EY O! I’m back and although its been a while since I’ve done a post, I can guarantee, loads of work has been going on, I just haven’t written about it….yet. In my humanities class we have been researching worldview for quite some time now. This term has taught me loads about other people’s worldview and even more about my own. We started this project in early January and the driving question was extremely specific. How has transitioning from elementary school to high school challenged your worldview? I think that helped me learn more than I had expected because, as I’ve been learning, specific questions need specific answers and to get that answer you need to do the research. We worked in groups of four or five and my group consisted of Jude, Matthew, and Ciara. The bear bones of what we were learning about and building knowledge on was, a novel by Michel Cadmium (Book Of The Lion), cultural exchange, and finally, the transition to secondary. So with that covered, lets jump into the what and how of this project.
Our teacher started us of with a huge list of need to know questions. It looked something like this, 
It was super cool looking at all the questions that would eventually be answered and all of my peers queries as well. It gave me an insight into all the things I would be learning. I think it was and important first step in learning about this subject because it made me feel like I could visualize what I would be internalizing and that helped me when I got discouraged.
Succeeding the last paragraph, (Sorry I just felt like I should find an alternative to ‘next’) we did a Paragraph on the crusades. It was centred around answering the question: how did the crusades encourage a cultural exchange to shift worldview. We watched a film and read several documents as background knowledge on the subject. I learned that the crusades were absolutely gruesome battles and few things good came from them. Those good things came to, most predominately, the Christians. They received the concept of hospitals and medications. I think it illustrated how a good thing can come from an extremely undesirable situation.
Three role sheets were to be completed to help us examine the book I mentioned previously. We divided them up between our group and rotated through the three roles. I don’t think I was the only one who thought some of the sheets were easier than others. Here they are,
These sheets helped me grasp the messages of the book and reflect deeply. This has helped me asses my strengths and weaknesses in a different way than ever before. I enjoyed the role as connecter most out of all three. I think I liked it most because I could relate past experiences and things I’ve seen to the story.
Next we did a triple Venn diagram. Crazy. It was about our peers’ worldview, our own worldview, and experts’ worldview and the shift from elementary school to secondary school. Here’s mine, 
This one didn’t really engage me, so, as brought to my attention by my teacher and my own reflection after, I met the requirements and did pretty much the minimum. I didn’t go into it thinking I wasn’t going to learn something, and so I didn’t. Next time I want to try to challenge myself by looking at the instructions, and being creative with the execution. Ultimately creating a product I am proud of.
Following that, we had to organize all those ideas into something that could eventually resemble a song. So using an app called MindNode, MindNode we created clear mind maps to clarify our ideas. This process really helps me to elaborate, expand, and clear up my ideas. I think without our teacher assigning it, I would have still done it because I know now how much it helps me. It helped me figure out which topics I had lots of thoughts about and which ones I didn’t.
Next up we have the first step of what was ultimately going to become our final product. A recreation of the song, Its The End of The World As We Know It, by REM. Never heard of the song? Take a quick listen… I’m sure you will be impressed. HERE IS THE SONG! The final product was going to look something like this next version but centred around our driving question. (How has transitioning from elementary school to secondary school challenged our worldview?) http://https://youtu.be/8brH1kdAySw Yeah so quite a challenge. This involved creating new lyrics with our group and curating photos that demonstrated that shift from elementary school to secondary. So the lyrics were a pretty big part. We did several drafts to make sure they answered the question and sounded similar to the original song. Here’s the progression of the drafts.
I learned that song writing is definitely not my thing. More seriously I realized that I needed to go back and access the way I see cultural exchanges in my day to day life. I also learned that my experience moving from elementary school to high school has been so incredibly positive thanks to, the people, the program I am in (PLP), and most importantly the environment created by all the amazing humans at my school.
Succeeding the lyrics, we had to curate photos and videos to illustrate our answer to the driving question, eventually creating a photo documentary. This part was fairly easy because as the saying goes, “A picture says a 1000 words.” It was just easy for me to find photos with meaningful ideas behind them. I think it improved the song when they were paired together and this meant it was gratifying work. I learned that some things are going to be easier than others and when working in a group it’s important to challenge yourself but its also important to use each others strengths.
The Final product was one of the most gratifying things I’ve done this term. It was super satisfying and my group worked… ok.. together. I think it would have been more effective if all of us were always listening. The communication was ok but could have definitely been improved. Here it is,
https://youtu.be/y5kyQNYMHWU
In conclusion, this project really helped me learn more about my worldview and I enjoyed the opportunity to approach this assignment with a growth mindset. Learning from this project, I think with following assignments I will make sure I’m keeping on top of all the things we discuss in class by doing sketch notes when I feel like something is important and can be reflected on afterwards. I liked this project’s different aspects because some parts were less interesting than others, and some were super cool or engaging. This assignment was super awesome and I’d like to thank all those that made it possible