Unit #2 Reflection

1.) Describe how you prepared/studied for the unit test. 
         I studied for the unit test with the "cheat sheet" we created in class.  First, I read through all the titles and all of the subtitles to introduce myself to them, and then I made acronyms for each topic.  I made "TDAD" for the big ideas - Tools, Developing culture, Adapting to the environment, and Development of humans.  After that, I made "Laura Believes Art is Social" for Developing culture to remember Language, Beliefs, Art/ornaments, and Social/emotional.  I made similar ones for each of the other main topics.  I had my dad repeat the acronyms after me so I could use as many senses as possible to study (see, hear, touch, smell, taste).  Of course, I could only hear and see my notes, but two senses is better than one.  After that, I practiced writing down the cheat sheet on separate pieces of paper using my acronyms until I got them perfectly.  Over the next day, I popped mini quizzes on myself where I had to write down everything that I'd studied on a piece of paper to keep the facts in my head.  Then, the night before the test (Sunday night), I decided to study some dates to try to make my test answers just a little better.  I took my Humanities notebook before I went to bed, and I looked at the chart with all the different hominids and their times on there.  I memorized the dates right before I went to bed so my brain had time to mull over them while I slept.  After that, I woke up, went to school, and did the test.

a.) Do you think your studying strategies were effective - why/not?
         I think that my studying strategies were effective, because I was able to stick facts in my head easily. I didn't mess up when I was practicing drawing my cheat sheet too many times after I understood the basics.  I also was able to remember some of the dates (time periods when certain hominid species were alive) to put on the test.

b.) How will you prepare next time?
          I think that next time, I will prepare the same way, because I was really able to use the information I studied on the test, but I might look through my notes a little bit more than I did this time.  That way I can be more prepared for the multiple choice questions, where they ask you to answer very specific things. 

2.) What was the most surprising thing you learned about during this unit?
          I thought that learning that Turkana Boy was 5 foot 3 at eight years old was very surprising.  I don't think that I know any eight-year olds that are taller than me, and that was mind-boggling.  After I learned that Turkana Boy had the growing rate of a chimpanzee, it made more sense, but it was still super hard to imagine. 

3.) If we had more time to spend on Prehistory + Early Humans - what would you want to learn more about?
          I think that it would have been nice to learn more about Homo floresiensis (the hobbits), because of the fact that they were so small, and no one knows for sure why.  We did take notes on them, but we didn't actually do any activities or go into deeper depth about them.  In our unit, they were pretty minor hominids.