An Electrifying End to the School Week

Our research project was finally looked at by Kate and Marjorie today. We had all written our own introductions, then we came up with a method section together, and the last step before beginning our research was to check everything with those two. They approved, which was a huge relief, considering how long we all spent looking for and summarizing research articles to truly find the essence of our study and all of the time it took for us to actually agree on a procedure.

The project that we’re doing centers around the concept of metacognition as a learning tool. Metacognition is a broad term, but we’re studying it in an academic context, meaning that we’re focusing on the self-questioning and self-awareness aspects of it. Basically, we want to investigate whether or not a metacognitive intervention has any effect on the comprehension and recall ability of high school students. To test this, we decided to have a control and experimental group; each group would first read a passage about either sleep or metacognitive strategies, and then they would take the same test.

Class ended for me at around 11:00 AM or 12:00 PM, because we didn’t have many changes to make to our plan. I ate lunch, then at around 1:00 PM I went to the field to play soccer. It was really, really hot, so after around an hour or so I went back to the dorms to start collecting data. This part was a lot more fun than the preparation of the experiment, because I got to see the reactions of all the subjects to the test that I helped to create, and the process of actually having data to record was so satisfying.

I went to play basketball with some of my friends, including Lucy and Alex, at around 5:00 PM. By this time, we were just 5 people short of our 20-person goal, and I was getting tired of sitting in an all-white room. There were 10 people who wanted to play, which worked out perfectly, since we had two opposite baskets available. The game was really fun; no one took it too seriously, but neither team wanted to lose. 5 of the kids were from China, so we ended up playing China vs. World.

Scenes from downtown.

After basketball, I went downtown with Olivia to pick up the Birkenstocks I ordered online at Nordstrom and also because she said she would pay for my burger at Shake Shack since she lost my hat. I’ve had Shake Shack 4 times in around 2 weeks so far, and I don’t think it’s possible for me to get sick of it. On our way back, there was a massive thunderstorm in which we were drenched within seconds of stepping outside. An Uber from downtown to UChicago can cost almost $20.00, and we decided that 15 minutes of suffering from the Nordstrom to the L station was was better than that. The walk, despite being incredibly wet, was surprisingly not that cold, and there was lots of incredible lightning on the way. Seeing all of the other miserable people sludging their way through the rain made me feel a little better, like we were all fighting together to get to our respective destinations.