Sticker Project Essay

The sticker project was an experiment for me, in that it was my first time in highschool seriously taking notes on textbook reading. What I found showed that it was likely not worth the additional time needed. My evidence suggests that students similar to me are not helped by doing the sticker project and are potentially harmed, but that more scientific testing is necessary to draw any conclusions. My quiz and tests from during the sticker challenge had a lower average than the ones from during the rest of the school year. In addition, I noticed that the quizzes and tests were qualitatively more difficult for me. The entirety of the class had a much lower average on exam #4, which happened toward the end of the sticker challenge. Also, during the jeopardy game played before that exam, the group that did the best by far was the one with no sticker challenge participants. I suggest that this is caused by a combination of a lack of note-taking skills and failure to comprehend the material while I was taking notes on it. Instead of thinking about the actual subject, I was only thinking about my notes because I was worried about taking satisfactory ones. …show more content…
During robotics, I had much less sleep than I did during the first half of the year. Sleep is known to be very helpful in learning and memory retention. I also have much more stress during robotics season. According to studies, increased amount of stress, even in the short term, can affect learning and in the long term it can impair LTP. It may be that had I had more sleep and not had as much stress, my quiz and test performance would have exceeded my non-sticker challenge Another confounder is that the material might have increased in difficulty during the sticker challenge. This is supported by the fact that my quiz grades gradually decreased over the course of the challenge instead of dropping suddenly when the challenge