Tag / #CoreCompetency

by Claire

Short Inquiry Reflection

What was your inquiry question? Did it shift or change in any way through your inquiry? 

My initial inquiry question was “how do women express their opinions through literature?” I wanted to read some feminist literature and write a podcast script about it and how I could relate. In the end I changed my question to “how can I connect feminist poetry to my own life and experiences?” I shortened my original plan to read a single poetry book instead of my originally planned 2-3 books. I also decided what I wanted to make for my final inquiry project was an art piece instead of a piece of written work. I ended with a collage of small images, each based on a poem I read and the images it brought to mind when I read it. 

What did you enjoy about the inquiry? What are you most proud of? 

My favorite thing about my project was of course my final product. I’m very happy with what I came up with. A lot of feedback I got when we shared was that people thought I should add explanations for each drawing, but it was intentional to not include them. I wanted to have my collage be a random mix of all the points of view from the book and not necessarily need each picture to have a deep meaning. Some pictures were just images from the poem and some pictures were my own personal interpretation of the poem and how it related to me. I’m happy with what I made because I found joy in the artsy side of the Inquiry and exposed myself to some literature I have been meaning to for a long time. I really enjoyed an excuse to be creative in my own way at school. 

What did you find challenging? 

Personally I find a more rigid inquiry process difficult to follow because I often want to change my direction as I go and having to complete a step before continuing to the actual doing makes the inquiry feel more like a chore. What works better for me is a general outline/idea and then jumping to the do step. It helps me hold onto the motivation and I often come back to the defining steps later when some work has already been completed and I can now decide where I want to go with the project. For this reason, I would say my biggest challenge with this inquiry was the more guided structure and trying to connect to such broad topics like the UN 17 Goals. Such broad topics can leave room for creativity, but they can also feel daunting and finding something to focus on was hard to do when there are so many directions to take. 

What would you change? 

Unfortunately, this school semester was very busy for me so the amount of time I was able to spend on my Inquiry project was less than I was hoping. I think I could’ve accomplished more on my topic and maybe added a write up explaining the point of my piece if I had given myself more time for the project. I also would’ve liked to have a concrete plan made earlier. I started the inquiry with a strong idea of what I wanted to accomplish, but this plan did not consider the likely number of hours of my work time taken up by other classes. For my next project I should make a stronger plan and have a better timetable or what and when I want to accomplish all my goals for the Inquiry. 

Is there anything else you want to share? 

Not really. I am very excited for the more open inquiry though and I’m hoping that I can get a lot accomplished towards my plan for the project. Hopefully there will be less class time taken away because of assemblies.  

Do you want to continue with this topic, or something related for your Long Inquiry, or will you explore something different? 

I will be exploring something slightly different. I want to do some studying on the writing of poetry and short stories. I want to write a small book that summarizes the helpful information I learned and includes samples of my writing where I applied what I learnt. It would be like a book for beginners from the perspective of a beginner. I’ve always been very interested in short forms of literature like poetry and short stories because though I love writing, finishing large projects is unimaginably difficult. I want to take some time to learn about something new and get decent at it so I can enjoy writing in shorter forms. Maybe learning and writing poetry will also give me better skills for reading and deciphering it. 

Core Competency Reflection

Thinking

My IDS project revolved around reading some poetry then making art out of it. I read each poem thoroughly and deeply thought about how each could be represented in an image. I took my own thought out interpretation of each and at the end put them together in a collage. The layout of the collage took lots of thinking out and rearranging to make everything fit and still look appealing. I think in grew in this Core Competency because I also needed to put lot’s of thought into the UN 17 Goals and how all of them in some way affected me. I did lots of considering how I wanted to talk about or approach gender equality and ended up with a project that was very introspective and required my own opinion put into the final product.

by Claire

Pre-Calculus 12 Project Self-Assessment

I compile and synthesize information to draw reasoned conclusions, such as when…

In my project I used what I knew about sinusoidal functions and applied it to a calculated equation. I used evidence I learned in class and from practice to conclude and decipher how each value affected the graph in order to fit my data. For example, the calculated k value shows how much the graph must be moved on the y axis. All the y values in my data averaged out to be about 8.00 so it makes sense that the k value would be about 8.00 to move the sinusoidal graph upward to fit the data. I used similar processes of using information I knew or could calculate to explain the other variables and their relation to my data and graphed function.

My strategies for collecting relevant information for specific tasks include…

In my variable explanations there was of course many ways to prove that each value was correct. Instead of listing all of these I used the simplest evidence and used it as my explanation. Why use every piece of evidence when it will make your presentation confusing. I looked back at classroom notes and was able to simplify every explanation to the necessary information for it to be understood. I also used explanations that made sense to me in simple terms because if my presentation was to be used for something like teaching the concept of transformations in sinusoidal functions, it would need to be understood by people with less understanding of transformations.

This is how I select images and words to create impact for different audiences:

For my PowerPoint presentation I put a lot of thought into it’s arrangement and how to best represent all my information simply. This slide is an example of this because i used images that were reasonably sized and tried to keep the text small to not overpower the actual data being shown. I chose to do this on this slide because the only need for the text is to explain the context of each image. On other slides I changed my approach though and instead used one image and then left the majority of the slide dedicated to text because I needed to explain the image. In all cases I wanted to keep each slide simple and avoid being too wordy.

Examples of where I communicate clearly and purposefully can be seen in…

When I needed to give my opinion of my calculations I had to communicate effectively. I tried to keep my opinion simple and made sure to not repeat similar points. Repeating points in different sections of the text makes it difficult to follow and instead I left the explanations short and arranged in a thought out manner. This helps me elaborate on opinions without overexplaining myself.

by Claire

Chemistry 11 – Core Competency Reflection

Collaborating

I can work with others to achieve a goal.

Lab 6B was a partner lab like all the labs in chemistry 11. Me and my partner worked together well during this lab. While filtering it was important that we judged carefully and communicated how much liquid to pour through the filter at a time to prevent a hole in our filter. Working together by swapping jobs throughout let us work efficiently and make sure we could finish the lab. By splitting up duties and using communication we were able to work together well to achieve our goal of finishing the Lab 6B correctly and efficiently.

Example of the filtration process in Lab 6B
by Claire

Socials 10 – Core Competency Self Assessment

Creative Thinking

What makes you want to get a new idea or try something new?

At the end of the WW2 unit we were tasked with a reflection project. We had many options, one being writing a 2 page reflection. That type of long writing is usually my strong suit but I decided to write a poem instead. Poetry has always interested me and although I’ve never really had time to read or write any, I decided it would be a fun challenge. That new challenge that would have been tough was what made me want to try something new. I knew that I would be able to complete the task, even if it was new, because I had an interest in the subject that made me want to try and do a good job.

Now I had my project, but didn’t know much about poetry. So I researched types of poems and found acrostic poems. They are a short or long form of poetry and I decided this was probably my best bet because it would give me lots of space to convey my ideas and reflect instead of trying to cram many ideas and opinions into a smaller or shorter poem. This idea ended up working. I could form my ideas into words but also into a poem. It was a fun project to do because of the challenge of writing poetry with not much experience.

by Claire

In the Heat of the Night: The Movie

My Movie

Character, Setting and Mood

In this story it was very important to look back throughout the chapters we’ve read to check for information. Often you had to make an educated guess on pieces of information about your character. In his project I learned how knowing or figuring out the setting of a story can be very important in your understanding of the material and themes presented. The mood is also affected by the setting of the book. Mood is a word to describe the tone and emotional impact the story is evoking. My group personally decided our movie should have a more dramatic tone because of the subject matter and the internal battle within our character, Sam. Overall, looking back on information presented throughout the book allowed us to make educated guesses to better our understanding of the mood and themes in the story.

Core Competency Reflection

Some things I think about before dividing tasks among group members include…
I often decide if I think they will be able to actually finish their portion. If not I would divide work to give them a smaller part or an easier task to complete. I also consider people’s skills such as writing or drawing. I will even try to adjust our project so a skill could be used instead of giving that person a job they will struggle completing.

I seek, develop and weigh options as demonstrated by…
My techniques in helping my group write the timeline of our PowerPoint/movie on ‘In the Heat of the Night’. I suggested we write out all the important points for our character then choose points to remove, keep, or elaborate on. We did this and ended up with a concise, reasonable length story.

An example of an idea I developed that was new to my peers is…
An idea I came up with in Drama class. We were tasked with mashing two fairy-tale stories together into a small skit to perform the same day. My group first got together and were unsure at first about which two fairy-tales to use. I put forward an idea and although we did not end up using it, the rest of my group felt more confident about putting forward ideas or tweaking mine to create more ideas and we put together a great skit.

When I need to boost my mood or re-focus, I…
I often take a few deep breaths. Depending on the situation I will maybe take a quick break or take a sip of water which is often a good way to calm myself down and focus on any tasks that require completion or just give myself an emotional boost.