Before this unit, I didn’t really know much about mental health. I thought it mostly just meant feeling sad sometimes, and that it wasn’t as serious as a physical injury or illness. If someone was struggling, I thought that they could just go through it or cheer up on their own. I also didn’t think mental health conditions were something that affected that many people, so it wasn’t something I paid much attention to.
But now I think…
This unit really changed the way I see mental health. I learned that mental health is just as important as physical health, and that conditions like anxiety and depression are disorders, not something a person can just snap out of. I also didn’t realize how common these conditions are, and how much they can affect someone’s daily life. Now I understand that people dealing with mental health challenges deserve the same care and respect as anyone going through a physical illness. It made me more aware of how I talk about and think about mental health, making sure I didn’t add stigma towards this topic.
One new thing I learned about the erhu is that it was invented during the Tang Dynasty. This surprised me because it shows that the erhu has been around for over a thousand years.
What surprised me the most was how the erhu sounds. Despite only having two strings, the erhu can still make expressive sounds.
One area where the erhu differs from the violin is that its strings are vertical, whereas violin strings are horizontal. Another difference is that the erhu bow stays between the strings, while a violin bow moves across the outside of the strings.
A question that I still have about the erhu is what role does the erhu play in a Chinese orchestra?
One thing from the workshop that helped me grow as a musician was learning about a different musical culture and instrument. It helped me notice how music can be played and expressed in many different ways.
My goal is to complete all my schoolwork on time. I hope that Remember The Milk will help me be more organized for my school assignments and make sure that I do not have overdue work for classes. Currently, I have a few overdues every month for my school work.
The app provides a to do list that allows you to organize your assignments based on priority and their due date. The features that I used the most was the priority one as I often have trouble figuring out which homework to do first. Technology can be used to affect your wellbeing both positively and negatively. My app, for example, can be used to boost productivity and organization. On the other hand, apps like Wechat can seriously impact your stress management and build the habit of procrastination.
Changes that I can feel are finishing all my homework on time, being able to view and prioritize all my assignments, and feeling more stress-free. Some challenges that I faced during the process was figuring how to use the app and forgetting to add assignments. I overcame these challenges by using the web page app along with the mobile app to make it more accessible during classes. Overall, the app has been extremely useful for my second semester in 8th grade.
Part 3 Future Self-Care Plan
Short-term: Self-Regulation: I could take deep breaths when I’m in a meta moment to make sure I don’t affect anybody else. This skill would help in building stress resilience as self-regulation is an important part of this skill.
Long-term: Self-Care: I plan to keep on using the app to track assignments to assist me with my homework. According to the source earlier, organizing makes your brain release dopamine that can encourage you to keep this habit and become less stressed.
Before this project, I noticed that my fight-flight-freeze response often activated when I faced a large amount of homework. The FFF response is the body’s automatic reaction to stress or perceived threats. The three types of responses are either fighting the challenge, fleeing from it, or freezing in place. In my case, I tended to choose the “flight” response by avoiding my assignments altogether. However, through the course of this project, I’ve learned to better regulate my reactions and strengthen my brain’s reward system. Instead of seeking instant gratification, which is the desire for immediate pleasure or relief, I began practicing delayed gratification, which involves resisting short-term temptations to achieve more meaningful long-term goals. By developing this mindset, I found that completing my homework first not only reduced stress but also made my free time more enjoyable and rewarding.
During our PE badminton unit, I learned several important techniques that helped me improve my game and understanding of the sport. One key skill I developed was learning how to use both forehand and backhand serves effectively. At first, it was challenging to control the direction and height of my serves, but with practice, I became more confident and consistent.
We also learned how to perform drop shots, which taught me about timing and precision. Drop shots require a small touch to make the shuttle fall close to the net, and practicing this helped me become more patient and strategic during games. In addition, I worked on playing long shots, sending the shuttle high and deep into the opponent’s court to create space and gain an advantage in a rally.
Overall, this badminton unit helped me build coordination, accuracy, and awareness on the court. I now feel more confident in my ability to use different types of shots depending on the situation, and I enjoyed playing.
One strength I bring to math class is always bringing all my materials to class. This helps me stay organized and prepared to participate in lessons and activities.
Another strength I bring is being an effective collaborator. I am good at working with classmates, sharing ideas, and helping others when they’re stuck.
A third strength I bring is consistently submitting my homework on time. This shows responsibility and helps me keep up with new concepts as the class moves forward.
One habit I want to improve this semester is reading the questions more carefully.
This is an area of growth for me because I sometimes misread key details and lose points on problems I actually know how to solve.
I will work on this habit by slowing down, staying calm under time pressure, and double-checking that I understand exactly what each question is asking before I begin solving it.
Math Notation and Communication
Over time, my math notebook shows major improvement in how clearly I show each step of my work. My notes are now more organized, helping me catch mistakes more effectively and understand my process when reviewing later.
Understanding Key Concepts
This example shows that I understand piecewise functions and what they mean in different contexts. I can interpret how each piece of the function represents a different situation and explain how the graph changes depending on the conditions.
This sticker project clearly demonstrated my understanding of rotation, reflection, translation, and dilation through the creative design of my sticker.
Last unit, I set a goal to read the questions more carefully before doing my work. I worked somewhat well toward this goal because I still misread some questions, but I also caught more mistakes than before. What helped me make progress toward this goal was slowing down, underlining key words and numbers, and previewing all parts of a question before solving. What got in the way of this goal was sometimes feeling rushed by the time, which made me skim through long questions or assume I knew what they were asking without fully re-reading them.
Three strengths I have shown last semester are staying focused in class, being perseverant by not giving up on challenging problems, trying different strategies, and explaining my thinking by using mathematical vocabulary in my answers.
Three areas I still want to improve are clearly explaining causation and correlation, reading every part of multi-step questions carefully before I start solving, and checking my work more consistently so I catch misread questions and small calculation errors.
In the next unit, I want to consistently read every question at least twice and underline key information so I can reduce mistakes caused by misreading and better understand what is being asked. What might get in the way of this goal is feeling rushed by the time and wanting to skip rereading, especially when a problem looks familiar. If I get stuck or need help, I will first reread the question slowly. If I am still unsure, I will ask the teacher for clarification and try my best.
I chose Question 2 as evidence of my best thinking because I clearly showed all my work and got all four parts correct, which shows I understood the steps and was careful with my calculations. I chose Question 4 as evidence of my best thinking because I was able to apply my learning in context, interpret what the question was asking, and answer correctly using the information from the situation.
Throughout Unit 2, I improved the most at correctly identifying points and explaining what they meant in the context of the problem. One skill from this unit that I still need to work on is clearly explaining the difference between causation and correlation in real-life situations. The biggest challenge for me on this assessment was reading each question carefully before starting my work, especially on longer word problems. One strategy that helped me on this test was double-checking my work and rereading my answers to prevent simple mistakes.
My story was about a bike courier delivering orders in his city. The part of the project that I am the most proud of is interpreting and analyzing each part of the function clearly. The hardest part of creating my piecewise function was to think of a creative and authentic idea. If I could revise one part of this project, I would show more work to demonstrate my thinking in this project. This project helped me understand piecewise functions better by putting it in a realistic, easier to understand context.
In this project, I learned how a simple idea actually involves a lot of planning, precision, and problem-solving. At first, I didn’t realize how many decisions go into creating a product, from choosing materials to measuring accurately and thinking about the user’s needs. As I worked through the design cycle, I saw how each step connected to the next.
During the planning stage, I had to sketch multiple ideas and compare them before deciding on my final design. This helped me think like a designer instead of just rushing to build something. When it came to measuring, cutting, and assembling the box, I realized how important accuracy and patience are. Even small mistakes in measurement can affect how the final product fits together. The most challenging part of this project was recreating my sketch online because it took a lot of precision and practice to get it how I liked.
Overall, this project helped me improve my craftsmanship, attention to detail, and ability to reflect on my work. If I were to do this project again, I would focus on improving the finish and durability of my box, and double-check my measurements before cutting. I’m proud of my final product and the skills I developed along the way.
