A Personal Rant About a Difficult Class....

When I looked at the classes that I need for my degree and began to plot my courses for this term, I knew that I wanted to take statistics.  I may have lost you already at this point!!  I realize that most people don't enjoy math, but I've always been one of those nerds that love it.  In high school I took extra math classes as electives (I know.......not normal!), and I did as many math classes as I could for dual enrollment credit.  So the only math course that I had left for my degree was statistics.  With my love of math, I knew that this class would be easy for me.

I've been in for a rude awakening!!  My statistics course has become the class that I dread walking into and I panic when there's an exam.  As the course as gone on, my anxiety has increased.  I'm really not used to feeling like this about anything that I'm trying to learn.  I live under the belief that if a student puts the effort into any class, then they will be successful.  With my research on the flipped classroom, I stumbled onto the Kahn Academy website (https://www.khanacademy.org/) and have since utilized the site as an additional resource with this class.  I pay attention in class, sit in the front row hanging on the professor's every word, do my homework, and have mastered every topic that we've covered in class on the Kahn Academy website.  With all of this time and effort that I've put in, my test scores have progressively gone down.  I'm finding that my attitude towards the subject is being drastically altered with just one course.

I'm now asking myself what the problem is......is it me, the subject matter, or the teaching method being used?  I know that I'm doing everything humanly possible to improve my knowledge on the subject matter, so am I the issue?  Maybe.  With my mastery scores on the Kahn Academy site, I am showing a command of the subject matter being covered, so I don't think that's the problem.  I feel like I understand what I'm about to be tested on and I'm as prepared as I can be going into the exams, but then I can barely swing a C on the tests.  Maybe I'm over-analyzing the exam questions.  When I look at some of the questions that have to do with vocabulary (True/False, ugh!), sometimes I think that I'm speaking one language and the professor has put another on the test.  And the kicker is, that the exams are open book and notes!  My last test I turned in feeling completely confident and thinking that I may have missed one of the true/false questions, and I ended up with my lowest test grade yet.  I've now arranged to go over my tests with a tutor at the university to see where I'm going wrong, so I guess I'll find out soon enough!  Are any of you taking a class that makes you feel like I am about my statistics class this term?

(This is me when I see my test scores!)