Introduction: I have learned throughout this semester, respect, understanding your mistakes, working harder, and active listening are the keys to creating a great relationship between yourself, your peers, and also making your school experience enjoyable for everyone. I have chosen to start improving myself to create my own, enjoyable, learning full experience at this school. I would like to start by celebrating some things that I have been able to accomplish.
3 Reasons to Celebrate Understanding my mistake of not contributing and learning to not do it again The biggest mistake I have made this year was by far my contribution, for my example, i’ll use the Math 2 Amendment project, where I feel like I did very little to help my group. I am overly upset about my little contribution to what I should have been doing, when I should have been helping my group with the infographic, I was drawing in my notebook or talking to groups next to us that and talked about subjects that had nothing to do with math. I was able to redeem myself in Biology class in the most recent project, where I feel I was able to prove to myself and to Tina that I am capable of pulling my weight fully. I was fully engaged in bringing our group to the finish line of completing the project, despite some of my group members not contributing their full attention, whether they would be on Youtube or not even being in the classroom, I tried my best to convince them to contribute, but despite my best efforts, we had to notify the teacher. I learned a lesson from this, as being previously the person to not contribute to the group, I noticed that I felt awful noticing that my group members didn't care. But along with this, I noticed this must have been the same way my previous group members felt in the Amendment project. I am choosing to always contribute to my group, even if I feel I am unneeded, and in addition, I want to be the person to have my peers strive to be.
My ability to reflect on my work and try harder to complete and expand my work Though this mainly only contributes to mainly Humanities, but also ties into Biology, I would like to celebrate my ability to reflect on my work and try harder to complete and expand my work. For Humanities, my “Adoptive Couple VS. Baby Girl” I’d like to celebrate this piece of writing because it is the hardest piece I have wrote in the 1 ½ years of going to Animas High School, it is also the piece I had put the most work in so far, and I am very proud of the outcome of the piece. I showed through this writing piece that I could prove to myself I am capable of pushing myself over what I am comfortable with, but also I think it made a good bases of what I should be capable of doing in every class. I throughout this project spent a lot of time expanding on parts that needed revision. In Biology, the “Ecology Take Action” project, I was able to show that I am capable of completing group tasks. In addition, with the infographic I made, I went above and beyond what I would normally do with in a project. I did a load of research to show my understanding of how sewage affects the ocean, and how diatoms are important to both the food chain and also how important they are to the production of the earth’s oxygen. I got to the end of the infographic, when I realised I could expand more on what Diatoms look like and the differences between the two main kinds. At the end of this, I showed through both of my classes I could reflect on my work and try harder to complete and expand upon my own work.
Active Listening growth The next big thing to celebrate about my learning is how i’ve grown to be a more active listener in my Spanish class. In putting more effort into my Spanish work than ever before, I have found I can become a harder worker and better of a learner when I think about how I can use this knowledge of Spanish to both know a foreign language, but also to have the ability to go to college, as you need 2 years of a different language to get accepted. I have grown a lot in active listening as the majority of the class is lectures and fill in the blank worksheets. To become what I want to be when I grow up, I must show I am resilient to what other people say about school, as I was told through most of my friends and peers, and even out of school, that a foreign language was both a waste of time and energy, but also wont be important for the future. I disagree, as many employers look for if you have learned a foreign language, but also, it is found to increase your decision making skills. Other things make my Spanish learning important, but I want to celebrate that I now have the ability to write basic stories in Spanish, which were reached through better active listening skills. Through this learning in Spanish, I have seen during the other classes, I tend to work with my friends, but I have been trying to grow the most part out of this in Humanities and Math 2, and have noticed a bigger difference in my learning. I am more engaged to what the teacher is saying and have seen I never go to non educational websites. I am working harder to move away from my friends in both Humanities and also Biology. 2 Things to Work On Connecting with my teachers to get an understanding of their perspectives on my learning During this first semester, I have been growing more than ever, but I haven't gotten any critique from any of my teachers on how I could make my learning experience all the better. I have shown my strengths but I need to know from my teachers what my more prominent weaknesses are that I may not notice. If there are ways that you know that could contribute greater to my learning, and that could improve my ability to strengthen my ability to get more from my school experience, please tell me. One thing I would like to work on however is my weakness on seeing other people’s perspective. I have noticed that in many occasions that during class when i'm in a group I will think that my opinion is greater than someone else's in the group, and will override what they say with my opinion, or will dismiss what they say with my opinion or my beliefs. This happened in the Biology ‘Take Action’ project, where even though me and my friend did a majority of the work, we didn't want to take opinions from the other students who did not contribute. Although they may have not contributed, I don't believe I should have gone this route, and should have taken their opinions.
Be more of a respectful person to my peers, family, and school Through this semester, I have tried to be respectful to my peers, family and my teachers, but I don't believe I have tried hard enough to show that I am a respectful person who cares for my learning and also the people around me. I believe that what has been keeping me back from being respectful was my mindset, which I believe made me think that I don't need to be respectful to gain trust and respect. I don't believe this is right, and I want to change my mindset to make it so that I am respectful to all people who I find enjoyable or not. I first need to start with in my family, where I find little respect for my brother, who is constantly messing with me and picking on me. I hope to become more respectful to him, so when he picks on me, he is guilty for what he has done and gains more respect for me. I will next start with my teachers. I feel I have not been appreciative enough of what they do for me and all students everyday. I want to thank all of my for the work you do and be respectful to all of you. I will next start with my peers, I have some things held against other students that I could resolve. I will talk to the few students who I generally refuse to work with and/or acknowledge, and resolve what they have done. I will also be as respectful to everyone in our school as I possibly can, and be as open minded as I can to what my peers have to say.
1 Big Question to Ponder How can I improve myself to be the contributor I want to be, and how can I become more respectful to my family, teachers, and peers to make a better learning environment?