Ashley's Portfolio

1. Placement Focus
   • How did you vary the placement of your shots during the unit? Give one example of when changing where you hit the ball made it harder for your opponent to return.

The placement of my shots were not the most accurate but it was improving every class. One time I was playing, When I was about to hit, I changed the placement of my shot because I thought that the opponents would miss the ball but instead it just made it harder for me when the ball returned.

1. Force Focus
   • Describe a time when you changed the force (speed or power) of your return. How did your opponent react?

When I change the force of my return, the opponent could not really react fast enough.

1. Timing Focus
   • How did you use different timing on your returns (early, on the bounce, or later) to make your shots less predictable?

The different timing on the returns will make it less predictable because they wont have time to react.

1. Strategy Focus
   • Which was most effective during the unit: changing placement, force, or timing? Explain why you think it helped prevent your opponent from anticipating your shots.

Changing force because the faster you shoot back, the less time they’ll be able to react back

1. Self-Assessment Question
   • On a scale of 1-4, how well did you vary placement, force, and timing during play? Provide evidence from a rally or game to support your rating.

2 because I don’t think I did really well

The abuse of power that I explored this unit is Social Media Addiction, or more specificcly, a case between meta and a twenty year old lady who argues about how addictive social media platforms may be. Something that I have learned about the research process and finding evidence is that it’s very important about where you are getting your evidence from because if the information you’re getting isn’t valid, your whole research is pretty much messed up and you’ll be teaching people about the wrong info.

The preparation that i did for presenting the pecha kucha slides is reviewing the slides the night before and practice presenting. Something that was challenging for me when presenting was trying not to look at the script and trying to connect with the audience. An area that i can improve on is keeping the same pace and volume throughout the presentation because sometimes, when i’m almost done presenting and theres just a few slides left, i just want it to end so bad and so i use my fastest presenting speed and my voice projection gets smaller and smaller.

My ideas and skills in language arts have developed by being able to present with a loud and clear voice. I have not read too many books this year but one that I would definitely recommend is ” The Companion” by Katie Alender. And one book that was hard for me to read would be ” Ashes” Kathryn Lasky.

• Essential Question: How can we use probability to make predictions and informed decisions?

Probability helps us figure out how likely something is to happen. By knowing these chances, we can pick the best choice and plan for what might occur next.

• Looking at your Unit 5 Summative, what are your relative strengths? areas of improvement?

Some strengths i have throughout this unit is listing all of the probabilities in a tree diagram, list, and table. Something I need to improve on is writing and reading probability equations.

• If you could share something with your Grade 8 Math Teacher, what would it be?

I would tell them that I am great at modeling my thinking, but sometimes I might need assistance when working on writing expressions.

• What advice would you give to incoming Grade 7 students?

A piece of advice for incoming grade students is that they should note down any math problems and how to solve them when the teacher talks about it. This can help you in the future to understand better.

Part 1: Essential Question and Standard Reflection

The primary reason a pond turns green is due to excess nutrients, which create a fertile environment for algae and aquatic plants to thrive. The four matter cycles are the water , carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycle, which all help recycle essential nutrients in nature. Energy transfer occurs as plants use sunlight to make food through photosynthesis, providing energy for animals and other organisms. This process connects all living things by moving energy and matter through ecosystems. My prediction of what would happen if I added Fertilizer to the water was that it would cause algae to form. My prediction was really close because the actual answer is that it causes Eutrophication which is the same as algae growing.

Part 2: Improvement

Something that I would like to improve on is reviewing more before L2 quizzes. I think this because in the L2 quiz for this unit, I do not think I tried my best especially because I did not review well before the test. Improving this skill can help me with many other quizzes in the future, reviewing is important because it’s helpful to refresh your memory of the things you should know about the unit.

• Explain how mathematical thinking was used in the activities during this unit (Folding Paper and Trace, Construction Line Drawings, and Digital Tessellations.) Use Math and Art terms to support your thinking.

Mathematical thinking was used in many of the activities during this unit. For example, when we made our own tessellation on the piece of paper, we could chose to fold the paper into a radial, bilateral, or bisymmetry fold. After we created the tile design, we put it on procreate and put the same design next to each other and then it created a pattern.

• What are your thoughts and opinions about the connections between Art and Math?

My thoughts about the connections between art and math is that I find it very interesting that math can be expressed through art and that math can provide patterns that artists can use to create visuals.

U: What do you understand in this unit?

Something that I understood this unit is how to calculate the surface area of 3D shapes.

N: What new information did you learn in this unit?

Some new information that I learnt this unit is solving for variables

I: What was interesting in this unit?

Something that was interesting in this unit is the summative project where I got to redesign a package and creating my own design.

T: What was tricky for you in this unit?

Something that was tricky for me during this unit would definetely be algebra in general, but specificly simplifying expressions because I often have trouble with fully simplifying the expressions.

Essential Question: How can we use prior knowledge to connect ideas and solve unfamiliar problems?

We can use prior knowledge to connect ideas and solve unfamiliar problems by connecting things that we may not know to what we already know, and use proven formulas to find the right answers.

Throughout this unit, I have learned lots of new things such as new vocabulary words and different modes of asexual and sexual reproduction. Something that I think I have done well this unit was creating the model The differences in taste, color, and texture among apple varieties come from genetic and environmental factors. Each variety has unique genes that affect sweetness, tartness, and color. The environment, like soil, climate, and sunlight, also plays a role; for example, warmer climates can produce sweeter apples.

Many apples are grown through asexual reproduction, like grafting, which keeps the same traits in new trees. Apples can also grow from seeds through sexual reproduction, creating new varieties with different flavors and colors. Overall, genetics and the environment work together to create the diverse apples we enjoy today.

Part 1: Genetic factors shape the traits of apples, like their size, color, and taste, based on the genes they inherit from their parents. Environmental factors, such as soil health, weather, and water, also affect how apples grow and their quality. Asexual reproduction, like grafting, helps produce apple trees with specific good traits, ensuring consistent fruit. On the other hand, sexual reproduction through pollination creates genetic variety, leading to new apple types. This variety is important for breeding better apples that resist diseases and adapt to different conditions. Both methods are vital for apple growth and development.

Part 2: A learning experience that was definitely impactful and memorable was the independent research project (Franken Fruit Summative) and the hands-on activities (Apple Tasting, Apple DNA extraction). The Franken Fruit Summative has shown what type of learner I am because I liked how I had a partner to work with and how we made a model together. And the hands on activities has also shown what type of learner I am because doing experiments and labs has helped me understand better.

Part 3: If I could improve on aspect of my learning as a whole, it would be to get better at writing reasonings in CERs. I think this because I often sometimes get feedback from the teacher that some of the information written in it may be unreliable and does not really connecting the correct ideas. I want to try changing this by making the answer shorter, remove repeated words, and ensure it’s clear and includes the right information.

• What did you create? What influenced your choice of media (art materials) for this piece?
• I created a collage that was teared up in the middle of the canvas and colorful elements coming out of that ripped up hole. I chose to create this piece because jazz is one of my favorite genre of music, I decided to make a collage of all of the different jazz instruments and colors.
• How did creating your artwork help you develop your artistic skills? In which specific areas did you notice growth, and where do you see opportunities for further improvement as an artist?
• Creating my artwork has helped me develop my artistic skills because I have learned many new techniques in all kinds of things such as tearing up the middle of a canvas, and using hot glue guns, using buttons to add details, and using paint.
• How does your artwork relate to your analysis of the subject you chose? 
• My artwork relates to my analysis of music because the painting has all sorts of instruments on it and shows many elements of music such as music notes and songs. Something about music that is inspired me to create art is music’s rhythm and melody I can transfer into art by using different visuals, which is the collage. I was also inspired by many other artists that created art about music, one of them being Wassily Kandinsky who had  a condition called Synesthesia, and he could see all sorts of different shapes and colors when he heard different sounds, and when he did, he turned them into art pieces. So for my piece, I also tried doing something similar by using specific colors that I think identifies the sound of jazz music. Also, the base of the collage is actually an actual piano sheet of jazz music called “Autumn Leaves”, there isn’t a lot behind why I chose this piece, mainly just because it’s a Jazz song.

This semester, I did not do unit one and two because I was a beginner and had to catch up with everything to be able to join the rest of the class. During these two units, I learned many new vocabulary and verbs, I learned how to introduce myself, count in Spanish, greet people, describe the weather, etc. After learning all the basics, I joined the class and started unit three which was celebrations. We did a formative and studied vocabulary that was related to the unit and then learned how to conjugate verbs, using conditional and past tense.

The task of this whole project was to research about either a type of communication or a type of transportation, after that, you research about it and create some sort of model of it, such as a cardboard model, an image, a illustration, or even in a video game! Once you have everything prepared, then you first present to the class, and then after that, to parents. During this project, one thing that I think I did well during the visual presentation is saying everything that I intended to say in less than 3 minutes. I explained mosts of the information in my graphic organizer such as the positive and negative impacts with the help of my visual creation. Something that I think I’ll need to work on next time is to project my voice and make more eye contact. I think the reason of that is because I was nervous and that maybe I did not practice enough for myself to speak confidently.

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