Growth Memo 1
Reflect, celebrate, and plan — after Midterm 1
What is this?
A Growth Memo is a short reflection on how things are going. You just took your first midterm, and you’ve also been building a record through your homework, Grade Memos, and study habits. Now take 30–45 minutes to look at that bigger picture. What went well? What didn’t? What patterns are showing up? What are you going to do about them?
You should write this after you get your graded Midterm 1 back so you can use the actual exam as evidence, not just your memory of how it felt.
This is not a formal essay. Think of it as a journal entry, a brain dump, a letter to yourself. Write in whatever voice feels natural — bullet points, stream of consciousness, full paragraphs, whatever works. You will not be graded on grammar, spelling, or polish. You will be graded on specificity, evidence, and the seriousness of your reflection.
Why we do this
Here’s the thing: one exam score or one homework set is a snapshot, not a verdict. It tells you where you are right now — not where you’ll end up. The students who improve the most over a semester aren’t just the ones who got the highest score early. They’re the ones who looked carefully at the evidence, figured out why things went the way they did, and changed something concrete.
That’s what this memo is for. Not to make you feel bad. Not to perform self-improvement for a grade. Just to pause, look at the evidence from your midterm, homework, Grade Memos, and study habits, and make a plan.
Research on learning is pretty clear on this: students who reflect on their performance and adjust their study strategies do better later on. This isn’t hand-waving — it’s measured. The technical term is metacognition (thinking about how you think), and it’s one of the strongest predictors of academic improvement. Growth Memos are sometimes called “exam wrappers” in the education literature, but in practice they work best when you use more than just the exam as evidence.
Sometimes this kind of reflection feels clarifying. Sometimes it feels uncomfortable, frustrating, or unexpectedly encouraging. All of those reactions are normal. The point is not to judge yourself — it’s to notice patterns clearly enough that you can change something useful.
Your ability in this course is not fixed. Struggling with material doesn’t mean you’re bad at physics — it means you’re learning physics. Every expert was once a beginner who kept going.
The goal isn’t perfection. The goal is improvement. If you can look across Midterm 1, your homework, and your study habits, honestly identify one or two things to change, and then actually change them, you’re doing exactly what this course is designed for.
The Reflection
Respond to the prompts below. Aim for ~400–600 words total across all sections. Use the midterm, your homework, your Grade Memos, and your study habits as evidence. Be specific — “I need to study more” doesn’t count. “I kept dropping units in multi-step calculations and it cost me on Q3, HW5, and a couple of my Grade Memo corrections” does.
1. Celebrate your wins
Start here. What went well in this unit? What are you proud of — even if it’s small? Did you nail a particular concept on the midterm, improve on a homework pattern, manage your time better, or finally understand something that had been confusing?
Don’t skip this part. It matters.
2. What surprised you?
Was there anything in the midterm, homework, or your study process that caught you off guard — good or bad? A topic you thought you understood but didn’t? A problem type that turned out easier than expected? A time management issue you didn’t anticipate?
3. Where did things break?
Be honest and specific. Look at the places where things went wrong — on the midterm, on homework, in your Grade Memos, or in your study routines — and try to diagnose why. Some common patterns:
- Units: forgot to convert, dropped units mid-calculation, didn’t check dimensions
- Algebra: wrong rearrangement, dropped a sign, arithmetic error
- Concept: applied the wrong model, confused two similar ideas, missed an assumption
- Interpretation: got a number but didn’t connect it to the physical meaning
- Time/pacing: spent too long on one problem, ran out of time on others
You don’t have to use these categories — they’re just prompts to help you think. The point is to identify patterns, not just individual mistakes. If the same type of error showed up multiple times, that’s a pattern worth naming.
4. What’s your plan?
Pick 1–2 concrete things you’ll do differently for the next unit. Be specific enough that you could actually check whether you did them. For example:
- “After every calculation, I’ll write the units at every step and check that the final answer has the right dimensions.”
- “I’ll do timed practice problems once a week so I get faster at setting up equations.”
- “I’ll go to office hours when I’m confused instead of re-reading my notes for the third time.”
Vague plans (“study more,” “try harder”) are not plans. A good plan answers: what specifically will I do, when will I do it, and how will I know it’s working?
If you did well overall, don’t stop at “I did fine.” Ask yourself where you can get sharper: more efficient under time pressure, more consistent with units and assumptions, better at explaining your reasoning, or better at catching mistakes before you turn work in.
5. Have the Grade Memos been useful?
You’ve been writing weekly Grade Memos on your homework. Be candid: are they helping you learn? Have they helped you identify recurring issues or things to work on? What’s working about them? What isn’t? Is there anything about the Grade Memo process you’d change?
(I actually read these answers. Your feedback helps me improve the course.)
6. AI reflection (brief)
If you used AI tools (ChatGPT, NotebookLM, etc.) to study for Midterm 1:
- What did you use, and what for?
- Did it actually help? How do you know?
If you didn’t use AI tools: that’s fine, just say so and briefly say why.
Logistics
| Due | Friday, March 20 at 11:59 PM on Canvas |
| Format | PDF or Word document — whatever is easy |
| Length | ~400–600 words (not a hard limit — say what you need to say) |
| Grading | 0–5 scale (see below) |
| Weight | Growth Memos are 10% of your final grade (3 memos, averaged) |
How it’s graded
This is graded on specificity, evidence, and seriousness of reflection, not on how well you did on the exam.
| Score | What it means |
|---|---|
| 5 | Specific and evidence-based. You pointed to real evidence from the midterm, homework, Grade Memos, or study habits, named real patterns, and made a concrete plan. |
| 4 | Strong overall, but one element is thin — maybe the plan is vague, or the wins section is skipped. |
| 3 | Some insight, but too general. “I need to study more” without diagnosis or specifics. |
| 2–1 | Minimal effort. Mostly summary, little reflection. |
| 0 | Not submitted. |
You cannot lose points for having done poorly on the exam. A student who scored 60% and writes a thoughtful, specific memo earns a 5. A student who scored 95% and writes “I did fine, no changes needed” without specifics earns a 3. Strong students still have real reflection work to do: efficiency, precision, explanation quality, and long-term habits all matter.
Growth Memo 2 will come after Midterm 2. Growth Memo 3 will come before the final and will include a study plan.