space.discussion.Applying+Past+Knowledge+to+New+Situations.

Applying Past Knowledge to New Situations.
Taking what was learned before, and manipulating past experiences to serve your current issue more effectively.

December 2nd

General chemistry has required a fair deal of recalling previously learned facts and knowledge. Throughout my highschool career, chemistry has been an ongoing study, one that has been connected from grade to grade. In ninth grade, I began my first introduction to the concept of elements verses compounts, ionic verses covalent, etc. Tenth grade enhanced this knowledge by brushing up upon my skills involving balencing chemical equations, and developing an understanding for molecules in terms of their individual atoms. And now, in eleventh grade, I find that general chemistry has pushed me to reach back to all those years of learning, and retrieve past knowledge to face my challenges today.

This was clearly evident when I began my studying for the general chemistry midterm, as I found a list of concepts in which we had previously had a test on (scan seen below). I made a star next to every concept that before this year I had been taught or had touched upon. To my surprise, around half of the concepts were bearing a star.



It was so clear- had I not been able to retrieve that past information, this year would have been exponentially more difficult. This new class, and it's concepts, were so much more bearable with prior knowledge and a background to all the facts. Science is like a puzzle. Past knowledge are the pieces that must be fit into what is currently being learned so as to have a better overall understanding of the subject as a whole.

However, this is not to say that I believe myself superior in fulfilling this habit of mind. There have been numerous instances where i have forgotten information that would have been extremely helpful to what I was then learning at the time. Yet I did not realize with how much more ease concepts come to me when they are given a prologue.

Realizing this is half the battle. Now, I will know to take extra care when learning concepts, especially concepts that will flow into subjects I plan on learning next year. I will try to be more organized with hand outs and notes- I may want to refer to them in the future, and use them in future projects. And overall, I will try to shed the mentality where one thinks: I've done the test, now I can forget everything!

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