At the beginning of unit 2, I used to think that anxiety was a generalized disorder, and that there aren’t different types of anxiety but now I know that there are different types of anxiety and anxiety can look different for each individual. There are four types of anxiety, GAD (Generalized anxiety disorder), Social anxiety, panic disorder, and phobias.
GAD (Generalized anxiety disorder)
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, people with GAD feel extremely worried or nervous more frequently about problems like health, money, and family problems.
Social anxiety
NIH says that people who have social anxiety disorder experience symptoms of anxiety or fear in scrutinizing situations like public speaking, meeting new people, dating, job interviews, answering a question in class, or having to do simple tasks like talking to a cashier in a store.
Panic disorder
According to NIH, “people with panic disorder have frequent and unexpected panic attacks. These attacks are characterized by a sudden wave of fear or discomfort or a sense of losing control even when there is no clear danger or trigger”. Symptoms of a panic attack include physical symptoms that might feel like a heart attack such as trembling, rapid heart rate, and a tingling sensation. For different individuals panic attacks can occur frequently throughout the day or they can happen as rarely as only a few times a year.
I also used to think that anxiety was a simple and easy to deal with disorder, however I learned that anxiety is much more complex than it may seem and it looks completely different for each individual. Anxiety for some may be extreme, and for others it may be more moderate.
Tech & Media
In this unit, we learned more about tech and media and how it impacts our mental health. We looked at graphs and data that showed the increase in depression, anxiety, and eating disorder rates as well as other disorders like bipolar disorders. In the graphs and pieces of data we looked at, it is clear how after the introduction of social media and technology, depression, anxiety, and even eating disorder rates have increased. This gave us an insight on how tech and media is influencing our daily lives.
According to the World Health Organization, “New data from the WHO Regional Office for Europe reveals a sharp rise in problematic social media use among adolescents, with rates increasing from 7% in 2018 to 11% in 2022. This, coupled with findings that 12% of adolescents are at risk of problematic gaming, raises urgent concerns about the impact of digital technology on the mental health and well-being of young people”. This clearly shows the negative side of social media and tech use if it is not monitored and overused. Taking that into consideration, I believe there are several ways that we can positively implement social media into our lives with moderation and monitoring tech and media to prevent increasing rates of declining mental health.
Overall, this unit on tech, media, and mental health has really helped me realize more about specifically anxiety and how technology and media can both positively and negatively influence our lives and our mental health. It has also shown me how to be more weary of what I see on the media, and to approach things online with caution and skepticism, not everything we see on the media is true or real.
The purpose of my conference is to demonstrate my growth and learning throughout the school year in all of my core and encore subjects.
I’d like to share:
What I’ve done and what I still want to achieve
Some areas of growth, some of my strengths, and some of my work I have completed for class.
My goals and how I plan to achieve them
My Vision Board
Some of the things included on my vision board are:
School, schoolwork
Travel
Happiness, wellbeing
Friends
These are important because: I value my well being and mental health quite a lot,
My Goals Are:
Complete all my assignments on time before the end of the semester.
2. Get a 4 on my next math test
3. Try and enroll in IM2
Transdisciplinary Transfer Goal (TTG)
The TTG I chose to reflect upon throughout the year is Critical Thinkers. The reason for why I chose this goal is because I feel as though I have gotten better at raising my hand in class more, actively participating in class and I have improved my skills on considering different approaches and perspectives to construct solutions.
Core Subject: Math 🧮
I will now share my progress in Math
Strengths
Here are some of my strengths:
Multiplying fractions
Finding slope
Linear & proportional relationships.
Areas of Growth
Explaining evidence
Rotations
Linear relationships
Artifact one shows how I can creatively demonstrate a comparison between how many plastic bags there are in the ocean to the weight of a rocket ship. While creating this project, I learned that there are over 8 trillion tons of plastic in the ocean, which motivated me to do a little more research. This project also allowed me to deepen my understanding of scientific notation, and how to apply that to real life situations. This artifact shows my progress because at the beginning of the year I did not even know what scientific notation was, however, by working and completing this project I was able to better understand scientific notation and being able to use scientific notation for an accurate comparison.
Artifact 2 is my L4 celebration of learning CoL about Linear Relationships. We learned about Linear and Nonlinear relationships, and we learned more about slope, y-intercept, and how to find an equation for these relationships using slope-intercept form. We looked at several ways to find an equation for tables, graphs, and coordinates. Reflecting on this unit, I think that it for sure was a unit that I understood quite well and I know that I worked hard on understanding the topics from the unit. I feel like this unit helped deepen my understanding of how to find slope and y-intercept and interpret them in the context of a problem, which I found very helpful to me as a learner because it shows my growth in math. In this CoL, I earned a 3.5 which to me shows some growth because I show understanding of the concepts reviewed and I can push myself a little more. Overall I would say I can see my growth and I am pleased with that, but I do think I can do better.
Using my science notebook has been very useful for me so far in science and I find it a very useful tool to record my assignments and to organize myself well.
Evidence of Active Learner Habits
Evidence of Understanding of Key Concepts
Based on this evidence, overall, I show a good understanding for most of the key concepts with a slight lack of understanding for some particular key concepts.
Evidence of Growth in Science Skills
Active learner
Developing and Using Models
Constructing Explanations and Designing Solution
Engaging in Argument from Evidence
Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information
Artifact one is my WW1 analytical essay. I completed my WW1 analytical essay during semester 1 and while writing it I encountered a challenge of putting the right information in the right sections, for example at first when I wrote the essay, I wrote pieces of information in the wrong places, which resulted in a big change in little time which was very stressful, but I made sure to conference with my teacher to make sure that my essay had the right information in the right place, and in the end, the essay was good and I got a meeting.
Artifact two is my visual argument that I did at the beginning of semester 1 about eating disorders and focusing on ways that societal attitudes have impacted the development of eating disorders since the 90’s. During the process of making the visual argument, I faced a challenge of time management, I felt like I struggled a bit with managing my time because before I had to complete and submit my final draft, I had some trouble with being able to finish the actual product and the planning for the final product. Some feedback I received for my artifact was to take out the blue lines where text was to make the text more legible.
I learned that when the brain is still developing, especially a teen brain, rational thought and logical thinking is not present in decision making.
The brain is complex and is made of many structures. The brain develops slowly over time as we get older and it develops going from the back to the front. The amygdala, (part of the brain that detects danger and is responsible for emotional responses) is shaped like an almond. It plays a very key role in determining the FFF response (Fight, Flight, Freeze) when in a triggering situation. The amygdala is centered in the middle of the brain, whereas the pre-frontal cortex is centered at the front of the brain and it is responsible for logical thinking and rational thought.
Because teens brain’s are still developing, their pre-frontal cortex is not yet fully developed, but their amygdala is more developed. This is why teens act impulsively with less thought then perhaps and adult. The amygdala is easily triggered, so stress which is very common in teens triggers the amygdala which results in more anxiety and stress.
The hippocampus also plays a significant role. The hippocampus is responsible for memory and learning. During childhood, some might experience a situation where they felt fear, so the hippocampus grapples to that experience and when in the same experience again, the hippocampus sends signals to the amygdala which triggers feelings of anxiety and stress/anxiety
In unit 1 of health, psychology and stress we learned a lot about how our brains develop and how the teen brain is when it is developing which allowed me to learn about why I make the choices I make and how that may impact me as a person, and I learned more about why I act the way I act sometimes, for example unconsciously relying on emotion and feeling then on logical and rational thought. This has helped me as a learner to further deepen my understanding of myself.
In unit 2, tech, media, and mental health, I learned how social media equates to sugar, its addictive. We also explored our WOOP goals. Throughout the process of completing my goal, I may say I successfully.
Spanish
En la clase de español, aprendimos sobre hábitos saludables, diálogos en español y el medio ambiente. Durante este semestre, hice muchos proyectos como una biografía de Salvador Dalí, leímos el libro “Muerte en Buenos Aires” y respondimos preguntas en un post de discusión en Schoology.
Artículo uno es una biografia del Salvador Dalí que hice en semestre uno. Yo creo que hice un buen trabajo porque usé bien mi tiempo que tuve en clase de español. El proyecto tambien fue muy interesante y una experiencia muy buena para mi.
P.P. 4.0
For my passion project, I chose to focus my project on an interactive activity with my audience about CPR which is related to medicine, a topic that sincerely fascinates me. My project is centered around creating an educational opportunity where students (the audience) can learn the steps to performing CPR and how to perform CPR and life saving measures. My project is also focused around researching and explaining the psychological impact of being in such a stressful situation like having to save someone’s life. I want to create this project because I think that CPR and steps on how to save someone’s life are very underrated and aren’t discussed as much as they should be.
Highlights of the year:
My favorite lessons, moments, activities, days of the year were P.E. activities and field trips because they fostered moments for me to grow and become a better skillful communicator. It helped foster better bonds with friends, peers, and even teachers.
Closing
Thank you for listening to my progress towards my goals over the last year. Do you have any questions?
I wish to find someone or an online platform that I can trust to help me get through tough moments or big events that occur in my life, I wish to talk to someone or an online platform for at least 5 minutes everyday.
App functionality
The app I chose is an app called reflectly. It is an app designed to give positive quotes and to check in on mood daily and to reflect on the day or how the day is going. The app is very simple and easy to use. One possible complication with the app is that it could give more feedback or something more positive according to what I write in the app, but overall, it is a very good and well designed app to help with stress resilience and to check mood and thoughts which is very therapeutic. Another possible complication is that to unlock some features of the app it requires pay.
Some of the basic features of the app are:
Ability to check in on mood
Notifications that appear from time to time as a reminder to check in
Able to jot down notes
Has prompts to reflect
Advanced features
Tracks data and mood over the course of 7 days
Sends quotes and motivation
App usefulness
The reflectly app does, in a way, support my WOOP goal because it helps me check in daily on how I am feeling and how my day has been, which provides me a way to reflect and think about the things going on in my life.
The app helps me develop healthy habits and improve my emotional health because it allows me to reflect, and take a moment to think about what might be making me feel down or upset or unsatisfied. It also gives me an opportunity to be grateful for what I have in life, so it definitely helps improve my emotional well being and adds to my healthy habits.
This app could hep improve brain health by the following:
Allowing a moment to breathe and take a few minutes to reflect, which can help calm down a triggered amygdala.
The app allows a way to express gratefulness, by acknowledging the positive things that have or are occurring in one’s life, which activates the hippocampus and amygdala because it allows for one to go delve into their memories or experiences of joy, which helps with mood.
Design
The app is a humane design, it is very minimalistic and simple, which in some ways is better because it does not distract.
Reflectly could add some value to a users life because it is an app that regularly sends notifications and quotes to empower and inspire
My process
The screenshots show my progress over the course of 7 days. They show all my entries and notes and my daily check-ins. The app shows data of my average mood, and it allows me to track what is bothering me like school or family which helps my mental health.
When the brain is still developing, especially a teen brain, rational thought and logical thinking is not present in decision making.
The brain is complex and is made of many structures. The brain develops slowly over time as we get older and it develops going from the back to the front. The amygdala, (part of the brain that detects danger and is responsible for emotional responses) is shaped like an almond and is part of the limbic system. It plays a very key role in determining the FFF response (Fight, Flight, Freeze) when in a triggering situation. The amygdala is centered in the middle of the brain, whereas the pre-frontal cortex is centered at the front of the brain and it is responsible for logical thinking and rational thought.
Teen brain
Because teens brain’s are still developing, their pre-frontal cortex is not yet fully developed, but their amygdala is more developed. This is why teens act impulsively with less thought then perhaps and adult. The amygdala is easily triggered, so stress which is very common in teens triggers the amygdala which results in more anxiety and stress.
The hippocampus also plays a significant role. The hippocampus is responsible for memory and learning. During childhood, some might experience a situation where they felt fear, so the hippocampus grapples to that experience and when in the same experience again, the hippocampus sends signals to the amygdala which triggers feelings of anxiety and stress/anxiety.
Stress resiliencestrategies
Stress creates a negativity bias which sets thinking traps that can really level up our anger and cause even more feelings of anxiety and stress. However, there are several simple, quick, and useful stress resilience strategies that can be easily incorporated into someones daily schedule.
During class, we learned many ways of how to build stress resilience, some of which included journaling, nature, sleep, mindfulness, exercise and etc. I focused on the stress coping mechanism of journaling. Journaling has been found to be and extraordinary way to cope with stress and feelings of anxiety, as it allows a person to delve deep into their feelings and thoughts and release feelings of stress or anxiety that they might hold to themselves. There are many different ways of journaling, like expressive journaling, or just keeping thoughts and things that happen in a diary, which goes to show how journaling is for anyone, and it is so versatile that there are endless ways of incorporating journaling into ones daily life.
In conclusion, there are several research and evidence proved ways to cope with stress, and by doing so we allow our amygdala‘s to calm down which helps us deal with stress, revealing the psychology of brain development and the importance of understanding it.
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:
