In this semester of Spanish, we reviewed previous knowledge, learned how to be healthy, and learned about the environment.
Review
In this unit, we reviewed the past tense, which is a key understanding for 7th grade. I successfully implemented past tense when describing what I did.
Be Healthy
In this unit, we studied healthy habits and past imperfect, so we can indicate that an activity is a habit. We also took a test on Doler, the verb we use to indicate where we are hurting.
Environment
We are currently in the environment unit and studying how humans polluted earth and caused harm to many animals. We studied the future tense to indicate what we would do in the future to protect the environment.
Alejandro
The story of Alejandro is a short story we are currently studying in class. We did reading comprehensions on chapters of the story.
Semester reflection
Generally, in this semester, I demonstrated consistent abilities in typing out/writing Spanish in reading comprehension and creation tasks. However, I could improve in my ability to speak in class and be a more active learner.
Above is my vision board for the new year. The first item I included was math assessments. I plan to utilize my math skills and become a better critical thinker. The second element I included was social studies, as it is an important subject where I practice my skillful communication skills. I also included a basketball hoop as I want to be fit to play basketball.
My Goals Are
My three goals are getting exceedings at least 70% of the time in math, increase my presentation quality, and to be fit enough to join the basketball team.
How to complete each goal
As for math, I would remember to review before assessments on critical questions that I might fail, and during the assessments, I should remember to check my answers.
For my presentation quality, I shouldn’t only focus on the slide/artifact itself, but know that it is important to plan out what information I’m sharing, as the goal of my presentation is to present information, not to show visually satisfying pictures.
To be fit enough to join the basketball team, I should increase my stamina through long-distance running practices.
TTG
The TTG i chose to reflect is skillful communicator.
The two audios show my ability to talk with more precision and clarity.
My WOOP goal is to take breaks during my work time every hour, to prevent stress and handle them through leaving my workspace. Currently, I do this once every 4 hours, but I want to increase it to once per hour so I can maintain a high working efficiency. I used a habit tracker to note down how many times I took short, away-from-the-screen breaks and what I did during the time. My baseline is once every 4 hours. I hope that this app can help me to regulate my habit of taking goals, as I use it alongside my timer.
*Video too large, uploaded on Schoology. Audio is below.
Above is my project, and throughout the creation process, I expanded more on vocabulary in this unit. When I work continuously without breaks, cortisol, which is produced in response to pressure, decreases the clarity of my mind. To cope with this, taking breaks and utilizing mindful breathing during the period can help me to reorganize my mind. I found my breath anchor in class, which is my stomach. When I want to practice mindfulness, I focus on feeling my breath, which helps relieve the stress built up from work. This activates my parasympathetic nervous system, making me more comfortable at work. I hope to continue this habit in the future and embed this work period in my mind so I don’t need to rely on my computer.
Our group chose our music based on our own tastes and how we could accommodate our instruments to play the piece. We chose Feel It Still by Portugal. The Man, because it allows clarinets, trumpets, and drums to play together and has a catchy rhythm. We learned that picking music that one likes is important to encourage passion when practicing. I learned that as a drum player, I am able to control the beat organization when playing. I gained the skill of leadership as I was able to choose the music that everyone can agree on and keep the music in pace when playing. I felt more confident about collaboration. A setback that I experienced is that I cannot find an adequate score from the drums, so I had to “attach” drum rhythms to the tune Kai and Evan are playing. A factor that contributed to our success was practice. We were consistent in practicing, and I spent time after class refining my skills.
•A strength that I bring to math class is how I engage my partners in group assignments.
•Another strength I bring is that I divide work between my team equally to ensure equity.
•The third strength I bring is that I give critical mathematic insight during group projects.
•One habit that I want to improve this semester is to improve my ability to write down my mathematical reasoning neatly.
•I will work on this habit by starting to leave space between my notes and slow down on my writing
Math Notation and Communication
The first picture above is my work at the start of the year while the second and third are my work around the end of 2025.
My math work had improved from being close to illegible and vertically split into horizontally split and somehow legible.
My math work has improved because now my math equations and writing are further apart and organized horizontally, layer by layer, compared to the chicken-scratch writing organized in columns at the start of the year. Over time, it had been easier for teachers to read.
Evidence of Understanding Key Math Concepts
Above are two of my projects I did this year.
The first picture was my design and story project, where I used piecewise functions to represent Joshua’s approval rating if he were the president. I understood knowledge about piecewise functions fluently, recognizing how they can be discontinuous. This work is completed at the end of the unit. At the start of the unit, I didn’t know much about the details of piecewise functions, like two connecting intervals cannot have non-hollow circles stacking at the same x value.
The second picture is about functions and their correlation. I am proud of my ability to analyze quadratic functions and use the r value to compare which model is the best at predicting how many rubber bands it takes to explode the pumpkin. At the start of the unit, I didn’t know much about comparing r values to find correlation, but now I learned what could be counted as a strong/weak correlation and the difference between R and r.
Final Reflection
In sum, I grew as a mathematician during semester 1, demonstrating great project collaboration skills and mathematical ability. In the next semester, I hope to make my notes clearer. My examples do show ability in making my text clearer, but I need to make my mathematical process understandable too.
In this unit, we studied our badminton skills, especially drop shots and smashes. These are new skills built on top of backhand and forehand returns. What I am proud of was by up-backhand ability as I am able to return shots at difficult positions. I still need to work on my smashes and drop shots as they often end up out of bounds.
At the start of this year, I made a vision board to represent my goals in the coming year.
My goals include being more organized, getting consistent scores on assessments, and being fit enough to rejoin the basketball team.
To be more organized, I would use more containers that can separate my shelf into organized sections.
To have more consistent scores, I would try to review before assessments, especially the small 3 for 3s in science. A quick review can help boost my performance.
To be more fit, I can start practicing my endurance with running.
I hope to accomplish these goals through small steps.
In the second unit, we are studying functions. To model piecewise functions, we designed a real-life situation to analyze. We modeled Joshua’s approval rate as a president. I am most proud of our ability to design a story that makes sense. All the increasing and decreasing correlate with what happens in the story. The hardest part was writing the linear equations for each interval. We need to find the y-intercept of the line(even when it doesn’t extend there) while noting down the intervals of increase/decrease/constant. If I were to revise, I would make sure that in my calculations, I would always use function notation. I can use f(x) before my equations. This project helps me to understand that, although having different equations on different sections, piecewise functions still obey the basic rules of functions. (Like the vertical line test rule)
During the public speaking unit, I took an alternative assessment and I reflected on my performance in interviews. A habit that improved the most for me was my engagement. Throughout 4 sessions of interviews, I became more engaged through changing my voice to be louder and more interesting. Something that helped e to grow was slowly adjusting to the time of America(jetlag) and practicing with my parents. Giving myself feedback and receiving feedback from interviewers helped me to improve as some of them said that I was very prepared so I improved on authenticity and genuine speech. One goal I wanted to keep on working is to have a stronger opening and ending line to summarize my dialogue and to catch attention effectively.
