Throughout this semester in chemistry I explored a lot of new topics and became stronger as a learner. This year was the first time I've been in a chemistry class, I've had science before but not like this class. Science was never a class that I liked but I didn't hate it either. Since we did have a lot of freedom with our projects/labs I noticed how many things that I'm interested in. I prefer doing hands on projects instead of sitting down and filling out a worksheet. I am a visual learner, therefore I chose to do mostly all labs and experiments. I also tried working independently to reach out of my comfort zone. I became much more interested in chemistry and researching topics that I never would have done myself.
I felt like I was motivated by curiosity mostly because we did have lots freedom in the choices we made. I enjoyed the idea of choosing what we wanted to do, most teachers don't allow that and it was our responsibility to plan upon ourselves. I appreciated that we were trusted to do anything we wanted, and challenged ourselves while doing it. I was not so motivated by curiosity when something didn't go as planned. For example, the first experiment I did was extracting oils and making moisturizer. During the extraction process it was very stressful, it was the first time I have heard of taking oils from plants/flowers and we had no idea how it would turn out. Luckily we had the help from Andrew so we weren't alone. We unfortunately didn't get as much oil as we anticipated. The level of motivation and confidence went down when we started the moisturizer process. Another thing that I was not motivated was when we were towards the end of each section. It was sort of a stressful time when it came to finishing up work and blog posts.
I took away some aspects of this class, it might seem very simple but I all around enjoyed this class. The freedom was big for me. It gave myself and my classmates the responsibility we've always wanted from teachers. I learned to take chances and enjoy chemistry. This has been my all time favorite class. If I had the opportunity to stay in this class for the next two years I would totally take it in a heart beat. I really wished I had chemistry for a whole year instead of only one semester. I think I would have been able to explore more and have more time to do projects.
My overall experience this semester was wonderful. I got to make things I never would have done before. I gained skills such as time management and responsibility. I’ve learned to now love chemistry from this class. Not only did I have fun in this class but I had a wonderful funny and supportive teacher to be there. Andrew helped me with one of my first projects of the semester, extracting oils. He was so willing to help and provide us with anything we needed.
I felt like I was motivated by curiosity mostly because we did have lots freedom in the choices we made. I enjoyed the idea of choosing what we wanted to do, most teachers don't allow that and it was our responsibility to plan upon ourselves. I appreciated that we were trusted to do anything we wanted, and challenged ourselves while doing it. I was not so motivated by curiosity when something didn't go as planned. For example, the first experiment I did was extracting oils and making moisturizer. During the extraction process it was very stressful, it was the first time I have heard of taking oils from plants/flowers and we had no idea how it would turn out. Luckily we had the help from Andrew so we weren't alone. We unfortunately didn't get as much oil as we anticipated. The level of motivation and confidence went down when we started the moisturizer process. Another thing that I was not motivated was when we were towards the end of each section. It was sort of a stressful time when it came to finishing up work and blog posts.
I took away some aspects of this class, it might seem very simple but I all around enjoyed this class. The freedom was big for me. It gave myself and my classmates the responsibility we've always wanted from teachers. I learned to take chances and enjoy chemistry. This has been my all time favorite class. If I had the opportunity to stay in this class for the next two years I would totally take it in a heart beat. I really wished I had chemistry for a whole year instead of only one semester. I think I would have been able to explore more and have more time to do projects.
My overall experience this semester was wonderful. I got to make things I never would have done before. I gained skills such as time management and responsibility. I’ve learned to now love chemistry from this class. Not only did I have fun in this class but I had a wonderful funny and supportive teacher to be there. Andrew helped me with one of my first projects of the semester, extracting oils. He was so willing to help and provide us with anything we needed.