Creative Learner
For the creative worker TTG, I completed the T-shirt design for 15 points and the travel brochure task for 60 points. In my travel brochure, I created a short front and back brochure on Canva about San Francisco, known as the economic and cultural capital of Northern California. I was tasked with using concise text, images, and designs in a creative manner to present the information in the travel brochure in a way that it would be both informative yet interesting to look at from the point of view of the audience. However, this task also involved other skills, including skillful communicator and critical thinker. For instance, I had to research online for specific attractions, to be able to confirm and double check of my memory of visiting San Francisco. I also had to be able to communicate the information in the travel brochure in an effective manner. Not only that, but I had to utilize my critical thinking skills when deciding what to incorporate onto my travel brochure, and the overall organization of it. Which attractions or tourist destinations do I add? How will the arrangement of the images and the color schemes of each individual image impact the overall design of the travel brochure? How do I effectively control the amount of text under each attraction to fit the desired space? These are some questions that I asked myself through the process of designing this travel brochure. Overall, it was a unique experience that manifested and practiced my creative learner skills.
Critical Thinker
For the critical thinker TTG, I completed three tasks: Wordplay for 30 points, the survival game for 30 points, and a magic trick for 15 points. All three of these tasks, heavily tasked my critical thinking skills. One instance of this was deciding what things should be prioritized, especially during wordplay and the survival game. I had to make many decisions involving my critical thinking skills. What words were absolutely necessary in a society? What words could be conveyed in alternative methods? What items would be essential on a deserted island, and how long could they last before they become unusable? Is entertainment a necessity on the island, and how might it impact my overall well-being if I was stranded? These questions help me make decisions using my critical thinking skills to determine the 20 words that I would have in the wordplay task and ranking the order of importance of the 20 or so items that I would potentially have on the survival island. Additionally, the the magic trick also tasked my critical thinking skills in a different sense. Through practicing the magic card trick a few times and getting it wrong, I had to utilize my critical thinking skills and identify the mistake I was making, and then fixing things one by one until I could perfect the magic trick. Additionally, I broke the magic trick down step by step to simplify it. Overall, these tasks help develop my critical thinking skills.
Skillful Communicator
For this TTG, I practiced my skillful communicating skills by teaching English lessons to the school staff as part of Language Service Club, as well as doing a practice presentation with feedback. Teaching English lessons as part of Language Service club was quite challenging, and I faced many difficulties. I had to explain things and be fluent in both Chinese and English, which was challenging as my Chinese wasn’t the best. I also had to plan lessons and reiterate certain pronunciations, as English and Chinese are very different languages. I also had to learn to teach in many different ways, and through lesson planning, I experimented with many different ways to introduce new content, through utilizing images, examples, discussions within the tutees, short reading and questions to practice using the words in different contexts, etc. On the flip side, I also had to practice the absorbing information and listening part of being a skillful communicator. I listened to the tutees speak English and help improve their pronunciation by breaking down each word individually and listening and answering questions about each words meanings. Next, for the practice presentation, I had to keep in mind skills of public speaking to be able to give an effective presentation. In the end, I exchanged feedback with a partner, who advised me to focus on controlling the speed of my presentation in order to better let the audience to absorb the information and place emphasis on important points. Overall, these two tasks help develop me as a skillful communicator.
Resilient
In this TTG, I practiced my resilience by completing a vision board and strengths survey for 60 points, 2 mindful eating activities for 30 points, and a mindful walk for 15 minutes. By creating a vision board, I was able to identify some goals I had in the short-term and long-term. Additionally, I added some quotes and important phrases for motivation. That way, if I was feeling challenged and I needed some extra motivation, I could look at it and gain some motivation, improving my resilience. Furthermore, the strengths and weakness survey let me complete a series of questions to identify my strengths and weaknesses as a person. I found that I had strong creativity and humility, but I needed to work on my self-regulation and zest. This test showed me how I could work to my strengths, as well as areas in which I could improve in to become a better person. On the other hand, the mindfulness tasks, mindful eating and mindful walking, served as examples for possible tools I could use when I am feeling challenged. By doing an activity such as walking or eating and noticing individual things around me, such as what I see or hear when I walk, or what the flavors in my mouth evolve over time as I take a bite, I was able to momentarily forget about other things happening in life and better focus at the task in hand, improving my resilience.
Effective Collaborator
I practice my effective collaboration through three different apprenticeship tasks. A practice presentation for 30 points, a t-shirt voting protocol for 15 points, as well as a collaborative t-shirt design for 30 points. All of these tasks involved myself engaging with one or more other people in order to achieve a common goal, whether it is to vote for the best t-shirt, practice a presentation, or design a t-shirt. When practicing to be an effective collaborator, I had to remind myself of the 7 norms of collaboration: pausing, paraphrasing, putting ideas on the table, providing data, paying attention to self an others, presuming positive intent, and posing questions. One particular instance of this was during the practice presentation, which we focused on giving feedback to each other in order to practice our effective collaborator skills. It was important to incorporate these norms of collaboration in order to provide good feedback to help them improve, while remaining kind. In another instance, with the collaborative t-shirt design, I had to work with a partner to create many iterations of a t-shirt, improving it from a draft sketch to a final design. Through every step of the process, we had to work together to make many decisions. Part of using the seven norms of collaboration were to ensure we both were contributing our load to the project, ensuring that while we did provide ideas to the table, we paused for the other person to do the same, while paraphrasing to show active listening skills, improving collaboration.
The goal I got was being able to verify AI-generated information using multiple credible sources. I want to monitor my AI-use by just beginning to implement this right now and continuing to use critical thinking skills to evaluate if AI-information is real or fake, as well as checking multiple sources to further verify this. However, as AI development progresses, it will be more difficult to do this as AI information will seem more real, and fake information will also seem more real. After I achieve this goal, I will be able to distinguish the key differences between AI-generated content and other forms of content on the internet.
Image generated via FLUX-schnell from Poe, prompt “playing cards with robots”, October 24th, 2024.
One takeaway I had from today’s lesson is how it is important to be an ethical global citizen in terms of online technology and stuff. You also need to be a critical thinker when making decisions, such as recognizing that it is your responsibility to protect yourself and your personal data through disciplined use of passwords, thoughtfulness and scrutiny when giving information to a person or company, and continuously learning about the ways in which my personal data can be obtained and used. Maybe I should use the application one password or others to help manage my passwords.
In our journey, we faced the AI Ethics Dilemma. This has challenged me to further analyze and reflect on the potential benefits and drawbacks of the use of artificial intelligence in studies, as well as when it is more beneficial to use AI for efficiency or other purposes, as well as times when it can interfere with academic integrity.
Reflecting on middle school, I wish I had taken advantage of times when things were much simpler and when “things didn’t matter as much”. Now, in high school, GPA exists, grades “count for college”, and time is filled with homework and responsibilities. Back in middle school, I wish I had better attempted to fix my problem with procrastination, allowing me to have more time to do other things.
However, high school does provide many new opportunities to look forward too. There are much more extracurriculars including sports, activities, clubs, and other things I have yet to discover. Right now, I am already in the tennis team which is pretty fun. Next week, we will be going to YangZhou for a week on TheNine, which I’m looking forward to and I think it will be nice to spend time with friends, make fried rice 🍚, and experience life outside of Shanghai.
Overall, things are going pretty well so far. I started using Notion and other things to help me organize my assignments and time. There are some upcoming quizzes in some of my classes, so I should probably study a bit for them. I am looking forward towards high school and what it has to offer for me.
Today I am tasked with brainstorming what my final PP Exhibition will look like. I will probably just use the normal table set up, as it will be probably be enough room. I will probably display the scaled down model of the racket, as well as possibly a poster behind with images and information from my research and process. This is different from my original plan of a video because I think that with the style of the PP exhibition, it will be easier for the audience to understand if there are images attached to some poster material. However, I could still consider some photo shuffling on my computer. In the next week, because of delays with getting my 3d printer to work, I will begin working on compiling the research together to help create the final product.
How I felt at the start of passion project:
How I feel now:
How I hope to feel on Exhibition Day:
As I begin to look into the sustainability, I have looked into how tennis rackets have evolved in terms of materials, starting from wood until carbon fiber. However, due to my absence due to going to Korea for AMIS orchestra, I am slightly behind. Thankfully, I have altered my action plan to adapt to this change. As I now begin to look into current efforts being made to create sustainable rackets, I wonder how I might be able to make my own later on.
After presenting my Passion Project (PP) to my classmates, I have received several insightful perspectives. While previously my PP focused primarily on creating a documentary regarding the environmental impacts of tennis, my peers believed that this idea was too general and unclear, and believed that I should focus more in one specific area, as well as consider the option of making an actual prototype of a piece of sustainable tennis equipment. Given this feedback, I am now going to research the current environmental impacts of tennis rackets, as well as current methods and attempts to develop sustainable tennis rackets to help me prototype an environmentally friendly tennis racket. I will then combine the research and prototypes into a documentary that will also document help to document my progress.