I can identify ways in which my strengths can help me meet challenges, and how my challenges can be opportunities for growth.
I have repeatedly demonstrated this strength within my 20th Century World History class. Often the sets of assigned textbook questions offer a good opportunity to grow this strength. I first evaluate the questions given then read through the relevant text as outlined by the teacher. While reading I stop myself to answer each question once I feel the topic discussed has changed, this has proven to be a useful strategy as the answers to the questions often come up in accordance with the sequence of questions. This has allowed me to answer many questions with a confident understanding of the material and enabled me to effectively identify holes in my knowledge to be remedied with questions or additional research.
A slide from the PowerPoint presentation I put together for Photo Project task in EFP 11.
Comprehend & Connect Reflection
Through the photo project, I learned more about the level of value the Indigenous Peoples place on the environment and expanded my knowledge on how integral it is to their culture. This project allowed me to form a better understanding of how their history and practices shape their viewpoints and values in modern times. The learning I gained from this project will aid me in reconciliation by helping me to form a more comprehensive understanding of Indigenous perspectives when I view written works from their community and hear such members speak on current topics.
Core Competency Reflection (Communication)
I can inquire into and present on topics of interest and topics related to my studies.
In regards to the communication competency, I feel I grew in this area through this assignment. After having gone out to Mundy Park to gather photos and sifting through them, I created a presentation which thoroughly documented relevant parts of my trip and demonstrated how I was able to connect the images to the extensive knowledge I gained through my research which was spurred by the individual subjects in the project. I believe I was able to further refine my skills in the area of orienting the presentation of my work to a specified audience as well by narrowing down and identifying what the teacher was looking for in terms of learning outcomes for the work.
In numerous classes I have had to draw from my OneDrive to insert my work and it has aided me on many occasions. In Earth Science 11 specifically, almost all of the assignments were to be done through Teams, as such, renaming my files and following a consistent naming convention became a great boon and helped me make sense of the various files I have, allowing me to quickly and efficiently find the correct pieces of work. Because I immediately take the necessary steps to have my own version of the file uploaded onto my OneDrive with a new name, I can easily find files that are both in their correct folders – organized by class – and those which are incorrectly placed. As such, I have been highly successful when it comes to submitting my work on time and inputting the correct versions of files.
Core Competency Reflection
I can identify ways in which my strengths can help me meet challenges, and how my challenges can be opportunities for growth.
I always attempt to approach new challenges with an open mind, this allows me to maintain my focus for longer and reduce stress incurred by the newly introduced workload of the most recent task. Having an organized method of classification for my files helps me reduce the time it takes to hunt down my work when submitting it, allowing more time to be put towards actually comprehending the instructions and doing said work.
I can take on roles and responsibilities in a group; I do my share.
Significance
Core Competency – I decided to take on the responsibility of writing about the history of the holiday. I believe I did more than my fair share and I am quite proud of the work I have done. In hindsight, I believe I went back to my mindset of doing as much as I can to ensure I pick up any slack left by my partners as I still try to outdo those in my group even though I often don’t know exactly how much work they have done at various points in time. In this sense, I believe I still have room to improve in my ability to communicate with my partners by following up more precisely on emails that I have sent or by more specifically communicating to my partners what I need from them.
Curricular Competency – I took great care in making sure I detailed my writing to properly enforce just how important the early history of the holiday is to everyone who celebrates it. I believe the finished project has a substantial amount of information which informs the reader on the aspects involved with making this event’s history significant. I demonstrated how its history is absolutely linked to an important historical event, how it is widespread, long-lasting and contains a vast amount of religious importance.
Above: “Understanding Trickster Response” – Paragraph 1 of 3
Curricular Competencies Reflection
Comprehend and Connect: What did you learn about Indigenous themes, issues, or perspectives during this assignment or task and how did you grow in your reading, listening, or viewing skills? How will you take what you learned and use it towards working on reconciliation?
I learned about the different ways in which this particular character archetype can be portrayed while keeping its core pillars mostly the same throughout each story the character is found in. I felt I was able to develop my listening and reading skills by analyzing the character through different media and digging into the factors which make the archetype of the Trickster so long-lasting throughout Indigenous storytelling and so unique amongst other characters from various other stories found both within and outside of the Indigenous community. This assignment has shone a spotlight on more of the intricacies of Indigenous culture and oral storytelling, allowing me to better understand the views of storytellers from those communities and by extension, the views of those communities generally. By forming a more cohesive understanding of Indigenous culture, we will be better equipped to work towards reconciliation.
Core Competencies Reflection
I can analyze evidence to make judgements.
While viewing all the different stories surrounding the Trickster, I was able to form a deep understanding of that character archetype which in turn helped me understand the actions and motivations of the characters in those stories. This informed my writing in the above artifact by dissolving any misconceptions the more I looked into the character and helping me to draw deeper conclusions from each story.
It is very important to me that I have saved all of my work to specific places on both my computer and OneDrive as it helps keep me focused and organized and mitigate time spent searching for specific files.
In the vast majority of my classes, I have organized my digital work on OneDrive into a Centennial High School folder, then into specific classes such as Social Studies 10, Earth Science 11 and so on. This helps me save my work and easily find each file later. In Drafting, however, I had to work from home on multiple occasions in order to accomplish my work at a quality I was satisfied with, this was a struggle because the teacher was only able to view the class’s work if it was saved on one of the local drives. Because it was the first time I had saved multiple iterations of a project – (the Cabinet project) – at different states on my computer, it became even more important – and more of a challenge – to stay organized. This was also the first time I had to put files on a USB to transfer to one of Centennial’s drives rather than simply saving to one of my folders on OneDrive. Because of these factors, it became frustrating to find the correct files to upload as my finished work, however, after some time and digging, I eventually found the correct files and learned about how I could better organize my files outside of OneDrive. Today, I am much better at organizing those kinds of files than I was previously and the ways I organize them now is much cleaner allowing me to feel more confident when I save my work and more successfully hand in assignments.
Core Competency Reflection
I can identify ways in which my strengths can help me meet challenges, and how my challenges can be opportunities for growth.
In the future, this strength will help me with all of my classes that deal with digital work by letting me easily find and upload files. The way in which I organize my folders and files will also help me move them elsewhere when needed.
– I can form new ideas to create new things. I can also build on the ideas of others.
– I can deliberately learn about things that interest me, and new ideas pop into my head.
– I can get ideas when I pursue my interests.
My sketchbook’s first page. Humanoid mechanics.
My chosen piece of work illustrates my ability to think creatively as the entire piece is my original idea and has been thought through and developed over time while taking in inspiration from media that is conducive to building my visual library of mechanical designs. I have been involved with mechanical designs, robots and such for a while now which has helped me come up with my own pieces of work in that style. If you look closely you will notice that the perspective of individual pieces is off a little, this is because in the beginning, I just wanted to lay down the design and I was unsure of its exact perspective. This is something I will improve on in the future.
· I recognize that there are different points-of-view, and I can disagree respectfully.
· I can work with others to achieve a common goal. I do my share.
How well do you think that you collaborate with others?
I think I collaborate well with others overall, however, I tend to force myself to do the majority of the project because I don’t trust my classmates to do their jobs particularly well a lot of the time, especially when I don’t already know them. This leads to some late nights where I’m basically doing the project by myself on the computer.
What is your current approach to resolving conflicts?
My current strategy is to compromise if my classmates and I ever have a disagreement by adding some of their ideas along with some of my own.
What could you do to improve your conflict resolution skills?
I could probably attempt to incorporate more of my classmates’ ideas by giving them full slides of a PowerPoint project to work on while I do the other half of the slides. This would allow both of our ideas to be seen without compromise and therefore lead to more unique-looking work when comparing our sections of the project.
