Tpol
Throughout the year I have learned a lot of new things which have really helped me grow as a learner. I’m going to be giving an example of something that really shows my improvement for each subject, and why it is a good example to showcase what I improved this year.
Maker:
Example: DI
DI was something completely new to me, especially the challenge I got, because I had no idea of how a drone worked or how we were going to get it finished in time. But during the final week before DI, I really had to step out of my comfort zone and get things done, and then me and my group had to present our drone/blimp, which we didn’t even know would work. But it ended up working out, and we got third place, and that last week really helped me realize that stepping out of your comfort zone can be a huge help to you, because that way you can accomplish things you never thought you could do before. It also taught me about the importance of being organized and having a schedule, because I had so many things to get done while still juggling everyday tasks. One of the things that I think it helped the most with, however, was my teamwork skills. Our group had quite a few disagreements, and I think our group as a whole learned from the experience. The most prominent thing that helped my teamwork, however, was the instant challenge. In a situation where you have limited resource and time it’s easy to freak out and just blurt out your idea, but I learned to wait and carefully listen to everyone else’s ideas before you talk about your own, and to actually consider your teammates ideas and see if they may work better than your own.
Humanities:
Example: colonizing in a tempest play
The colonizing in a tempest project where our whole class had to write and act out a play/tableau was huge which means I learned a lot of things from it. First off, some of the activities really helped me look at things from different perspectives and not be biased so that you can see things for what they really are, which is a pretty useful skill. It also helped with teamwork skills, as we had to coordinate what we were doing with our group and work something out that everyone agreed with and then coordinate that with the whole class, and then make revisions. This took a lot of time to do, but as a result the tableau as a whole made more sense. There was definitely lots of things to be getting done, which helped push the importance of using Things and the Calendar, especially since we had other projects going on at the same time. It, like DI helped me step way out of my comfort zone. I’ve done acting before, but with a whole audience staring at you is way more scary, especially because you had to hold that pose and not move while everyone was watching you. I didn’t mess up or anything though, so it all worked out in the end.
Science:
Example: eyeball dissection
This is another one about stepping out of your comfort zone, but in a different way. Instead of presenting something, you’re literally dissecting an eyeball. Sure, I was grossed out at first, but it ended up being really cool to see the lens and eye jelly separated from each other. It pretty much showed me that you don’t have to step out of your comfort zone for huge projects and stuff, but just doing it in class everyday like doing an assignment in a different way can be a really rewarding.
Math:
Example: Math (I know, 10/10 example)
This year in math we didn’t really do any projects, so I’m just going to talk about math in general. I’ve been doing much better in terms of not getting distracted, but I still get distracted occasionally and have to do the math later. This has taught me that no one is going to chase me down and make me do it, and that if I want to do well I have to keep track of everything myself and stay organized. This doesn’t just apply to math of course, it applies to pretty much everything in life, and is a very useful thing to know.
