1. I believe that I did learn the first, which was how to be discerning in reading scientific papers and select relevant information. Through having to read many different papers on a wide variety of topics, both for my class and final project, I think that I’ve been able to more easily scan through and identify the most relevant/important information first, and then read more in detail. For the second, I think that I have added to my understanding of how this process works, specifically through gene regulation. I have learned many new methods by which organisms and cells are able to vary their expression throughout development.
2. i) I don’t think that is any circumstance that I have been really attentive to me doing this, though I am pretty sure that I did it as I believe that I was able to successfully regulated my learning.
ii) One specific situation that I was able to resist distractions was when I was writing up the draft of my final project. I think that I did this because I just got so interested in what I was learning/writing, I was actually enjoying it rather than think of other things that I could have been doing.
iii) A circumstance in which I persisted even though the task was difficult would be in creating the group infographic. I didn’t quite understand some of the other papers, as I hadn’t read them myself, but I made sure to ask questions and learn further into what each one was saying, even though at times I did want to just stop and go back to my own paper.
iv) I believe that I responded strategically/adapted flexibly would be when receiving feedback from ComPair for my final project. Some of the suggestions were very vague, such as your writing isn’t clear enough or I didn’t understand this, or the feedback was just “good job”. I adapted to this by asking a few friends to read through my project, and identify for me what exactly wasn’t very clear or what they were having trouble understanding, rather than just get frustrated and keep doing what I wanted to.
3. I think the most challenging part of this course was staying on top of my final project amid demands from many other courses. At times I would let it slide, and have to catch up on it quickly for a deadline (especially for the outline). However, I was able to overcome this challenge by working hard, and writing down important dates in my planner, and trying to work on my project a little bit every day rather than leave it all to the last few days to get it together.