Kristina's Reflection

Why did you choose the concepts you did to create your problem set?

The concepts we chose were actually quite easy to pick since we knew exactly what we had problems with throughout the course. There was always that ONE type of question in each unit that shouted DEV! Specifically speaking, related rates and optimization. Those were the first absolute must choices we had to have a problem for. I'm sure the other groups also chose these two types since we all seemed to have major problems with them.

As for the other questions we chose, they also followed the line of the must have DEV question. You see, we wanted to make sure that we were completely ready for the AP exam, so we decided to choose questions that were most likely going to be on there. Of course, one of them being the infamous amusement park question that Mr. K had forewarned us about. Another one being the revolving question which always seemed to be the first question in the long answer part of the exam, although it wasn't on this year's.

The last two questions we chose were more on the "filler" side though. Since the four I've stated were the main ones that we wanted to get our hands on. So, in the end, we chose a parts question and a Newton's Law of Cooling. Both being pretty fun on my end.

How do these problems provide an overview of your best mathematical understanding of what you have learned so far?

They provide an overview of my understanding because the questions themselves were based on the word problem type questions that popped up every now and then in class. Word problems have always proved to be quite tough for me since I take a really long time to absorb what is actually going in the question. There are also times when I misread the question due to my dislike for them and then screw up the whole process, which has indeed happened in class, leading to me hitting myself in the face (Although mostly mentally, hehe).

These problems also help to show how much I've learned through the year since I was pretty iffy with most of these stuff right at the beginning. Doing DEV questions on them actually proved to be a handy dandy review and I think it really helped on the exam as well. It was also nice to do some related rates since I remember on the test we had for that unit didn't have one even though I was so prepared for it.

Did you learn anything from this assignment? Was it educationally valuable to you?

If I didn't learn anything, then I shouldn't be taking AP Calculus at all. Not learning anything through DEV is an absolutely ridiculous notion since there are a ton of a stuff to do depending on what theme and such you've chosen. There's also the time management aspect and group work skills (unless you worked alone) to take note of. Doing this assignment has taught me a lot, especially in time management and group work. I do admit that we should've scheduled way differently for this assignment since we didn't seriously take into account the amount of time studying for the exams and doing career internship stuff, along with various projects and assignments from other classes. Everything just got jumbled up into one month and it was a disaster, which led to the two extensions we all got. Although I will admit that whenever I think of May, I'll always remember the hell we went through this year XD.

Aside from time management, the calculus in itself was valuable. Like I said before, it was very helpful for exam prep. The group aspect was also valuable and I learned that communication is key when doing these types of assignments. After all, its a disaster if you don't communicate with each other.