Johnny’s Portfolio

PE Badminton Unit

January 20, 2026 / Johnny

This unit in PE, we did Badminton. We learned how to do many things like Dropshots, backhand and forehand serves, and clears.

I did well with the clears, because I’ve managed to hit the shuttles to the other side of the court with power, and I think I had growth in this area. Aiming and using the right amount of power so that it doesn’t fly out of bounds is something I’ve gotten really good at and used it with a high success rate in our games.

My backhands could be better. I seem to hit the frame a bit too much and that results in slightly weaker or higher shots, which isn’t optimal for me. I try to avoid hitting backhand, but if I must, I’m not very confident in the fact that I’ll get a good strong shot.

Math COL Unit 2

January 14, 2026 / Johnny

Part 1: Unit 2 Topic A and B Test Reflection (Functions & Statistics)

A. Evidence of Your Best Thinking

Select two questions from your Unit 2 test that best show your thinking.

I chose Question 7 as evidence of my best thinking because

I chose Question 5 as evidence of my best thinking because I gave feedback to another student’s graph-making with sufficient reasoning by pointing out errors and giving suggestions, and answered the question thoroughly.

B. Skills Reflection

Complete each sentence honestly and thoughtfully.

Throughout Unit 2, I improved the most at interpreting graphs. Learning about DOTS helped me have a structure for analyzing scatter plots (Direction, Outliers, Trend, Strength).

One skill from this unit that I still need to work on is the difference between a correlation coefficient and the actual slope of the best fit line. I got a question incorrect because I mistook the slope for the correlation coefficient, and ended up giving a confusing answer that was obviously wrong.

The biggest challenge for me on this assessment was, as mentioned above, the questions involving the correlation coefficient and the slope of the best fit line.

One strategy that helped me on this test was double and triple-checking my work. Apart from the whole slope thing, I believe that I did a good job with the accuracy of my questions.

Part 2: Goal Reflection & End-of-Semester Check-In

A. Looking Back at Your Last Goal

Last unit, you set this goal: Be less careless and make sure no calculation errors happen.

How well did you work toward this goal?
☐ Very well

What helped you make progress toward this goal?
- My strategy was to keep reminding myself. It became part of my problem-solving routine to tell myself to look back at my process and see if I made any mistakes that could definitely be avoided. I’ve lost points due to those types of small errors before, and it’s quite unpleasant to see yourself lose a potential 4 because you forgot to use the distributive property.

What got in the way of this goal (if anything)?
- I believe that I actually did a really good job, and remembered my goal.

B. End-of-Semester Self Reflection

List three strengths you have shown last semester:
- Backing up my claims with good Evidence sections, especially knowing which pieces of evidence to pick out so that my point is supported while also not making it look like I’m cherry-picking.
- I got better at graph making because I practiced my precision, and we talked about scale in class and I worked toward making my graphs accurate.
- I got better at interpreting scatter plots. I hadn’t learned about this particular type of graph before, so being able to have sort of a topic around this was helpful.

List three areas you still want to improve:
- While it is true that I’ve improved at scatter plots, it’s probably only due to the fact that I hadn’t learnt about it before. There is definitely room for improvement for me with scatter plots, because they can be harder to find patterns in than bar graphs or pie charts. Practicing this is important.
- I mentioned above that I have developed good Evidence Skills, I think I need more work with connecting that back to my claim. I sometime struggle to keep my reasoning clear and concise, and end up writing too much about something that could be explained in less sentences.
- Dilations: This originates back to very early in the school year. I had no problem with scale factors and whatnot, but centers of dilation were a bit of a gray area for me in my understanding. I did okay on tests, but I never really felt like I’ve fully grasped the concept enough that I feel like I could teach it.

C. New Academic Goal Moving Forward:

Work on my reasoning skills (how my evidence actually relates to my claim).

Complete all parts:

In the next unit I want to keep up my performance in class and on tests through maintaining this goal. Reasoning is a very important part of displaying your proficiency in the topic.

What might get in the way of this goal?
- Something that might get in the way of this is not being flexible enough with my thinking. If I copy the exact same template into all of my CERs, it won’t effectively help me improve at writing a persuasive essay, since every essay is different depending on the topic.

What will I do if I get stuck or need help?
- If I need help, I’d consult a teacher because they can provide helpful hints or suggestions on how to approach this writing, and could assist me in finishing my work with good quality.

Math: Designing a Story Problem

January 5, 2026 / Johnny

Johnny Qian – L4 Unit 2 Design a Story Problem – 3759748 Download

1. Describe your story and what real-life situation it modeled?

Our story talked about a High School in Slovenia that had to purchase supplies for its students. In the story, the shop they bought from provided discounts that were dependent on the amount of calculators the school bought, and we found the function and graphed the graph of the relationship between number of calculators bought and total money spent.

2. What part of your project are you most proud of? Why?

I think my partner and I did a good job explaining the solution, and we managed to break down a complex thought process into a paragraph that we thought was pretty clear and explained things nicely.

3. What was the hardest part of creating your piecewise function?

The equation itself was difficult to find because instead of a simple function, like 10% off every sale, the discount actually changed based on different ranges of the amount of calculators that were bought, so trying to find the equation was difficult.

4. If you could revise one part of this project, what would you improve and how?

Our graph obviously could’ve been neater, but since we did spend a lot of time trying to graph it accurately, we had to sacrifice a bit of the time that would be needed to make the image cleaner, while also being correct.

5. What did this project help you understand better about piecewise functions?

The concept of sub-fucntions helped us understand that there are many different types of graphs and it isn’t always straightforward to create a function equation or a graph, and this allowed us to really see that.

Art Mixed Media Self Portrait

December 15, 2025 / Johnny

One of the biggest parts of a person’s identity is their hobbies, because everyone should have somewhat distinct personal interests. I reflected this in my artwork by integrating my favorite things to do or watch together, like the F1 Baseball Field.

I took risks mainly with the color palette. When I was creating the portrait on the iPad, I wasn’t sure what color to use for my skin, hair and other things, because I didn’t really know what would blend well with the purple and green background, and was afraid that if I chose the wrong color, the piece would be too jarring or my portrait wouldn’t be very visible. I had to take some time out of my creating time to experiment with different color schemes, which led to a slightly more rushed final product. I ended up deciding on the current one because I felt it was appropriate with the background of my square, and I think it turned out to be nicer than I thought.

December 8, 2025 / Johnny

1.

Kool Koor’s background in the Bronx shaped his bold lines and fast movements. Growing up around spray-paint culture taught him to work with improvisation, which showed in the techniques he demonstrated. His aesthetic feels natural because it comes from a culture where art had to be created quickly with personality.

2.

Street art pushes artists to work big, fast, and adapt to unpredictable surroundings, while studio or classroom environments allow slower, more detailed choices. I noticed that trying his style in class felt more controlled, but it was harder to copy the same energy he gets on the streets. The cleaner environment made me more careful with color and line, instead of doing everything freely.

3.

My own culture and environment will influence the colors, symbols, and themes I choose for my self-portrait artwork. I can bring in elements like familiar places, patterns, or objects that represent who I am and what shaped me. By combining these personal details into the style we learned, my artwork can show both my identity and my growht,

PTC Reflection

November 3, 2025 / Johnny

During last week’s PTC, I learned a lot about my performance in class, like what I did well and what I need to improve on since there are relatively less opportunities to receive feedback during class. I think the thing I need to work on the most is getting my work done efficiently in Social Studies class.

Social Studies Unit 1

October 28, 2025 / Johnny

This past unit in Social Studies we worked on our Inquiry of Interest, where we would pick something we were interested in and we developed and answered a main question around that topic.

My question was about baseball. On top of making a poster answering our question in detail for a maximum grade of 3, we were given the option to potentially boost that grade up to a 4 by doing an optional extension that was a separate presentation where you had to talk about your topic and how you developed it. I decided to do that, and I think the result for both the L3 and L4 were pretty good, and I dealt with the extra work quite well.

Language Arts Unit 1

October 7, 2025 / Johnny

This unit, we interacted with our aliens in order to better develop grammar skills by teaching it ourselves. I think I learned a lot about the precision of English Language by learning more about parts of speech and shades of meaning, for example how different words with similar or same meanings can imply different things when used in a sentence.

The piece that best shows my growth so far this year is the fact that my alien can accurately identify, explain and use shades of meaning.

Art

September 24, 2025 / Johnny

We went to the Pudong Art Museum on Friday, and we went to see two exhibitions, also thinking about the essential question, which was: In what ways can an exhibition influence the ideas, beliefs, and experiences of an audience?

Interacting with the artwork, my experience was that I got to see the rough outline of a timeline of art starting from an early time period. Even though I started on the 3rd floor, I think the message was pretty clear, because I could recall most of what I saw when I went down to the lower level.

I think the main intention of the curator was to arrange an exhibition in chronological order so that viewers could experience or find out about how art technique developed over time as new events were happening.

I engaged in the scavenger hunt, and we found everything on the paper.

Table Tennis Unit

September 5, 2025 / Johnny

This unit I played table tennis. I feel proud of my development in the forehand smash, but I needed more work in backhand. I also developed some backspin on my serve and I think it was quite effective.