Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Reflection

I think my head is spinning!!! There was SOOOO much to cover in this unit. Each one could have a separate unit on its own! Some things I would like to reflect upon include the big lab project and the compendium review.

I had a lot of fun with the lab project. If you've taken the time to look through ALL of this information, you will see that I turned mine into a powerpoint video. It really helped me understand different processes and retain information by going through everything more than once. The lab definitely covered everything. Not only the major lab project but the two little labs to go with it.

I felt way too over whelmed with the compendium review. After looking at other people's, I am uncertain if I did it right. I went over everything that I had known or learned and there are some who just did an overview of the chapters to read. I do like how I did mine because, it took me through everything for probably the third or fourth time.

Lastly, this was fun because I discovered I did learn and retain something from all of my high school biology classes. When I first sat down and started going through this, I felt like I wasn't really learning or focusing. Then, I started to realize it was like a review for me, but so much more. Granted, biology is a class that is usually a two semester ordeal and covers everything into depth what we just briefly touched upon in this unit.

The compendium review was the hardest part for me, and my second topic compendium could definitely have been better. Now that I have a general idea as to what I am doing, hopefully the next unit will not be quit so overwhelming.

1 comment:

Larry Frolich said...

Katie Howser
SELF/UNIT EVAL.
Thank you for the honest and very reflective feedback—head spinning…wow…I knew biology was intense, but…for the next unit, please read the actual questions that I post for your self/unit eval, especially since they include some feedback for me on the unit..that is always valuable. There’s definitely no one right way to do the compendium and on first glance, your approach looks great.


COMPENDIUM REVIEW 1: CELLS

Your compendiums are perfect. Well-organized with the table of contents…all the topics covered…lots of interesting graphics…and you reference all of them. You show a great understanding of bio.

COMPENDIUM REVIEW 2: GENETICS
Same as other review—nice job!

MICROSCOPE LAB
Exemplary job. Perfect images…terms all defined, great background..nice job.


DRAGON GENETICS
Great lab write-up. I appreciate the personal touches—you’re the double recessive, huh? And you do a nice job defining all the terms. Why is one dragon still shooting flame-I think it needs another gene change??



BUILD A CELL
I think you’re the first student I’ve had who made a video for their project—such an obvious and great way to do it. I really liked the choices for materials and the careful explanations and really the use of multi-media to label everything—what a production! I’d encourage to look at how you’re recording your voice because it was a bit scratchy and sometimes hard to understand. The rest was great and very complete. …nice details on protein synthesis and DNa replication. And smiling “happy-face” chromosomes at the end!



ETHICAL ISSUE ESSAY: GENETIC ENGINEERING
I thought your essay was very interesting. You do a nice overview of some of the main aspects of cloning and raise a lot of questions at the end that I think merit answering before we completely accept this technology.

Katie,
Please don’t forget to do your peer color group feedback on their ethical issues essays—you’ll probably find it interesting to see some other blogs also. And get started on Unit II if you haven’t already. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns about this feedback or your grades which can be seen on the YC Blackboard site.

This is basically a perfect job on a really hard and demanding unit. I know it was a lot of work and I thank for all of that. I don’t have much more in the way of suggestions…I think you’ll find the next unit a bit less heavy on new information. Keep it up!
LF