11.19.2008 classroom reflection

[Sean Nash]

Post your reflection from today's class session... the overall unit on biochemistry and how it related to human nutrition and metabolism, the effect of writing a comprehensive summary prior to the exam, the effect of our mini-project related to the effects of online writing vs. a more standard approach.

What stuck out to you as particularly interesting or important? What did you or we learn from those things? Did anything you previously thought get changed in any way? What did your analysis of the data say to you? Did this work generate any further questions in your mind... any interesting ideas for future research come into your thoughts?

[Rachel Huntsman]

I thought it was interesting that the test scores for the blog posts and papers were exactly the same (both were 43.2 out of 58). This shows that whether you wrote a paper or a blog post, one didn't seem to prepare you for the exam anymore than the other. It appeared that the papers had a higher readability and word count, which I kind of expected because I think people tend to write more formally on papers, whereas the blog posts tend to be more opinion and informal writing. I thought it was really interesting to compare the papers to the blog posts, although I did expect there to be a bigger difference between the average test scores. At least a little bit of a difference simply because we were comparing two sets of data, and not even necessarily because they were either blog posts or papers.

After looking at these results I was wondering what people looked at to write their papers/blogs. Did they simply go off what they could remember, did they use their book or the internet, did they look at someone else's blog before they wrote their own, or did they use their notes? If notes were you used then the content of the writing is effected based upon how well the person takes notes. More things could definitely be researched using this data.

[Ryne Relford]

I was a little surprised that the bloggers didn't score better on the test, because by blogging they could actually write about a glucose structure for example and then insert a link to the structure and that would help them memorize that structure. While the people who wrote a paper like me would describe a glucose structure but we didn't use any pictures to actually show the structure. But this little problem could be fixed by the people who wrote the paper going over their notes.

I wasn't surprised by the word count and readability of the papers being higher, because we have been writing papers forever and we feel comfortable with it, while the people who are blogging could be a little out of their comfort zone and are maybe just getting used to blogging. Also when you have access to adding images with blogging you don't have to explain as much about structures or things of that sort, which means less words.

One thing that could of thrown this research of though is some people could of wrote their paper or blog maybe two days before we took the quiz. This could of lead to forgetting some of the stuff that was on the quiz which could of hurt their quiz score. So actually looking over your blog or paper to refresh memory of the topics could of played a factor in the scores. This was a very interesting research topic though.

[Kaylee Burris]

I thought it was interesting that the averages were so similar to one another, I thought that there would be a very visable difference. I thought, at the beginning, that the paper would prepare you for the test more because it is more formal and you have to really know your facts to put them in a paper. Where as when writing a blog I could link it to somewhere and have them explain it. When I did my blog I realized linking it to other things I learned more than I already knew because the websites had other information on them. I guess either way the average test scores were the same.
Another thing that was interesting was how high the word count and the readability got. On the papers the word count was higher, which I expected, because when writing a paper you explain things more, when in a blog you can just link it (meaning less words).
When looking at all the data I was surprised to see that there were not very many differences. I thought that when collecting all this data from papers and blogs that surely you could find a difference in test scores. I guess it all depends on were you got your information from in the end. This is one thing that could be tested (you could come up with a lot of things to test from this data).

[kristen sheehan]

Wow this mini project was really cool. It was crazy how they averages were the same. I agree with Kaylee when she said that she thought that the people that wrote the papers would have better test averages. I personally would have liked to write a paper. The reason being I haven't blogged any besides the two I have done for this class. But that is something that I am going to have to get over! :-)
This project was very interesting because we compared two different types of learning. The comparison didn't show a different in the data. The thing that is cool was that we could do this again, or in a different way. Meaning that we could make sure all people were present on the review days, or just change some of the ways we do things.
This is what makes science so interesting to me, things can always change.

[Zachery Langdon]

Today we analyzed our data on the blogs and the papers. In the end it seemed that the people that wrote the papers had a larger scale of readability and word count, thus doing better on the test. Even though writing a paper is easier than writing a blog (in my opinion) because it a paper it is less formal and you have to create hyperlinks to further explain your topic.
I believe that next time we should be able to choose if we want to blog or do a paper and see who gets the higher points. All in all I liked how we did this project, it was interesting to see the scores on the three different grading levels and we got to talk with our peers to further push the investigation.

[Taylor Snider]

It was very interesting to see how similar our scores were on the test. The blog posts and the papers are great ways to get you prepared for an exam. I thought that the papers would do better in preparing you for the test, but the blog scores and the paper scores were exactly the same. So either one would be the best in helping you for a test.
Overall, the papers had the higher word count than the blogs because doing the blogs are new to most of the students and the papers are what we are used to. So, we would write more in our papers. It was interesting to see how high the readability got, but in the end most of the scores from everything was pretty much the same. This was a fun project.

[Tori Scott]

It was very interesting how the data played out between the blog's and the paper's. I personally had thought that the people writting the blog post would have done better on the test. I thought this because i figured that the one's whose work would be published on the internet where anyone could see would really spend time collecting all of there thoughts and reading over there notes to write a good informative blog. And you would think that the more you had read over everything the more it would stick in your head and you would be able to retain the knowledge.

I was just a little embarrassed about my scores. I thought that i did okay until i saw how i really did. But if i really sit and think about it my blog was a little rushed and i didnt spend much time on it. So i guess that effects the quality of it. And in the greater scheme of things it affected my test scores as well.

[Chelsie]

To me it was surprising that both average scores of the paper and the blog were so closely related. I figured that the people that wrote the blog would get a better test score because when writing the blog they were able to show pictures of different molecules and link different websites to what they were writing. After comparing the word count and readability of the blog and the paper it seemed that the paper was higher in both. I think this is because in blogging its just throwing out facts and its a really unformal paper vs. a paper is more formal and organized.

Next time we do this I think that we should be able to pick whether we write a paper or blog. Then, look at the results of our tests scores and compare them to what we got on this last test to see if having a choice betters our tests scores. Honestly, I really didn't like how we split up into two large groups because when it came to putting all the data on the computer only three people were able to do that and the others really didn't have anything to do besides discuss what we already had discussed. I believe that we should have split up into smaller groups so everyone had something to do.

[Korby Trautman]

Im definitely more conscious about food labels now. Now that i understand them, it lets me see, from a whole new angle, information about the food I eat. Another thing I thought was interesting was the complexity of carbohydrates, fats, lipids, proteins, etc. It adds a whole new feel to how complex our bodies really are. We are composed of billions of those little annoying chains, its unbelievable to know how special we really are, haha!

Another thing that got me was the mini project on the effects of blog/paper on test scores. Overall, I think there wasnt to much of an affect. Yet, there were to many variables to consider in this experiment, next time we should narrow it down and try to hit the problem on the nose!

[Erin McAndrews]

Looking at the results of the test, I think it would be interesting to see if the scores would change if the people who wrote the paper this time, would do the blog instead. Then, those who did the blog would write the paper. I wonder if there would be any changes?
I thought it was kind of cool how the the average score was the same for the blog and the paper. I didn't expect that. I thought those who did the blog would have a better average score.

Was I supposed to learn the biochemistry unit freshman year? Because I really don't remember anything if I did.

[Abby Lucas]

After the biochemistry unit, I'm fully confident that I can better understand the effects of the four types of basic compounds on the human body. Not only that, but I am also more aware and picky of the things I eat. I find it hard to eat something without taking, at least, a glance at the nutrition label.

The comprehensive summary and the exam relationship is still hard to determine since freak accidents do occur. However, the simple thought that they the averages were exactly the same for the text scores was fascinating. The difference between blogging and writing a paper doesn't seem to affect test scores (as going by this test alone).

If we could expand this "experiment" to further tests I would be a bit more convinced (or unconvinced), but the results were intriguing to say the least.

[Chris Michaels]

This unit was pretty cool to me, from carbohydrates to proteins i thought i had a good handle on them but the score i got showed maybe not as much as i thought but it was still good, the mini project was cool to i got to see that my blogs readability was 12.0 and im not sure if that was good or not it would be interesting to see if that hurt or helped my score and final what the mini project showed us, we got to see the results and if the paper or the blog was a better way to study by the way the average score looks it seems htat neither hurt you because the average scores were pretty much the same