Hjalmar's Portfolio

My favorite unit this semester was the most recent one. This is because we had a lot of free choice and had many opportunities to implement the cultures we relate to. Furthermore, we had the option to work either independently or in a group. I really liked it because I had the opportunity to use Mola Textile style, while also adding Swedish culture.

The photo I provided is a picture of the artwork I created for this final unit. In this artwork I include Mola Textile style because I really liked how it looked, while also adding the Swedish Dala Horse. This horse represents Swedish heritage and culture.

Introduction

The purpose of my conference is to share my progress as a learner with my parents.

I’d like to share:

What I’ve done and what I still want to achieve

Some areas of growth, struggles, and some of my work

My goals and how I plan to achieve them

• What I’ve done and what I still want to achieve
• Some areas of growth, struggles, and some of my work
• My goals and how I plan to achieve them

My Vision Board

Some of the things included on my vision board are:

• Just Do It
• Word for 2025
• Swedish Flag
• Fotball

TTG’s

Critical Thinker: I really think I should work on improving my critical thinking skills. Improving this would really help me get better at math, while also being a good life skill in general.

These are important because some of these give me motivation to keep going and try new things, the Swedish flag represents where I come from and a place that I have a lot of personal connections to, and I am very passionate about football.

Goals

1. Improve My CER
2. Improve My Time-Management
3. Better Sustained – Attention

Language Arts

This is a picture of my grade for the Language Arts passport. For the passport, we had to choose different articles, visuals, and books and find deeper themes and messages in them. One of my strengths in Language Arts class is taking clear and concise notes. Furthermore, I am good at analyzing and describing various things through writing.

This is a photo of my grade for a public speaking performance. For this, I got an approaching. One thing I can improve on is to be more confident during public speaking and presentations. This would help me be able to use clearer and more effective communication skills, while also using more effective body language.

Math Artifacts

One thing I am good at in math class is my time-management and organizational skills. This image shows that I have completed a lot of my homework on time. This is because I have been able to plan when I would do my homework so that I get it done in time. Furthermore, I write my homework in my planner so that I remember to do it once I get home. 

One area of growth for me is to study more at home to try and improve my grades so that I can consistently achieve meetings on my tests and quizzes. I will improve this by studying before tests so that I am prepared for them when it is time to do it. 

Science Artifacts

Evidence of Organization 

Earlier Work:

Newer Work:

These two photos demonstrate the progress and growth I have made over this semester. The first photo shows one of my pages lacking a proper title and date. The second one, however, shows an image with a proper title, while the date and page number is also written down below. Before, I used to forget to properly label and organize my pages but now it has become an ordinary habit I do every time I start writing on a new page.  

Claim: My science notebook is a well-organized, carefully created artifact of my learning in science class this school year. 

Evidence of Active Learner Habits 

Claim: My active learner skills have experienced significant growth as can be seen when comparing my semester 1 and semester 2 feedback comments

Evidence of Understanding of Key Concepts

Claim: My understanding of key concepts is mostly quite good, even though I have had a few gaps and misunderstanding.

Social Studies Artifacts

One of my strengths in Social Studies this year was supporting my claims and my debates. Furthermore, I was good at addressing other perspectives while arguing that mine is the best.

One thing I could improve on is my time-management. This is because I have not submitted any late assignments but, sometimes I have to work a lot at home due to me not using class-time effectively enough.

Spanish Language Artifacts

This is an image of my dialogue writing with Aaron. We had to discuss a unhealthy habit and then say what consequences could arise due to this. It demonstrates my growth because this was one of the things we had little time to do but we still managed to do very well. 

This is a health poster I created with Louis. This demonstrates my growth because in the beginning of the year, I was not able to write this well. Furthermore, I had a hard time getting good grades but for this, I got a 3.5. 

PE Artifacts

One sport I was good at was basketball. One challenge I overcame was in the beginning, I played a bit too fast when I was in possession. After a while, I learned it was better to sometimes play a bit more slowly. This was a significant breakthrough that allowed me to become a lot better at the sport. 

Health Artifacts

One thing I did well was I was good at analyzing and describing advantages and disadvantages of different apps on mental health.

One thing I could improve on is trying to make it neater by using bullet points. This would help me be able to present it more easily and make it easier for the audience to read.

Art Artifacts

One area of success for me is demonstrating persistence in the process of making my artwork. During the clay vessel project, I had many issues, including pieces of the work almost falling off. Furthermore, in the beginning, I did not really know how to get the shape and form that I wanted to get and had planned. However, I kept on trying and eventually managed to figure out various strategies to achieve the final product I wanted.

Strengths and Areas of Improvement

This is a picture of one of my grade comments. One thing I have struggled with is being a good active learner. This comment mentions that more thoughts are needed and that our distribution of tasks or responsibilities could have been better. This shows how I and others in the group could have worked harder and put more effort into our group project.

One area of success for me is demonstrating persistence in the process of making my artwork. During the clay vessel project, I had many issues, including pieces of the work almost falling off. Furthermore, in the beginning, I did not really know how to get the shape and form that I wanted to get and had planned. However, I kept on trying and eventually managed to figure out various strategies to achieve the final product I wanted.

I used to think that media only negatively influences teen mental health. However, now I think that there are many various good and bad impacts of media on mental health. There are many different addictive and humane designs in media that affect people differently.

I think a lot of mental health stigma exists because of a lack of understanding of mental illnesses, through ignorance and misunderstanding. Inaccurate information from media and other people can lead to these factors. One way I believe we could reduce stigma is by learning more about it. This would lead to a lot more people understanding the conditions and being able to accept accurate information and impacts of these different ones.

I have learned that mental health conditions affect many people differently and can get in the way of things people enjoy doing. Some of these can lead to depression and anxiety. I have also learned that there are a lot of misunderstanding of mental health conditions and that many people mistake mental health conditions for not an actual mental illness. This means that a lot of mental health conditions are overlooked. It is important for teens to learn more about mental health conditions because it would reduce the misconceptions and allow more people to accept the accurate information of these conditions, causing a decrease in mental health stigma.

My WOOP goal was to get more sleep. This was important to me because I used to sleep pretty late causing me to be very tired the next day and also being less efficient at school. This relates to my wellness wheel because one of the parts of the wellness wheels is rest and play. Rest and play relates to getting more sleep because sleep is important in resting.

A strategy I used to achieve this goal was to keep my phone in another room when I go to bed so that it does not distract me. I would also make sure I set a time that I go to bed so that I get enough sleep everyday.

My evidence revealed that cell phones can negatively effect students’ mental health, behavior, engagement in class, and much more.

I don’t think it would negatively effect my social-emotional health and relationships. This is because even though it can negatively effect a lot of people I don’t usually use my phone when my friends are around anyways. My parents would probably agree with me on this since they know I do not usually use my phone while around my friends anymore. My teachers may not agree with this because sometimes I get bored easily in class and get distracted. This is why I think it would not have a lot of effect on my relationships or social emotional health but it might make me more easily distracted in class.

A strategy I would use to make sure that my phone does not decrease the quality of my emotional health and relationships at school next year is to only use my phone for school purposes and try to not use my phone when my friends are around.

Evidences:

According to a survey conducted by pew research, 72% of U.S high school teachers say that students being distracted by cellphones is a major problem in their classroom, compared with 33% of middle school teachers and 6% of elementary school teachers. Majority of the schools implemented a phone policy in their school, 82% of K-12 teachers in the U.S. say their school or district has a cellphone policy, such as requiring students to turn off their phones during class. However, 30% of teachers whose schools or districts have cellphone policies say they are very or somewhat difficult to enforce. Among the 30%, high school teachers were the majority.  

Cellphone bans can ease students’ stress and anxiety. According to Education Week, Regina Slage has an Algebra I class at Edgewater High School in which students must drop their backpacks and phones off at the front of the room, only taking their school-issued laptops and other class materials to their desks. This is her way of enforcing a statewide policy in Florida. Heather Kreider, the principal of Edgewater High School says “I don’t know … what went into making up that rule, but I can tell you that the result of it on a very wide scale has been extraordinarily positive for [students’] mental health from an anecdotal perspective,” This source also proceeds to mention how the student are way more engaged and that it seems as though the students are waking back up to a social experience during the time that this law has existed. It also states that the rule has led to more engaged students with fewer discipline problems and violent behaviors. Studies have linked screen time and social media use to deteriorating mental wellbeing. 

Why have a digital portfolio at SAS?

Creating a portfolio, or blog is a great way to collect all the work you’ve done throughout your academic career. You can include academic, athletic, and personal artifacts or experiences that you want to share with a wider audience. This is a great way to organize all your learning in one place and you can take it with you when you leave SAS.  When you make your portfolio, you create posts that are categorized according to your subject. Some categories have already been set up for you, but if you need more categories you can add them as needed. It’s important that your posts have the following:

• An engaging title – this should not include the name of the subject since this is referenced in the category. Think of this as the first opportunity to engage and hook your reader!
• Body – this is where you share your learning. This should include a combination of text and media in the form of images, graphics, and embedded videos. You should always consider how your post looks to your audience. Is it engaging and organized? Do they want to keep reading?
• Category – select one that has been set for you or add a new category. Posts can have more than one category e.g. Humanities and Myself as a Learner
• Tags – create tags that can be used as keywords to describe your post. Tags help organize your post a little more! Aim to have 3-5 tags for each post. For example, if you are posting about a novel you wrote, you might want the following tags: #Fiction, #MurderMystery, #Theme, #PlotDiagram

Click on the images below to find a few helpful tips for creating your posts, adding media, and making categories: