What effective study skill or approach to your academic progress stood out as working well for you and why?

The effective study skill or approach that stood out to me as working well was putting my phone in the other room and listening to music. I had always been opposed to listening to music while doing any homework, but I tried listening to music while working and it has really made a difference. I think listening to music is so helpful for me because it allows me to relax and focus on the task at hand. It also gives me an easy way to block out the distracting noises present in every day life. Also for Christmas I received a pair of noise cancelling headphones that are extremely beneficial to me.

Of what assignment, project, activity, etc. are you most proud and why?

I am most proud of my research paper for visual art history. I am proud of this assignment because I received an -A and I had put a lot of effort and hard work into writing it. I was also proud because I usually struggle with writing, but for some reason this paper seemed easier than usual. I think that this is mostly because I took extensive writing classes over the summer to get where I wanted to be with my writing. I also believe that I have matured and that has helped my writing as well as the class.

What didn't achieve the results you intended and why not?

LAKACS Learning Center

I didn't achieve the results I wanted on my fist couple of blog posts in English because I was not completely sure of what was expected of me. I think that the main reason I did poorly on my first couple of blog posts is that I hadn't known my teacher, Ms. Pringle for long enough to know what she expects, grades hardly on. I think that I have made positive steps because now I am scoring higher on my blog posts, and I asked questions about I needed to do to get a good grade.

To what extent did content from this class prove useful to you and why or why not?

I do not think this class helped me that much because the only website I have used was Evernote, for taking notes in some of my classes. I think that I also have not used much from this class because I do not have a note based class yet. I think that second semester when I have history I will used the new knowledge from this class. I also think that compared to the beginning of year I have gotten a better student in this class. I now turn in my assignments and do not procrastinate as much.

In the second semester I want to continue to improve my grades. I am going to pay more attention in class and talk less as well. I will achieve both of these tasks by reminding myself that I am at school to learn, and by remembering that as the oldest in my family I need to set a better example for my siblings.

Kevin Tyson

My initial reactions- I do not know how to unblock a site and the timer is beginning to stress me out. I think that I will find StayFocused to be very useful once I understand how the extension worked. In the beginning I accidentally blocked google, youtube, and my poly. I had to wait until the sites were available to use the next because I have no idea how to unblock them.

After further exploration of the extension- I explored much of the StayFocused extension. After playing with StayFocused I was able to use it as a constructive tool to get work done when I am struggling to focus on the task at hand. I found that if you are really unfocused and or procrastenating this can be a helpful tool. If I am unfocussed or need to get something done this is a great extension, but if I just want to use my computer after I am done with homework it makes it hard if you cant use some of your favorite sites until the next day. I think that a tutorial video would have been very beneficial so that I would have known how to unblock a site and not be so scared about not being able to use my My Poly over break. Overall I think this is a good extension, that allows me to maximize my efficiency.