful next year when I have more than only one AP class, I have learned how to write concisely and to the point, and, most importantly, I have learned major organization skills. This history course was great and I hope to have such a great one next year!

Natasha Cirisano wrote @ June 5, 2009 at 6:40 pm

i emailed you my metacognition and it’s on my blog but here it is again:) :

Never from any other class have so many random bits of information come up in other parts of my life. History this year has broadened my knowledge overall of the entire world and how it fits together. Even though the “Habits of Mind” do not specifically list “general knowledge,” I think retaining knowledge and recognizing it in other places besides class (like literature and current events) is definitely a habit of mind that makes someone more learned overall. This class has given me more perspective because history is like a long novel with hundreds of characters and settings, each chapter and region a piece of how a larger picture fits together. The closest habit of mind that I can think for this feeling that I simply “know more” in general is “to acquire at one and the same time a comprehension of diverse cultures and of shared humanity.” I have learned more about so many cultures this year, but also about the similar traits of each, such as the empires and the common reasons for their rises and falls. The world seemed to be such a large place before, but even though after this course the world is still as diverse, it smaller and more familiar.

One habit of mind that I think I need to work on next year is the realization that not all problems have solutions, that not all decisions are rational, and that there is not always a concrete black and white reason for everything in history. Unlike science, which has consistently been one of my strongest subjects, history is not so empirical. There is no end and beginning to the experiment because history is a continuum: a never-ending test of how humanity functions with too many variables to categorize completely. History has made my mind frustrated this year because so many times the “solution” has been “undefined” or “no solution.” This can be kind of derailing — not having the precise calculation for an outcome. However, I know that if I work on trying to understand history as a more fluid subject with lots of grey and little clear “wrong” and “right” I will feel less overwhelmed that the events do not always work out as planned. As much as we have numbers and measurements to rationalize our world, humans can be very irrational and this must play into my understanding as well.

However, on the other hand, this habit of mind also realizes that “accidental” or randomness factors affect events in history. I do realize that a lot of life is random. There are general reasons why certain civilizations grew while others shrunk in their shadows (strong governments and trade relationships, for example). But, what if Alexander the Great or Akbar or Mansa Musa had been born in a different place, at a different time, or had died at an early age? Sometimes history revolves around very small focal points like these, which, even if one person’s existence were changed, the whole world might be different.

Lastly, according to the “Habits of Mind,” I need to work on what is called “a discriminating memory,” or the ability to pick out what is important to remember. I remember important themes, but also just random facts that I seem to like or that give me a vivid picture in my mind. Sometimes those random facts take up a lot of memory space! But at the same time, even though this discriminating memory is named as a habit of mind, I am a little hesitant to take it completely to heart. Through doing my blog project, I have learned that there is a very blurred line between the information that is deemed important and not important. Sometimes the most interesting facts are those that may seem unimportant to other people, but what is the meaning of knowing knowledge if it is not interesting? These unimportant and important categories also reek of test-prep, outlines, glossing over, Sparknotes, and Baron’s. I refuse to believe that the only way I should have knowledge is through distilling it down. I want to know the important points, but I want to know them with depth and within a framework that shows their complexity. At the same time, I still want to leave room for just those fun, random facts. Hopefully, if I can apply these habits of mind to my learning in the future, I will have a better understanding of the intricacies history.

**Update: Now that I’m done with this project, I think we should do more projects like this one next year in history classes whether it is to study a specific subject or a general concept like memories. Using technology to learn makes it more fun, and it’s also easily accessible to the whole class. I like “Project Based Learning” the best because is more creative and hands-on than other types of assessments like tests and quizzes.

emet wrote @ June 9, 2009 at 10:12 am

Metacognitions from Allie Perry, Jill Tunis, Summer Galitz, Daniel Goldfarb, Andrea Szerer and Denise Volovitz who posted on their blogs and I added here:

Allie Perry said…
Metacognition. What a strange word. The dictionary definition of a metacognition is “awareness and understanding of one’s thought processes” (Oxford American Dictionary). At first glance, I really didn’t understand what that meant. But then it hit me. A metacognition is like a map of how your mind pieces things together, or more of like a story of how the map of your mind has changed. Specifically, this metacognition is meant to address how the habits of my mind have changed since taking the AP World History course. Since I could seriously go on for pages and pages about every habit of mind has shifted since this year, I will just stick to one. One interesting theme that has hung over history is how irrationality has played as a factor in history. And beyond focusing on my reaction to this theme, I want to discuss how this course has changed me as an individual and as a thinker.
Before taking this course, whenever I used to learn of any event in history I never really considered that one question that hangs over everything on Earth: why? If a teacher or a colleague or anyone for that matter would tell me about some awful event in history, instead of considering why it happened, I would simply respond “oh, how awful” (more like “oh, how pathetic that this is all I can respond to something like that”). Since we learned history this year in chronology, pieces to the puzzle of “why” began to fill in. I already had most of “what” happened already in the bank of my memory, now I began to know why things happened. This made me question beyond the why and make connections between events. This quickly became a habit of mind through considering patterns in history that flow throughout each civilization. One of these patterns was irrationality. Whether it was using religion, or a scapegoat, patterns of irrationality in leadership led to issues such as war and genocide. Despite the fact that irrationality can be a difficult thing to consider as a “why” factor, by learning of these events in history using connections and great detail, it is easier to understand why people followed irrationality. By understanding culture, conditions, politics, heritage, and geography, seemingly random patterns of history began to make more sense.
By taking this course, I have learned a lot beyond habits of mind. I have learned that history is one long story of why we are here now and the way society has developed. It makes me think about how everyday that I am living now is a new page in history, and the events happening are setting the condition for a future Earth for generations to live on. If I had not taken this course, I probably would not have developed such thoughts. I would probably remain in the fog of oblivion and apathy and never understand the significance of history. In fact, last spring I went to Washington, D.C. and did the whole Smithsonian museum experience. At the time, I was a completely different person towards history. Instead of reading and understanding its relevance in my life today, all I thought about was getting to the big food court in the American History museum. If I were to return to Washington D.C. today, not only would I have a strong understanding of what is going on, but I would also have the willingness and capacity to learn more. To me, this is an incredible stride out of ignorance.
Lastly, I believe that this knowledge that I have accumulated will be extremely helpful for the future. Being able to understand allusions to events in the world, or even making allusions to events in the world is a gift.
Without this course I wouldn’t know the difference between World War I and World War II or the difference between each European nation for that matter. Having this large vat of information is also crucial to college life or social life. By having a firm grip on past events to current events can be a solid base for making important social connections for ultimate success in this world. Now that I have a new thought process regarding history, I will try to keep it fresh in my mind and always pursue information. In the end, this course has forced my mind to do a 360 degree turn and change my way of thinking to further expand my knowledge and habits.

Jill Tunis said…
After taking the AP World History course, I have become a more knowledgeable person and I have developed a new perspective on learning history.
Through the course I have learned world history not just as facts out of a textbook, but as a story. From our in class discussions to our practice essays for the exam, I have really grasped the role of change and continuity in history and the patterns that we see as history develops with the times.
Learning history was not boring and simple memorization, but rather a process of learning about what it was like to live in the shoes of those living in each region of the world at that time in history. To learn history without present-mindedness is a difficult task to accomplish. I do not feel that I have completely accomplished this task, but I have developed a good understanding of historical empathy. I hope that I further develop my understanding of historical empathy into my studies next year.
Throughout the entire year, I have learned history through change over time from each civilization to present day. It is not only understanding the survival, politics, economics, role of religion, and culture of regions, but also what has impacted these regions, their impact to other regions, and the regions’ development through the spread of connections across the globe.
I have become a stronger student and more knowledgeable person from taking this course, and I feel that this course has started me off on the path in which I will continue to improve as a student and become more diverse in my ways of learning. From taking this course, I am more interested in learning history and I am excited to develop more critical ways of analyzing and relating to history.

Andrea Szerer said…
In APWH I learned how to analyze the texts and not just read it. I learned this by doing DBQs and comparing different societies and how they changed over the years. The class discussions helped me a great deal because they explained to me why everything was the way it was and they also showed me the trends in world history. It was hard for me to start analyzing the text by myself, but eventually I conquered this skill. I practiced a lot until I could finally do it. Also, I learned the skill of having an organized discussion in class. Next year for APUSH I will like to learn how to further analyze the text.
Also, I would like to be able to tie World History and US history together to further my knowledge of the world. I hope that there will be a lot. I am sure of class discussions and interactive projects, for example a blog that we will practice a lot of DBQs, comparative essays, and change overtime essays in order to make the class easier to comprehend. I am looking forward to seeing what next year will bring.

Denise Volovitz said…
Throughout my sophomore year in Miami Country Day School I fully developed an understanding of the Advanced Placement World History course. Not only did I learn the basics of this course, but I also learned to think above and beyond the basics and challenge my mind to the skills of critical thinking.
Through this process I developed many habits of mind. The main habit that I focused on throughout this course was to understand how things happen and how things change, how human intentions matter, but also how their consequences are shaped by the means of carrying them out, in a tangle of purpose and process. This habit of mind truly defines my experience in the World History Course.
At the beginning of the year, all I really focused on was knowing the context that this course requires. However, as the year progressed, I learned that more important than knowing the context is knowing how to analyze the information. By analyzing the context of this course I was able to better understand why and how things happen, why they change, and how human intentions matter. I realized that its crucial to know how to define, describe, and analyze everything in order to develop the patterns that form our history.
Overall, this course not only taught me all about our world’s history, it also taught me various crucial skills that will be beneficial to me in the future.

Summer Galitz said…
This year, in my AP World History course, I have learned to understand how things happen and how things change, how human intentions matter, but also how their consequences are shaped by the means of carrying them out, in a tangle of purpose and process.
Ms. Borchers has taught me, as well as the rest of my class, to understand the trends of human nature and the patterns of the existence of civilizations. I have learned to comprehend the interplay of change and continuity, and avoid assuming that either is somehow more natural, or more to be expected, than the other. Ms. Borchers has aided me in my attempts to interpret different civilizations, which in turn have shown me the vast similarities between the emergence, existence, and extinction of different civilizations and peoples. Ms. Borchers’ teaching has helped me strengthen my skills in my study of history, and I have matured and grown in skill and intelligence as a history student.
Despite all of the knowledge and skill I have acquired this year, I still have much room for improvement, and next year in my AP U.S. History course next year I hope to improve on perceiving past events and issues as they were experienced by people at the time, to develop historical empathy as opposed to present-mindedness. I think this skill is a hard one to undertake, because it is so easy, and almost natural, to have a biased opinion of present-mindedness and the “superior” modern world compared to the “inferior, less-advanced” past.
I have learned more than I ever thought I would this year in my AP World History Class, and I truly enjoyed every minute of the course.

Daniel Goldfarb said…
In this year in AP World History, I feel that I have improved my understanding on how things happened and how things change, how human intentions matter, but also how their consequences are shaped by the means of carrying them out.
My future in history will use these newfound skills to not only understand how civilizations changed and grew but, how the world is what it is today.
This course also helped me understand the changes and continuities of everyday life. The most important thing that this course taught me was how to live with uncertainties, and realize that not all problems have solutions. The one thing I hope to improve in the years to come is the forming of ideas in relation to history, and other subjects.

emet wrote @ June 9, 2009 at 10:18 am

Kashif’s metacognition:

The Advanced Placement World History course this year has truly allowed me to develop a stronger thinking pattern and become a more efficient student overall.
Our in class discussions and interactive projects forced us to actually get an insight into the world of ancient history. This allowed us to not only enjoy the course more, but it also helped us see significant events from a different view point rather than simply studying from an archaic textbook. I feel as though my note-taking skills improved dramatically and this is a skill that I believe will aid me in not only my future history class, but also in all of my other classes.
Next year in Advanced Placement U.S. History I feel as though these skills will allow me to have a much more peaceful and relaxed experience. Through studying the treatment of women throughout history, we were able to develop the skill of determining patterns in history. Patterns of the rise and fall of civilizations were also noticeable.
I have also learned to analyze and draw factual based conclusions on the readings that I was assigned .The skills gained in this course have allowed me to excel in this class, and hopefully aided me to do well on my A.P. Exam. I believe the skills will also allow me to flourish as a student and achieve as much as I can in not only school work, but also in life.

emet wrote @ June 9, 2009 at 10:24 am

Ostin’s metacognition:

Throughout this year I have developed different habits of mind in order to aid the rate at which I learn and improve my comprehension of the subject. I
have been able to relate past events to current events. This has helped me create bridges between things which at first seen unalike. This alone is un-helpful which caused me to learn how to distinguish between significant and insignificant parts of discussion and the textbook. By using empathy I was better able to relate the past to the present, furthering my first habit of mind.
These major habits of mind as well as lesser ones I have developed throughout this year have allowed me to improve myself in both history as well as multiple other classes.

When Hell Freezes Over: Fractions of Truth in Cuba