70 thoughts on “Blog #100 – Final Reflection”

1. Lizzie P June 15, 2017 at 6:16 pm

   1.) My favorite way to learn in APUSH this year was through the PowerPoint notes. This is my favorite because it is a time when everyone chips in to the conversation. I like the way that you teach/talk and it makes taking notes a lot less boring. PowerPoint notes are most effective for me because lectures are the best opportunity to ask questions and offer comments. I feel as though in APUSH, the classroom setting is mostly calm. The lectures sound less like lectures and more like conversations. I absorb the information much better during the PowerPoint presentations than I do watching a video. Going off of that, my least favorite way to learn is watching videos. A lot of the videos are kind of boring, as the speakers show no emotions in their voices. I liked the videos at the end of the year (ToughGuise and Killing Us Softly), because they were a lot more exciting. The past videos have simply been one speaker reciting a ton of facts. I feel like I focus too much on trying to hear exactly what the film says to get all of my notes down, that I don’t actually absorb the information. In other words, I pay more attention to completing my notes than I do actually absorbing the information in the videos. If the videos were more lively and exuberant, than maybe I would absorb the information better.

   2.) I wish that we studied World War 2 into more detail. That was the one test that almost everyone did poorly on. I feel like a lot of the topics in World War 2 were brushed over. We did not really learn much about the Holocaust and the motives of the different countries/sides fighting with each other. I remember in World History we learned a lot about many powerful dictators/leaders during World War 2 that we did not cover in APUSH.

   3.) To be honest, I feel that we did not spend too much time on any topic this year. I really liked the pacing of our course. If I had to choose, I wish we spent less time on the Cold War. I am aware that Communism was in effect for many years, and I feel like understanding the main ideas are important, but we did not have to know every little detail. If I think back to first trimester, I feel like the highlight of the tri was The Cold War. That took up a great chunk of time, as there is so much information.

   4.) APUSH is a challenging class, and it really illustrates your strengths and weaknesses. I would say that I strength of mine is my effort. I always try to complete my assignments to my fullest potential. With this drive to do my best on assignments, I learn more information and complete ALL assignments on time. I am not one to miss any assignments. Secondly, I am good at taking the text, whether it is in a book, article or video, and changing it into my own words. Putting facts into my own words helps me understand the information so much more. On the other hand, a big weakness of mine is that on tests, I second-guess myself a lot. For example, on the practice AP multiple choice, I decided to erase 4 of the answers that I had originally put down and changed them. In the end, my original answers turned out to be correct. You came up to me before the AP test and basically told me to trust my gut. Another weakness of mine is that on some test questions, I do not know what a word means. It’s hard to understand a question if you do not know what a word means.

   5.) From APUSH, I have learned many things. I now better understand history and how past events connect to now. It is most definitely true that history repeats itself. Secondly, I have become so much more politically informed. I have never really been that interested in politics and did not understand all of the hype around it, but now I have a lot more knowledge in the area. Lastly, APUSH taught me that our country has made many of mistakes. However, in the end, we tend to fix things and rebuild our nation to get stronger and stronger. When our country unites and there is a spike in nationalism, things are good.
2. Ethan P June 15, 2017 at 6:53 pm

   1. The most effective way that I learned during the school year was from the slideshows. I don’t know what it is about me, but I learn best when someone is verbally explaining stuff to me and I have to take notes. Because of this, the powerpoints were perfect for me to learn from because they were exactly how I learn best. My least favorite way to learn was by reading the textbook. I can’t really learn by sitting by myself reading a dry textbook for an hour at a time; it makes me lose interest in the subject matter, and thus, I don’t learn as well. This was also the reason I hated the summer-reading work as much as I did.

   2. I wish we would have covered the more modern history (1990s—present day). The reason I would have liked to talk about this more is because a lot of the things we would have studied with that are things that we either can remember or can relate to more easily than other topics covered in a traditional history class. It would also be interesting to see if any of us had misconceptions about events that we can remember, because that could change our perspective on how we reacted when we heard about it.

   3. I wish we hadn’t covered World War II as in depth because I already felt like I had a good grip on the material before I went into the test. Specifically, we talked about the Battle of Anzio, D-Day, the atomic bombs, and other events that I believe most people already know about due to their notoriety. While we were talking about this, I talked to my friends about it and most of them said that they hadn’t gained any additional knowledge on the subject matter through the class, so I think it would be a good idea to focus less on World War II and focus a little more on post-WWII and the Cold War.

   4. My strength as a student this year was anything that I had to write from home and not for or as a test. I was horrible at short answers, long essays, and the dreaded DBQs, but I managed to do well on the portrait questions, blogs, and other at-home based writing activities, like the Lincoln Eulogy or the current presidential debate. I was also pretty good at not knowing anything about what I was about to take a test on and getting high Bs on the tests, but I guess that just comes down to good guessing.

   5. My biggest takeaway from APUSH was learning that American History is not as clean-cut as I had always thought. My previous belief was that a lot of events occurred, and because of this, we can learn from them. But some of the events that occurred are still debated on, especially when it comes to motive for an event. For example, we had many debates about things that I would have previously thought to be decided already, like whether or not the people should govern themselves. Overall, I feel that APUSH is a class that most people should take, and I am glad that I did. It has been a truly eye-opening class and experience, and I hope that it only gets better from here.
3. Andrew Beggs June 15, 2017 at 7:07 pm

   1) My favorite way of learning APUSH this year was by far Google docs. They were definitely the most beneficial to me when I was trying to study for a test. The reason I think they were so beneficial and effective is because they are quick, easily, and easy to understand. Google docs are extremely easy to access because they are on the internet. You can easily go on your phone and study a whole chapter of APUSH. They are very quick too. They are on average about a short paragraph long so you can easily read a quick and easy summary about an APUSH term. Since we are 10th graders writing these paragraphs and not professors and historians it is very easy to understand. I find Google docs the best for these reasons and I feel they bring a log of success to a student. My least favorite way of learning the material would be the portraits. I felt that the portraits were very ineffective because most people just looked for the answers and didn’t entirely read the whole article. From my experience I felt that I wasn’t motivated to do them as well because they were extremely long and a lot of reading. And after a lot of reading you get tired and don’t feel like paying attention to the text anymore. I felt that for the most part they were unnecessary because they didn’t really teach that much and they didn’t help me learn more about that certain subject. Overall, I thought the Google docs were very effective and the Portraits weren’t as effective.

   2) I feel that we should’ve spent a little more time on the 1930s/Great Depression. This year when we covered that period, we were cramming it right before the AP test which is a reason why we didn’t get to spend a good amount of time on it. But I believe that this time period was a very important part to our history. We were out of World War I and we were in the time period between the World Wars. The Great Depression was also occurring during this time period. I feel that this time period had a lot of important ideas and events happening and I wish we spent more time learning about the Great Depression and the 1930s.

   3) I feel that we should’ve spent less time on the 1950s. The 1950s did have some important events such as a Korean War, the change in our society to consumerist and also the rise of communism. But i felt that in the United States not that many important events were occurring and I feel that the 50s should be a quick and easy unit to cover. Historians even say that when Eisenhower was a president he didn’t really have a true test to determine if he was a good or bad president. It was kind of a grey period because it was right after the war. I feel the 50s could’ve been a quicker and easier unit to cover with not that many historic events happening.

   4) I feel one of my main strengths as a student was my ability to write. I did very well on my portraits getting 100% on pretty much every one. I pretty well on my first DBQ getting a 36/40 and everyone got a 36/40 on the second one. I feel that my writing was one of my strengths in this class which is good because a lot of the AP test was writing. I thought I did decent on my tests as well. Some of the tests during first trimester I thought I could’ve done better but 2nd trimester most of my tests were in the B range which I am proud of. Quizzes were also a huge strength of mine because it was a short piece of material I could cover very easily. i got A’s on most of my quizzes. Some of my weaknesses in this class were my note taking skills. During the PowerPoints I usually didn’t take good notes and I didn’t find them very useful to me either. During the movies I took decent notes but I don’t find them that helpful so I’m not the best notetaker nor do I wish to be.

   5) My takeaway from APUSH for the class itself is that hard work will definitely pay off. APUSH is all about working hard to receive and good grade and I guarantee if you put the time into the class, you will receive a good grade. What I truly learned about American History is that it runs in waves. There are a lot of great times in America and lot of terrible times in America. The economy will always rise and fall and change will always happen in America. There is little repetition in my opinion and a lot of facts of American history and the years go on are new and unexpected. It is definitely different than other countries history because our government system is different and our history has so much new ideas and creations then other countries. Overall, I really enjoyed this class and if you work hard at it, you will receive a good grade in the class.
4. Griffin Kozlow June 15, 2017 at 7:09 pm

   1) My favorite way to learn this year was through PowerPoints. I have a photographic memory, so it was much easier to visualize what we learned and what we taught us if we learned it in a visual way. I tended to enjoy notes days (as much as possible) when we had PowerPoints. I liked them much more than the highlighting notes. When I wasn’t physically writing down words, I tended to skip over things and not really retain any information. If I had to choose one of the learning styles from this year it would be PowerPoints. My least favorite were videos. I found them monotonous and boring, no matter how passionate the speaker was. Doing the questions/facts/hashtags sheets made me more concerned about writing down a lot of information than paying attention to the video and learning things. I think that if I learned 95% of the things you said during a PowerPoint presentation, I remembered 30% of what we highlighted during notes. I tend to feel the same about Google Docs. When I am not physically writing about the topics, I tend to forget them. I only remember the topic I wrote about. If we learned every topic that appears on a Google Doc in class, I would retain the information much better.
   2) I wish we had spent more time on the 21st century. After the AP Test, I was excited to learn about what is truly relevant to me today. When we learned about the time period from 2000-2009 I was really interested in the topics and looked forward to coming to APUSH and taking PowerPoint notes every day. After the final test, we stopped learning new information, and I wish we had learned about the things from 2009-2017. I think that a lot of kids would find it very interesting. It also tends to be more interesting to listen to you talk about the 21st century because it is in your recent memory. Since it is better engraved into your memory, it becomes better engraved into ours and therefore is more interesting.
   3) I wish we didn’t go as in-depth on the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Industrial Revolution and the period of Imperialism were not interesting at all to me. I feel like a lot of the information was just being taught because it was part of the curriculum. We didn’t learn much about the Presidents, and it seemed as if we kept talking about new things that didn’t relate to one another. That time period didn’t interest me at all, and from what other people have told me, it didn’t interest them either. I loved the 1700s and the early 1800s as long with the mid and late 1900s and early 2000s. Had we spent more time on these topics and not as much on the Industrial Revolution and Imperialism, I would have enjoyed the class as a whole more.
   4) My number one strength as a student was understanding the causes and effects of everything that happened, along with just being able to understand the topics thoroughly. Going into the class, I didn’t think I would be able to sit through notes for a whole class period, but I really surprised myself. My biggest weakness as a student was analyzing the primary sources and answering related questions on the tests. I don’t know if it was just because of the old-fashioned proper language or the abstract questions, but it really brought my grade down. I could have a complex conversation with someone about any of these time periods, but I could not do well on a test that had a lot of primary sources. I would have liked to spend time learning how to break down and answer these types of questions, and I feel like I had done better if that were the case.
   5) During this year, I learned that not all concepts and topics will come easily to me. I will have to work to get a good grade and study for pretty much every test in certain subjects. The class really taught me work discipline, because it was the first time I had truly struggled academically. I’m glad I took APUSH because now I will have these skills to take with me to my Junior year and beyond.
5. Claire Hornburg June 15, 2017 at 8:01 pm

   1. I’d say my favorite learning style we used this year was just doing the power points. It was simple but effective, and the power points were the main thing I looked over when studying for tests/finals/the AP exam etc. For me at least the way I learn things the best is just by listening to someone talk/lecture about it, and the power points were good because then you for sure know what to study, as opposed to guessing which parts of the chapters in the book were going to be on the tests. Another thing I liked was the Agree/disagree/undecided and the presidential project at the end of the year. Both of those things were good because they were argumentative, which got me to think about the other side of things and to be more motivated to learn things. I especially think the a/d/u was extremely beneficial for everyone because it helps you understand the other side of things in political matters, which is very important and unfortunately rare in today’s politics. One huge thing I advocate for when talking about politics is not being rude or disrespectful to another person, and trying to understand their point of view or why they think the way they do, and the a/d/u helped me learn more about other people’s perspectives. I’d say the least beneficial thing this year was the movies, just because it’s hard to focus on a movie with so many things going on in a classroom, and I personally find it hard to take notes about a video, because I’ll be too busy writing something down and I’ll miss information about it. The note taking made watching the videos stressful because I was constantly worried about missing a question and falling behind, and instead of listening to all the information in the video I’d just be listening for the answers to questions, or things that would be easy to write down as notes.
   2. I wish we spent more time on the great depression and just generally the period between world war one and world war two. I know we didn’t spend much time on it because the AP test was coming up and we were running out of time but it would have been nice to go more in-depth. I also wish we would have done everything chronologically instead of moving around from the colonies to world war two back to the revolution and stuff because I feel like in history everything is a linear progression and every event that happens leads into the next event, especially with world war one and two, which are very strongly correlated. I feel like the break in between the two was a bad place to split it because the two wars are so connected.
   3. I wish we spent less time on early/pre-colonial America. I think that stuff is kinda boring (sorry John Winthrop, John Rolfe, John Smith, and other miscellaneous Johns) and the modern stuff was much more fun to learn about. Especially the cold war years those were my favorite to learn about (especially Ike because he was a great president and totally should have beaten H.W. Bush in the contest but WHATEVER). The early America chapters weren’t as interesting as the rest of the units I don’t know why.
   4. I’d say my greatest strength was doing the homework that involved writing (i.e. portraits and blogs). For some reason I just got really into both of those things and ended up writing way too much, especially if the blog was something I felt really passionately about. Writing the blogs was especially fun because I got to express my opinions and I have a lot of those. I just really like writing about history so those assignments were some of my favorites to do. I think my greatest weakness at first was the short answers and long essays on tests. When I was writing them at the beginning of the year I was too focused on making it good writing and having everything flow together and sound nice and I’d run out of time. I didn’t like doing the writing portions on the test (I know you can’t get rid of them because they’re on the AP test but still) because it was more about getting all the facts down than actually having a nicely written essay and that bothered me a lot.
   5. My takeaway is that history is not black and white; there are many disagreements about why certain events happened or how good or bad certain people were in history. Before this class I didn’t really think history could be that controversial, I just kind off assumed that facts were facts and that everything was pretty straightforward, but after taking APUSH I realize that’s not the case at all. Many things can be argued in history, chiefly causes and effects of major events and actions of major historical figures, and it’s important to take into account all sides of the story.
6. Josh Myers June 15, 2017 at 8:56 pm

   1. I found that I retained information best from the PowerPoint presentations. While they were not always the most interesting to take notes with, I remembered everything much better than if I had learned it using a different method. Also during the PowerPoints, students were able to ask questions and get immediate answers. Though I didn’t ask many questions, the other students in the class had brought up some things that I would have never even thought about in the first place. This helped me understand the topics more than if we had watched a video (where questions often go unanswered). I also liked the PowerPoints because I had all my notes on the chapter in one place. It was easy for me to go back and look at the notes and pictures included in the PowerPoints if there was something that I was unclear about. The method that was the least effective for me was the videos. While it was sometimes nice to get a break from the lectures, I found that I usually got distracted while watching the videos if we were not taking notes to turn in. The notes that we took from the videos were also not as convenient to study from as the PowerPoint notes were. I felt that the question, fact, hashtags format of the notes was not always the most helpful, especially the hashtags. While the hashtags were sometimes entertaining they did not help my understanding of the topic.
   2. I wish that we had spent more time learning about FDR and the time period around the Great Depression. This was one of the last things that we had studied before the APUSH test, and I felt that it was a little rushed. This time period is very important in American history and I feel that we all could have benefitted from learning more about things such as the New Deal and the Great Depression. I had a harder time remembering this time period because I feel that I did not have a proper amount of time to learn and retain the information.
   3. I wish that we had spent less time studying what we had done for summer reading. While it is important for understanding some reoccurring issues in American history, I feel it was not necessary to study it in as much detail as we had. We had to take notes and answer questions about the topic over the summer. Once school had begun, we spent a long period of time reviewing this material so we could take a test on it. I think that it would have been better to do a brief review of it and maybe have a watered-down version of the test.
   4. I think that one of my major strengths as a student is that I am able to resist distractions and concentrate on what we were doing in class. When we were taking notes on the PowerPoint lectures, I felt that I was generally very concentrated on the notes and I rarely went on my phone. This definitely had helped me in the long run as I did not often zone out of the lesson. My biggest weakness as a student was procrastination at home. Looking back, I realize that I left a lot of homework assignments until last minute. I left the blogs, google docs and portraits until the night before they were due, even though we were notified about all of our assignments a week in advance. Even this blog that I could have done a couple of days ago I have left to do the night before my APUSH final.
   5. In APUSH I will take away the many different perspectives that I had heard about while in APUSH. We have studied a lot of raw information, but an important part of history is about how it is interpreted. I have been able to learn how people with other views think about certain topics, and I know that there are many views that I have not heard.
7. Jordan L June 15, 2017 at 8:59 pm

   5th Hour

   1) Throughout the year we had several different learning styles, from reading to writing to studying and even to watching videos. However, the learning style that I think was the most effective in trapping information in my head was the power points. I think that the power points were the best the method of learning because they were filling with key information that would be on the next test and it was already organized by Mr. Wickersham. Additionally, the power point was something that I could store in binder which I could look back at anytime I second guessed something. Also, while going over the power point, Mr. Wickersham would give out even more information which forced me to take notes in order for me to get a good grade on the test for that chapter. Next, my least favorite method to intake information was by watching movies and doing the “questions, facts, and hashtags”. The movie notes are a horrible way to teach kids because whenever children even think movie they put their mind in entertainment mode instead of learning mode. Secondly, the questions from the movie notes would never be answered ever, so then our learning would be limited. To be honest, the only helpful thing from taking notes on a movie was that it gave you an easy five points if you completed it.

   2) We spent a lot of time going over multiple things in American history. The subject in which I think we spent the most time on was the Cold War and maybe even the Era of Good Feeling. If I could go back in time and instruct Mr. Wickersham to fix his lesson plans to go over a certain period of time more in depth, it would be the Roaring Twenties. The Roaring Twenties included one of the biggest economic booms in American history, the first ever red-scare, and the intro to the largest economic downturn in American history. From 1920-1929, the economy almost doubled and it was the decade to introduce consumerism to the American public with products like Henry Ford’s model T. Secondly, the red-scare launched a nation-wide nativist hysteria. At the time, the Immigration Quota acts were put in place to restrict the amount of immigrants were allowed into America. Additionally, in the Roaring Twenties one of the most intriguing presidents to me was put into power. The president was Calvin Coolidge, and he had the most unorthodox policies ever in presidency. Coolidge was mostly responsible for the large economic boom because of his ability to do nothing with his executive power. He believed in very low taxes and he left the American people to do things by themselves without government interference. Lastly and probably most importantly, in 1920 one of the most influential amendments was amended to the constitution, the 19th amendment. This amendment allowed for millions of women to vote which was huge for back then. I know we did cover this part pretty nicely but I would of liked it if we went more in depth.

   3) If I had to pick one thing to study less this year, it would be the Gilded Age and the Spanish-American War. I picked the Gilded Age because I felt like it was just all about the rich becoming richer and the poor just having horrible lives. I felt like this theme repeated itself multiple times. Secondly, I believe that political movements like Grange which argued for policies favor of farmers and political corruption is very irrelevant and unimportant in American history. I picked the Spanish-American war because other than the annexation of territories like Puerto Rico and Hawaii, imperialism has no influence or relation to today in society.

   4) Overall in APUSH I have several strengths and several weaknesses. My strengths include not procrastinating, knowing factual information, and reading and understanding portraits. Firstly, for the most part of the first and second trimester, my mind was in work mode. Once I got home I would immediately spring to my desk and finish my APUSH homework whether it was a portrait or just a simple blog. I would make sure that my assignments were done so well that Mr. Wickersham would unconditionally have to give me an A just like the Japanese had to unconditionally surrender World War II. Secondly, for the very small amount of times in which APUSH tests would ask questions that were factual instead of comprehensive, I would most likely get the question correct. If all APUSH tests were filled with factual questions then I would get an A on all of my tests. Thirdly, when it comes to completing portraits I am the best. I read every single portrait and completed every question assigned in the most detailed manner. However, my strengths are limited in regards to APUSH. My weaknesses include answering comprehensive questions the APUSH tests and completing any kind of essay like SAQ’s, LEQ’s, and DBQ’s. When it came to those comprehensive questions on the tests with the quotes, I would be ultimately stumped. Almost all the time I would be deciding between two choices and usually pick the wrong answer. Lastly, when it comes to writing essay questions I could never get 100% on them. On the SAQ’s, I would almost always use my time so poorly and be left with two out of the three questions answered beautifully while the third one was very bad. On the LEQ’s, the format and the organization of it never got stuck in my head which ultimately doomed me the the AP test. Lastly, on the DBQ’s, I feel like we didn’t receive enough practice with them and I never fully understood the use of outside information and synthesis.

   5) After a whole school year of APUSH I have ultimately two takeaways. One takeaway is that everyone in American history is racist and a white supremacist like Abraham Lincoln and even George Washington. Secondly, another takeaway is that almost always the poor, women, and minorities have it the worst all throughout American history.
8. Megan D June 15, 2017 at 8:59 pm

   1.My favorite learning style this year was watching videos with the questions, facts, hashtags and then having a discussion about the film. I have always liked historical films and documentaries so watching those in class kept me engaged and interested. I really like having discussion about things in class because I can hear another person’s perspective and through that have a better understanding of the topic of discussion. My favorite time we did this was with Killing Us Softly and Tough Guise because I felt like I needed the male’s perspective on a lot of those issues since I only really understood my own perspective.
   2.I would have wanted to learn more about the World Wars because I felt like we didn’t really get to much of the first World War and I also feel like we only talked about the effects of World War II and we didn’t learn much about the actual World War. I could just have bad memory since that was from the beginning of the year but I don’t recall that much about the World Wars. I think that they are both really interesting subjects to talk about and I wish we definitely had more time to learn about them.
   3.I am not sure that I would shorten any lesson because I kinda like history. I would maybe push back learning about anything after Reagan until after the test because the things that are on the test don’t happen after Reagan at all. I think that we spent a lot of time on the Cold War but I thought that that was one of our most interesting topics so I wouldn’t want that shortened. I don’t enjoy learning about anything before the Revolutionary War so I would want to shorten those lessons and I didn’t see much of that on the test at all until the writing, but it still kinda focused on the Revolutionary War anyways.
   4.I would say that in general I pick up on concepts fast and have a generally good understanding of what we learn. My weakness however, would be tests. I am not very good at test taking so that is definitely something that showed throughout the year. I am also very busy so often it is hard to get some of the readings done on time. So I can understand what we are learing pretty well and know the material, but when I take the test I can totally bomb it. I am not sure how to fix this problem for myself so I just try to make sure to do all the extra credit and get all my assignments in on time.
   5.I learned that America has a big ego and has some good reasons for it, but also a lot of reasons to maybe be a little humbler.
9. Brooklyn S June 15, 2017 at 9:59 pm

   My favorite learning style this year was when we have the agree disagree or undecided questions. I enjoy this style because we are able to freely express or thoughts on certain topics. I like this because in most other classes we don’t really have to opportunity to do so. I also believe that this way of teaching is kind of you treating us like adults because in the real word not everything is peachy keen. We talk about questions that are open-ended and that are adult questions that people in government discuss today. So I feel in this way you treat us like the adults we will become.

   I wish we would have spent more time on the 2008 election and the housing market crash. I think since we were alive when it happened and the housing market crash affected some of us it would have been cool to go more in depth into the situation. Also the 2008 election was a HUGE mark in history for America. I would have loved to know more about the Obama administration because their decisions will affect me more as a I get older rather than Clinton’s administration will.

   I wish we would have spent less time on Jackson Era. Honestly I don’t remember anything we learned after Jefferson was president up until the Civil War. I know from personal experience that if something was monumental I will remember it. For example the Industrial Revolution I didn’t know much about before this class but know I know many things about people like Rockefeller and new inventions. Essentially what I’m saying is that I don’t remember anything huge between that time period except for the Trail of Tears and that’s really all.

   My strengths as a student was contributing to class discussions. I’m not one to ever be quiet when it comes to things I believe in. I am also very strong thinking about things from others people’s point of view. I am not very good at being timely or focusing. I always get distracted while taking test or when reading long passages. That is usually why I finish my test last and I also second guess myself when I take test to I don’t go over and review it like I should.

   My takeaway from APUSH is that America is a complicated country. However, we as a country always fight for a to a brighter future.
10. Lexy S. June 15, 2017 at 10:59 pm

    1. I really enjoyed the discussions, because I think open-discussion and synthesis to today’s world really helped me to remember many concepts. The agree-disagree-undecided questions were also fascinating, because learning about the viewpoints of my classmates and better formulating my own made writing the essays, short answers, etc. in the class easier. I also valued the reading; even though I didn’t enjoy it, I’m personally gifted at reading things and memorizing key concepts. Unfortunately, I need to force myself to suffer through things like portraits, so I much prefer smaller articles; I like authors who get the point across in a concise way. My least favorite activity was the portraits and some of the blogs, because I usually felt like the portraits were too much work. I also felt restricted by the questions asked for the blog (ex. the “Tough Guise” and “Killing Us Softly” questions) because I had some more opinions on various topics that I couldn’t say because the questions didn’t leave room for those answers.
    2. My favorite unit of the year was definitely the Cold War unit. However, I feel like the unit had adequate time. I wish that the Vietnam War unit had been longer, because I think that the war is a fascinating (and very corrupt) part of American history. I think that in APUSH we skimmed over how horrific the war was and how it effected the soldiers and their families, as well as the Vietnamese people. I enjoyed the book, but I wish we could’ve discussed it more in class.
    3. I wish that we could’ve covered the late colonial-Revolutionary War era less in depth. The expansive discussion of the Intolerable, battles, George Washington, etc. felt unnecessary to me. I understand that the time period is one of the most iconic in American history, and because of that, I think that it should be taught less and less. Every year of my schooling, I’ve been forced to learn about the same thing over and over. The time period has lost much of its charm to me.
    4. As a student, I always manage to complete the required work. In a class like APUSH where most of the information comes from portraits and articles, I tried to know mostly everything that was happening in the unit so that I could have the proper context for things. Given that I have a full understanding of the entire of background of something, I will completely remember it. When we studied the Cold War and I felt that there was such an in depth and interesting depiction of the events, I could easily remember everything. My greatest weakness is my terrible time management and rationalization. If I don’t want to do something, I’ll wait until late at night to start and tell myself it’s because the school system is stupid. I’ve used this technique for every final this week, reminding myself that scantrons are pointless tests and teach skills that will never be used in life (which is true).
    5. I’ve never truly understood American history until this year, and my greatest takeout is that history (all history, not just American) works in endless patterns. Specifically American history repeats the same cycles over and over. I’ve also realized how recent a lot of US history is to today, and how a lot of modern conventions have come to be. I better understand things like mass incarceration (rooted in African-American convict leasing), etc. In regards to learning how close a lot of this stuff is, learning through all of American history puts stuff into perspective; I can now recognize how close the Civil Rights Movement is, and how close even slavery is to today and why America can’t let go of racist outlooks, even though 200 years seems like a long time. Before this class, I even considered the Holocaust to be a long time ago, but now I can recognize that it wasn’t and how little has changed with America’s views on immigrants. My final (and most drastic takeaway) is how young America really is, and how much more the country still has to learn.
11. Michael Wainer June 15, 2017 at 11:25 pm

    1. Of the many methods of learning we used over the course of the school year, the one I found the most effective was the PowerPoints. Even on the times when I did not take noted, I always listened. I found that the PowerPoints contained the most information out of all the methods of learning, so even by just listening this is where I learned the most. Often times I would just listen the majority of the PowerPoint and only take notes on the most important parts. This allowed me to hear all stuff, and to write down and have saved what I thought was most important for tests. My least favorite method of learning over the course of the year was the textbook reading. At the very start of the year I read every page assigned. It took a long time and was very boring. Also we went over the same information in class with the PowerPoints. After a couple of chapters I stopped reading the textbook because I didn’t feel like it was helping. It turned out I was right. Once I stopped reading the textbook I noticed that my test grades stayed the same, and in some cases even went up. I know this may just be the difference of units, but overall I did not find the textbook helpful to my learning experience.

    2. For the most part I thought that we spent a good amount of times on all sections. I thought I would be disappointed by the amount of time spent on modern information, but we learned a lot about it near the end of the year so I was not. If I had to choose one time period to spend more time on, I would choose the 1930s. We learned a lot about WWII and a good amount about the 20s, but due to the AP exam, I feel like I know very little about what happened in the 1930s. I would’ve liked to have learned more about the depression and the build up to the war.

    3. I wish we had not spent as much time on the settlement of America. I found it to be very boring and plain. Most of it was very similar and I feel like it could have been covered in much less detail, while still having the same effect. I know that this is a very important and influential part of American history, so I am not supporting that we should stop teaching this. I simply think that it can be condensed and taught in less detail, which would give us more time to focus on everything from revolutionary history through modern day information.

    4. I found that my main strength in APUSH was test taking in the sense of multiple choice questions. I always knew more information than I thought I did coming into the test. While there were a few tests I bombed, aren’t there a few like that for everybody? With a few exceptions I sat pretty consistently in the B range. If you had told me that is how I would do before APUSH had started I would have been upset, but now looking back at it I am not only happy with it, but also a little bit proud. My weakness as an APUSH student was the writing portions of tests, especially DBQs. I struggled with appropriately managing my time. For example, on the DBQs I would often do a very good job on explaining the documents, but then would have no time left for contextualization or synthesis. This has helped me to learn that I need to do a better job budgeting my time.

    5. In this class I learned that on every topic people have different opinions. On some topics, the differences will be bigger than others. Also on some topics you will agree with people and on others you will disagree. This class has just helped me to more understand other people’s opinions and point of views.
12. Davit Tran June 15, 2017 at 11:30 pm

    1. Throughout the year, we have learned about American history in many different teaching styles. But out of all of them, I prefer the agree/disagree/undecided days that we have. For example, the most recent one we had, which asked us if we thought greed was killing the American dream or not. I like to see people’s political views and ideas. Personally, I am not very political but many kids in my class are. I listen to their ideas and thoughts and slowly try to develop my own political standing. The topics also always connect to what we are learning about in class, which makes the learning process better. They’re also free and relaxing. Which brings me to the next question, what teaching style do I not find free and relaxing. I do not like the PowerPoint teaching style. I know it is impossible to take that away, but I feel like there is a better way to do it. During the power points, I find myself confused and lost all the time. I think it would help if there were checkpoints on the board, to guide the note taking process.
    2. Although we’ve never learned about the 2000s, I would really like to learn about that time period. I was born in 2001 and growing up I remember very few things that are textbook worthy. Things like the first Black president and 9/11 are obviously up there but besides that, the only important thing I remember is the 2007 Britney Spears breakdown, which I don’t think will make it into the textbooks. It would be interesting to see what society thinks is important enough for the future to learn about. And how I perceive things differently from the society.
    3. I do not remember any unit being extremely long. But if we were to compare the units, I think that the colony / new America unit was extremely tiring. When studying for that unit, we had to memorize specific location of the colonies and who vacated which colony. There were also too many different groups of people who migrated to America that we had to remember. I think that that unit mislead me into thinking Apush would be very memory based, which it isn’t.
    4. As a student, I think I am very responsible. I turned in all my assignments (Google docs and portraits) on time. But that is average for an Apush student. My weaknesses however are the test. I have never received an A on an Apush test yet, and I never will. Usually the homework has information that correlates to the tests, but in Apush, there is no correlation. The test are very different from the Google docs in my opinion. Studying the Google doc can get you at least a C.
    5. What i’ve taken away is that History isn’t history. What I mean by that is that the history we learn about in the past, frequently shows up in different ways in todays world. People think “oh that’s history, how does it affect us”, but truth is, just because it happened many many years, ago, doesn’t mean it wont happen again.
13. nick c June 16, 2017 at 12:40 am

    1.I feel my favorite learning style was the hands on activities and movies. The reason i feel this was the most entertaining and helped learn the best is because it showed the previously learned information in a new media that helped my brain put it together rather than just remember facts. When there was a movie or a activity tied to the unit or chapter we worked on it stuck with me more. The movie notes were a small but useful learning tool that helped me focus and truly get something out of the films we watched. My favorite activity that we did, and the one i remember most vividly, was the cotton picking activity. I remember the class having a moment of realization when we felt what it was truly like to pick cotton, then imagine doing that all day in hot and unsafe conditions. I thought it was a really interesting and fun experience which also helped set the new information into my head without me simply just memorizing facts. I think my least favorite way we learned chapters and information in APUSH was just simply reading the textbook. Though we didn’t do it much at all, when we read chapters out of the textbook it was hard to focus and not very interesting. One of the most fun things about APUSH is hearing people’s opinions and comments of topics we learn about, and this thrives best in our class discussions which were another part of the class i loved, but these experiences do not happen when just reading from the textbook and taking notes/writing docs.
    2.I feel we spent a good amount of time on pretty much every subject, i can’t think of one time a chapter or event was cut extremely short. I guess the only time i wanted to spend a bit more time on something was during the Watergate scandal. I’m not sure why but i just find it so fascinating and even though it’s probably just my obsession with the scandal not the actual amount of time we spent on it as a class, i still would have liked to learn more about it and have more class discussions on it. Other than that i guess we could have spent more time having class discussions on the economic failures and success of different tax plans and economics from different presidents. I truly feel we went over everything in good detail and the things i stated were probably just because of personal interest.
    3.In my opinion I feel that the only unit that was long and damaged on a little bit was WWI. It was very interesting as i didn’t know a lot about the first world war before taking APUSH but i feel we spend a very long time on it. There is a possibility i am just remembering wrong but if i’m correct it was a long unit and we spent a good chunk of APUSH learning about it. I honestly think the timing and way the class was run was very good and nothing was dramatically overdone or underdone, which is why i recommend, as far as timing, that everything remains the same.
    4.I think my biggest weaknesses all revolve around the amount of time i put into studying for tests. I feel that i could have done a lot better if I had truly read the textbook, but I never really put the time in to read all the chapters completely. My other biggest weakness was pending lots of time studying. I knew I should have started studying at least a week before the test but I usually started 2-3 days before the test instead. Other than the amount of time studying I feel I put in good work into the class and was a strong student, and didn’t struggle to catch up and get good grades in class.
    5.Well After countless hours of bashing my head into the wall studying the night before a APUSh exam and cramming the last piece of information into my head right before the final exam i feel i learned more than any other class, and not just because it was my longest. I’m not really sure how to but the hundreds of years of history we learned down to a short little take away, but i’ll try my best. I think my first big takeaway was that even though history is learning about completed things in the past, there always more to learn. I feel I learned so much new information this year than any other history class even on subjects i had known a lot about. The fact that some of the things that we were taught from the beginning of our lives, like the indians and slave trade, there was still so much that i didn’t know and that’s one of the reasons i love history. The last big takeaway i got from APUSH as a class was don’t be afraid to share your opinion. Obviously we had a lot of strong opinions in class but that’s what made it so fun to have class discussions and hear both sides of an argument. I had a lot of fun in APUSH. Even though it was a hard class there was something fun to always look forward too.
14. Riley Montgomery June 16, 2017 at 12:59 am

    1) My favorite learning style was doing research on our own like when we made presentations about the civil war or when we looked up different reform movements. I think I learned more and became more familiar with the material than when we took notes. I also really liked the google docs, which were very helpful when studying for tests. I became much more familiar with the ones assigned to me and then I could use my phone to study them before tests when I was almost anywhere. My least favorite style was reading. I like the Vietnam war book, but a lot of the reading I found somewhat boring, especially Assassination Vacation. I also don’t like reading the textbook.
    2 & 3) I wish we would’ve learned more about World War I. We learned about it in 9th grade World History and a lot of people remembered, but I barely remembered anything and was slower than others. I did really like the snowball fight analogy though. I just wish it would have been introduced more with the basics. We learned a lot about the Gilded Age, too much I think. I know way more about the Gilded Age than any other era and I liked learning about it, but I think it would have been more helpful to me to balance different eras. By the end of the year, the 1950-80s all kind of blended together for me and I don’t remember much about them. I also wish we would have learned the time periods in order. The jumping around was more confusing than helpful with the original documents.
    4) One of my weaknesses was writing. I wasn’t very good at the short answers and providing good reasoning. I really liked my Gilded Age DBQ that I wrote closer to the end of the year though. Another one of weaknesses in procrastination. As you can probably see I am writing this at 1 in the morning the day before this is due. A lot of my assignments I was really good on and got done days in advance but others I waited until the last minute, especially studying. At the beginning of the year, I would make flashcards and study several days before a test but towards the middle and end of the year, I found myself cramming for the tests the night before and day of, which did not help me at all when it came to study for the AP test. The 2nd tri final really helped me prepare for the AP test a lot because it forced me to study almost everything we learned, making it a lot easier to study for the AP test a month later. One of my strengths was prioritizing studying but only for certain tests. There were certain tests I was only somewhat prepared for and others that I was really motivated on. On the first test, I made flashcards every night the week before the test in additional to the other homework.
    5) APUSH gave me experience with an AP class, disciplined me , and made me much more aware of both the good and bad of America. I’ve also learned better study habits.
15. Hassan Dabliz June 16, 2017 at 4:41 am

    1. My favorite learning style was to watch videos and take notes, I enjoyed watching the videos because they were more engaging than just taking notes from listening to you or from the book. Usually a video had more than one person talking about a subject and that gave us different perspectives or just different ways of explaining things to us. My least favorite style of learning was reading something and answering the questions like the portraits, many of them where very long and very uninteresting because of the way they were presented, I really didn’t learn much or if I did it took longer because I would lose focus and have to go back and repeat certain things.
    2. I wish that we would have spent more time studying the time after WW1 and before WW2 because I feel like we didn’t go into as much depth as we usually do with other subjects. We learned about that time period right before the AP test that we kind of rushed it and I don’t feel that I got as much out of that as other time periods. That time period also was important because of the great depression.
    3. I felt like period one was something we talked too much about because 1492 was too long ago and it was mostly before America, that time period was not super important when you talk about the whole entirety of American history. I felt we spent too much time on it because of the summer reading and then the first little bit of the school year that we talked about it too. Also I don’t find the topic of Native Americans to be very interesting so that also is a reason for why I think we shouldn’t have talked about that era as much.
    4. I feel like one of my strengths as a student was staying on task and being able to get my work done. I would pay attention and take notes and usually do the homework on time. My weakness was staying motivated, if I was motivated I noticed that I did much better on tests and other assignments but I had a hard time staying motivated and that hurt me at times. My lack of motivation would also hurt with the amount of time and the quality of work that I produced, for example I would take an hour and do a crappy job on some notes that I could do correctly in 30 minutes.
    5. Usually in social studies classes prior I would do very little work and I would do well, APUSH taught me that no matter how smart anyone is the absolutely needs to be work put into anything to get the result you want. This is also a good measure for future AP classes that I would want to take.
16. Celia Crompton June 16, 2017 at 6:25 am

    1. My favorite learning style and most effective learning style are 2 different things. Personally I really enjoyed the movies we watched because they made me more interested in the time period, however the most effective way I learned supplemental information regarding the different topics were the portraits. For some reason I can always remember the specifics for those and they help me more on LEQ’s and other writing prompts, whereas the movies don’t have the same effect. My least favorite learning style was talking about topics and issues. The discussions are hard to focus on and usually they go off on a tangent and become irrelevant or unhelpful to learning about the topic.
    2. I think we definitely could’ve spent more time on the World Wars because I feel like even if all the information isn’t necessary for the AP test, it’s important to American and world history and it peaks a lot of people’s interest. I think it was even acknowledged that we aren’t going to do everything on them, but I feel like there are so many more facets we could’ve at least covered briefly, either through supplemental reading or movies.
    3. I think we covered everything except the previously mentioned items a good amount, however I particularly dislike the 60’s and kind of wished we spent more time on the Korean War prior or the Vietnam War post, because I don’t find that the Kennedy Era had much effect nor does it interest me very much.
    4. As a student, I think that I have a big weakness in planning ahead of time, and while it did not show very often in this class, it will start to bleed through with my schedule next year, and this class began poking the holes. I’m glad that I now know that and can focus on improving, but I do have other strengths to rely on such as writing well under pressure, reading comprehension, and auditory memorization to help me along. For example, I struggled with starting to read the portrait ahead of time, but when I read it and wrote my answers they were solid after only one read through. Another example of good writing under pressure are my short answers and LEQ’s that were typically up to par.
    5. My 2 sentence takeaway: There is no such thing as a utopian society, and trying to form one only brings us farther away from our initial goal. Money, power, and inequality are tacit aspects of human nature.
17. Ny'dea Terrell June 16, 2017 at 7:39 am

    1 .Throughout this whole year I have found that my favorite learning style was by watching films. Especially with taking the notes (questions, facts, and hashtags), because it allowed me to tailor the information to my liking. I would write facts from the movie, but I could simplify it even more with writing a hashtag. That would allow me to capture the essence of that specific part of the movie. My least favorite way to learn was through the independent reading books. I enjoyed the topic of my book, notwithstanding, it only allowed me to focus on one aspect.

    2. If given the opportunity to focus on a topic more in depth, I would choose the lastest one, specifically the topics discussed in the video about Wall Street. It is a problem that we are currently facing in America now and it is only important to know the history of the economics, to nurture the future of economics. After all they say that history repeats itself and we would like to repeat the good things, which means we have to know what worked in the past.

    3. If it was up to me I would have shortened up the learning of the War of 1812 and James Madison along with it. There were small Quasi wars/battles within larger ones that only changed things temporarily during that war. Although there claims to land, all were annulled after signing the Treaty of Ghent. There was also an unnecessary battle fought in New Orleans post signing the Treaty of Ghent, due to delayed communication. This topic seems redundant in the since, no land went to other countries, no impactful laws were put into place, affecting the overall nation or any other rival nation. Compared to many other wars, there were more impactful ones that I believe should have been the center of our attention, rather than a war that only formed a treaty.

    4. As a student I found that I had no problem quickly retaining the information. That lead me to be able to complete the homework or class assignments on any topic. I could recite would occurred in events when asked and I could retain how one event affected another quite easily. However tests are what brought my grade down. I knew the information, but could not answer the questions in the format it required. For example many times we were given passaged. With the topic I could recite the event and its importance, but when questions such as ‘what would it lead to’, pop up, I found myself often with the short end of the stick.

    5. AP. US History has allowed me to improve my studying habits as a student. As I mentioned earlier, my test taking abilities are struggling, however second trimesters final, you could see much improvements. I had learned what areas to focus on more and a way to reinforce the information I just read. History has showed me how to analyze text in a way that I would have never thought before. It’s the little details that affect the broader point when learning about history.
18. Henry Van Faussien June 16, 2017 at 8:49 am

    1.) The best way that I have learned this year has to be the PowerPoint presentations and the google docs. The powerpoints I learned a lot just sitting and listening attentively. Often if I was writing everything down I was struggling to absorb all that information that you were talking about. The google docs were also very effective. It forced the person to research their topic and whether or not I learned something about it I memorized my topic. They were also very helpful in studying for tests and quizzes. My least favorite was the portraits they were way too long and the questions were very often obscure.

    2.) I wish that we spent more time on the Cold War. I feel like we did one decade a week and focused more on the negatives of the time rather the best parts. I think that this era was the most that I remember from and that if we spent a little more time on it I would remember it more than the others. Also it is the most recent time period so I think the most important. I think that we spent too much time on the 1600’s while I think that it is very important and should be included I think a lot of the information can be condensed because those people really weren’t American but they were British.

    4.) I think that one of my strengths is my ability unique ideas and interesting perspectives. I took the Dead Poet’s Society class on not conforming and often found myself defending myself from my other classmates that did not agree with me. I think one of my strengths was not backing down and sticking to my guns. I think that one of my weaknesses was not being as articulate as I would like when expressing my opinions. Whether in writing or speaking I struggled to put my ideas into words.

    5.) I learned that a lot of history is still not uncovered. I learned that the popular description of our history does not cover everything that happened. And that whether you like a figure or not there is something that someone will find wrong with them.
19. Camille West June 16, 2017 at 9:03 am

    1. I like writing responses to reading best, like Google Docs, and I hate to say it, portraits, but it’s how I learn best. Getting information together and writing it out in my own words helps me learn it better and I am more likely to remember the things that I write about. I am also more articulate when I write, and although I do really like class discussions, it’s better for me to express my thoughts and ideas on paper because usually I have thought about it a bit more and it’s not on the spot. Despite that, I also really like class discussions because rather than reading someone else’s blog or whatever, I have to hear their thoughts and actually consider them if I want to contribute to the discussion, which I usually do. My least favorite would be just straight up reading the textbook or someone
    else’s Google Doc, because without a purpose to it, like answering a question, they’re usually just so boring and I get tired reading them. I often go to bed right after reading because they tire me and I will give up and say that I’ll do it tomorrow.
    2. I wish that we had spent more time on arts and culture, of any time period really, because that it what interests me most. Although we did look at a lot of political cartoons, I’m not very good at finding symbolism or reading into things like that, so it didn’t really interest me unless it was actually just funny. I know that politics is really what drives most of history, but sometimes it gets boring and I would like to learn more about other things, like sciences and such, which I know that we did sometimes go over but more of that and culture stuff would be cool.
    3. When we went over the industrial revolution, it seemed to go on forever for me, especially the late 19th century, but maybe that’s because it was leading up to the AP test. The westward expansion also felt like it took a really long time, but I suppose that’s because it did. I preferred learning more about the Revolution and before that.
    4. I think that my strength as a student is participating in class discussion and paying attention because I’m actually very interested in history, so that makes the class better, compared to the people who don’t enjoy history at all, who might find it a lot harder to work on apush stuff. My weakness as a student it probably laziness, because I am very lazy and really hate doing homework, even though it is usually beneficial. Despite that, I often did the blogs or portraits during my first hour or lunch because I just didn’t want to do them and would put them off. Also a lot of times I’m just really tired and not with the program and don’t really know what’s going on. Something that is a strength and a weakness about me is that usually I learn things pretty well the first time and I’ll be able to remember them so I’ll just rely on that, which is good but also a weakness because I don’t really know how to study, and I also don’t know what I don’t know, so I won’t take the time to review and look at the stuff that I have forgotten.
    5. Although this class was focused on American history, for me that wasn’t the most important take away. Most importantly, I learned how to be able to organize my time and think about thinks in different ways. Another hugely beneficial thing is learning how to write paragraphs about not just information, but also my thoughts and opinions and expanding on them, which we had to a lot. Another good thing about the class is being able to look at what people are trying to today, mostly in politics, and be able to compare it to similar things that have happened in the past, because it often seems to be true that there is nothing new under the sun, and having a vast knowledge of history is useful for referencing in the modern day. It also exposes the people who study it to a lot of different kinds of people, so it sort of teaches us about people in that way.

    Okay so I am a total idiot and didn’t click send so this has just been sitting in the comment box for two days and now its late 🙂
20. Christian R June 19, 2017 at 11:43 am

    One of my favorite ways to learn this year was through Videos. The notes we took and the questions that we had to answer along with the video were to me quite very helpful. Watching the videos to me was what helped me learn faster and more efficiently. Although I might have completely ignored a video or two, I learned more through the videos than through other ways. PowerPoints were probably the worst way for me to learn. I still took notes for them, but sometimes the repetitiveness of the lectures was just too much for me. I think the Power Points in a way did help me, but I feel like it was more beneficial to my other peers than myself.
    Something I wish we could have spent a little more time on was actually things that occurred from the 90’s until present-ish times. We kind of did most of the recent things last minute and I feel like I could have been able to synthesize with more things happening today with things that happened a little nearer in the past. Although my class has probably lived through everything from 2000 to today, most of us only probably started really paying attention to world events in like 7th grade, which compared to know might be very different.
    A unit I wish we studied less of was nothing really. There wasn’t anything I felt that was taking a long time to finish. Nor was there anything that I felt was a little too short to learn. We all learned units in a good proportionate amount of time. I liked how we learned things, It was just more on how the student or really myself was willing to learn the information being given to them.
    Some of my strengths as a student was being attentative, paying attention, and interacting with other people. But some of my weaknesses was procrastinating and turning my assignments in on time or doing them and not being able to turn them in because I was too afraid of it not being good enough. Another weakness of mine was not being able to keep track of the assignments, I feel like I should have been more consistent with the planner or with the calendar on my phone.
    Something that was a real big takeaway that I took from APUSH was pretty negative, it was that our country kind of like, really sucks. We have corruption literally knocking on our doors almost every day and hour and even with people trying to stop it, it has often found its way to power. We look at our leaders and not many of them were and are that great, We look at the men who run our economy, Wall St, filled with prostitute calling men who can’t make our economy a great stable on not run on men who make it corrupt.