History 370-Virginia Studies

Virginia studies was a class that I took my second semester of my freshman year. I personally really enjoyed this class, because history is my favorite subject and I learned the history that I would be teaching in my future classroom if I teach in Virginia. I got to learn a lot of interesting little facts that I can share with my students that I always enjoyed when my elementary teachers shared with me. For our final project in this class, we had a group project where we had to give a 15 minute lesson to the class and also write a five page paper along with it, on a certain time period in history. The presentation went smoothly, along with the construction of it, but the paper on the other hand, taught me a lot. The paper was the last thing that my group did when doing the project.

When it came to the paper, I was not very pleased with the final product and felt we could have done a lot better. The paper was rushed and it involved a lot of conflict between my group members, as one member was barely putting any effort or doing their part of their paper. This taught me that group work is not my favorite and that it may not always turn out the way you want. You may have to work harder to get job done, to cover the slack of others, so that you still get the grade you are striving for. Professors may not always be lenient like your high school teachers when it comes to group work and may not want to hear it when you try to talk to them about group members that are not contributing like they should be. Instead, you have to work harder, help yourself, and make the best out of the situation. This class taught me a lot, and I now have a different view when going into group work, which is ready to work hard and a positive mindset.