Goals:

My compulsory course is Chemistry, and I chose the course History of Science for two reasons, the first being that I have been interested in science since I was a child, and the second being that I wanted to use the course to teach me some additional study skills or perceptions that would allow me to better enhance the quality of my studies in my other courses. With this in mind, at the beginning of the course I set myself the goal of mainly completing the classroom content of each lecture, but once the course started I realised that this course covered a very wide range of knowledge, so I took my own reality into account and I set my final goal:

I want to be able to read quickly and efficiently.

I want to improve my writing skills.

Activity:

After determining the weekly study theme, I will look up and read the relevant articles in advance, and in the process of making notes to record, can let myself in the course of the teacher can quickly obtain the knowledge taught by the teacher, which allows me to read in a large number of exercise a reasonable and effective way of reading, in the process of obtaining useful knowledge in the process of writing the weekly proofs will also be helpful.

I would attend every lecture, the History of Science lecture was very engaging and Professor Michael Barany had a very funny and humorous way of delivering his lectures, which piqued my great interest and desire to explore the history of science. I didn’t need to take notes in this class because Barany would tell us boring books in a storytelling way, so I felt very relaxed in this class. I have classmates who are studying this class with me and we also discuss interesting topics while listening to the class. A few weeks into September, I attended a school-organised visit to the Museum of Scotland, where I saw Dolly the cloned sheep! I had only ever learnt about Dolly in textbooks, I had no idea that it was now right in front of me and it was an amazing feeling.

The weekly tutorials conducted by the teachers were my favourite. People from different countries would have different logical thoughts and ideas, and everyone would share their own views, some of which were unexpected to me. I was able to learn about other people’s different opinions on the same subject. I find that this helps me to think more comprehensively when I look at problems and to be able to present my arguments objectively from different perspectives when I write my dissertation. At the same time, I would also share my views on proofs with my tutor, who would answer my confusions from the perspective of a pedagogue, giving me clearer perceptions and novel ideas in this thought-provoking environment.

At first, I had a hard time expressing myself accurately, for example, when I was writing this essay I was prone to making grammatical mistakes which would prevent the marker from correctly understanding what I was trying to say. Instead of being able to use my mother tongue, I have to use English, which makes my writing slow, but I don’t want to use a translator, I want to use this opportunity to work on my writing skills. Most importantly, the books recommended for this course are written by foreigners and not translated into Chinese. On the one hand, my reading speed is slow, and due to cultural differences, people from different countries may have different ways of thinking. There were some ideas or passages that I couldn’t understand at all, and the articles quoted some European history, which was a new knowledge for me. Luckily my listening skills were good enough to understand what my tutor and classmates were saying and I was able to handwrite notes and review them to make sure I didn’t forget.

In this tutorial I have learnt to use critical thinking to look at problems. This has given me a lot of benefits, everything has two sides, looking at the problem from the subjective consciousness as well as taking into account the objective reflections, which makes me think more comprehensively and enables me to look at some of the problems I encounter in my studies with a dialectical perspective.

One of the things I underestimated at the beginning of this course was the study of the information in the articles related to the topic. When the lectures started, I would consult the information and pre-study so that I could have a good understanding of what the instructor was teaching in the limited time I had in the course. However, I encountered some difficulties in choosing the articles and materials that would help me to study and write my thesis accurately and quickly, which took me some time before the start of the course and while writing my thesis. However, by choosing to establish an efficient way of reading and taking good notes and records, I was able to find useful knowledge quickly while reading.

Outcomes:

With regard to the four official objectives of the course, I believe that I have achieved them in the course of my studies.

By sorting through the statistics of what we have learnt in the course, we can understand how scientists build scientific theories and knowledge by thinking, experimenting and verifying. The birth of an idea is a historical process, people based on the research of the ancients, combined with the current needs and predict the future development, and then innovate new theoretical ideas, the whole process is detailed and interesting.

And of course, I think I did well with the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the course :

I:I wanted to be able to read quickly and efficiently

After I learnt about the topic of my study, I consulted and searched a large number of articles, and then formulated a reasonable reading plan to enhance my reading efficiency. After determining the topic of my study, I firstly screened the information that I had obtained, and removed the unwanted contents to get the important contents of the literature. This will save my reading time and enable me to concentrate on the relevant content efficiently. After that, disassembling the reading task, making a good division of the framework, and arranging the various aspects of previewing, studying and reviewing will make me more clear about what I need to read and choose what to read with a purpose, so that I can read and study more efficiently.

II: I want to improve my writing skills

During the course of study, there was a great deal of free discussion, and I learnt about the opinions expressed from a variety of novel perspectives, which helped me to open my mouth to express my ideas, and before that, I needed to think of how to express my ideas briefly and completely, which honed my logical ability. The course on the history of science was very informative, and after understanding this knowledge, it greatly enriched my otherwise empty ideas, and I was able to express my central thoughts in a logical manner when presenting my arguments. The aspect of this that has improved my writing skills is that I have a lot of ideas that are logical. The writing would be neater and complete with the points I wanted to make.

I learnt in my course to read with a critical mind like a historian. From time to time, I am unable to look at an issue with absolute rationality, so I have a subjective sense of understanding of what is displayed in front of me. Fortunately, in the course of this study, I have experienced the fascination of the collision of ideas brought about by thinking about the same issue from different standpoints and perspectives, and in the future, when looking at issues, I will also challenge my own viewpoints and ask for the views of others, so as to be able to combine different standpoints to look at the essence of things. The unexpected gain is that I have made a group of new friends with active thinking, which makes me gain a lot of fun in the boring study, and also when I encounter difficulties in my study, they will help me analyse from the perspective of a bystander, and help me to solve some of the problems I encountered.。Although this is only an elective course, as I study it, I find that I have begun to get used to thinking independently, which is a really good habit. Independent thinking gives the ability to enable me to analyse and judge problems calmly, and it helps me to think out of the box in my study and life. Cultivating this habit will be of great benefit to my future studies.

Looking back on this semester’s study, I am satisfied with the results I have obtained. But if I had the opportunity, I would choose to explore more topics with more students at school.

Mark：

Overall, I think I did pretty well in this class so I was able to pass this essay grading. I don’t think I kept a good focus on this class although it was much better than at the beginning. The weekly proofs were different and I think I cited at least two sources from the resource list in my weekly proofs to show that I read the recommended bibliography and literature in detail. I feel that my reading and writing skills have improved and is that I am able to write a convincing essay.