Sam's Portfolio

Collaboration reflection

In school, I have worked on many group projects that helped me improve my collaboration skills. One of the most important things I learned is how to communicate with my teammates. For example, during the design a new club task, we had to share ideas and make decisions together, ultimately deciding what is the best fit for our club. I listened to my teammates and made sure everyone had a chance to speak. This helped us find the best solutions and best ideas.

I also learned how to be patient and flexible. Sometimes, my teammates had different opinions, and we had to find a way to agree. We had to make sure that we are listening to others in our group, and consider all ideas instead of doing things the way I like.

Overall, my school experiences taught me that good collaboration means listening, being patient, and sharing responsibilities. I am sure that these skills will not only help me to succeed in school but will also be valuable in my future, where collaboration and teamwork will become even more important. These tasks really helped to develop my skills in collaborating with others, and I am sure these skills will be really useful for me throughout my life.

Communication reflection

During the apprenticeship tasks, I also worked on my communication skills. In group projects, I learned how important it is to express my ideas clearly. I practiced sharing my thoughts during discussions and making sure everyone understood my points.

Especially in the debate task, I found out how this skill was very important, and not only do I need to express my ideas clearly, I also need to listen carefully on what the others said. We did a debate on whether or not assisted suicide should be legal in the US, and we had 4 people debating together, two for yes and two for no.

That is why I think listening is also an important part of communication. By paying attention to my classmates, I could better understand their perspectives and respond thoughtfully to either add on or rebut their points during the debate. This helped create a more open environment where everyone felt comfortable sharing.

Participating in presentations was another key part of my growth. I learned how to organize my information and present it in a way that engaged my audience. Before this task, I was always afraid to talk in front of others, and this task helped me to build on my confidence.

Overall, these experiences have helped me become a more effective communicator, allowing me to share my ideas clearly in a meaningful way. I think that this category was really helpful, as the tasks all involved us having to speak in front of others, which is something I am not too comfortable in.

Resilience reflection

Resilience is the ability to bounce back from challenges, and I have learned a lot about this through my apprenticeship tasks. While doing some of the tasks, I sometimes wanted to give up, however, instead of giving up, I learned to take a deep breath, maybe close my eyes for a few minutes before coming back to continue what I am doing. This is extremely helpful, as it lets me to take a break from the overwhelming activities, but not to give up or procrastinate.

For example, during the mindfulness task, I wanted to give up many times, especially in the first few days. But I managed to keep myself going, and a tip I have is to not think about it, and simply go and sit on the mindfulness mat every day at a set time, and just start doing it. This makes the whole process much easier than thinking about it, making me unwilling to do the activity.

After these tasks, I realized that resilience is not only about overcoming difficulties but also about learning from them. Now, when I face challenges, I remind myself that I can overcome them by staying focused and simply putting my phone away. This mindset has not only helped me academically but has also helped me improve mentally.

Critical thinker reflection

Critical thinking is a very important skill that can help me to solve problems efficiently. I learned to approach challenges with an open mind, and improved my thinking skills.

When I face a problem, I break it down into smaller parts and before putting them back together to get the final solution. This smarter approach allows me to solve the small problems one by one instead of having to confuse myself over one big task.

Also, the dissect a magic trick task was difficult. This is because I not only have to find a magic that is hard, and shows me the solutions, but also ones that don’t require special props. After that, I needed to learn the trick and master it, which took quite a bit of time, before I managed to show it off in front of my friends.

Overall, my critical thinking skills allow me to deal with complex issues faster and more effective, which can help me both in school and in my whole life. I will be able to finish tasks faster and in a more logical way, helping me to process information from both sources and other peers, before expressing my own thinking on the issue.

Creative learner reflection

Creativity is a big part of solving problems and expressing it in innovative ways. In the apprenticeship tasks, I got to explore different ideas and expressing them in different fun ways, showing my creativity. This helps me think in a more unique way and come up with interesting and useful ideas.

When I work on a project, I always brainstorm. I write down lots of ideas, and even though most of them failed, it helped me to get the best one. This process often leads to solutions that I wouldn’t have thought of on my own.

One of the tasks I worked on was to write a short fictional story. In my opinion, the writing part was easy, and I just had to type a few hundred words. The real hard part is the idea behind it. I had to be able to think of a story-line that is both interesting and exciting.

This took me a lot of time, and something useful I found out was to also brainstorm. Never cross out a small idea in your head, write it down in your brainstorm list, and only cross it out until you have fully thought about it.

Overall, my creativity helps me adapt to different situations and express myself in unique ways. It also allows me to think of new and innovative solutions.

Big project

Currently, in science class, we are working on a car project where we have to build a car that maximizes acceleration and velocity using Newton’s second law. In our first practice, we followed instructions to create a small car that used a balloon to move. When we blew up the balloon, the air inside will help to push the car, making it accelerate. We then ran the car along a short track, and recorded a video as it ran. Afterwards, we wrote down the recorded data, and made a graph out of it.

I think this project will be really interesting because we’ll have a lot of freedom in how we design our cars. We can get creative with our ideas and try out different materials, as we will even have access to the maker-space, which has all sorts of equipments. With the skills we learnt from the trips to the maker-space, I am sure I will be able to make something creative and fast. In this project, we not only can learn physics, we can also apply our creativity, and collaboration skills. I hope that in the future, we will continue to have even more fun and educational projects like this.

Extracurricular

One of the extracurricular activities I’m involved in is the Model United Nations (MUN). This is my first year in MUN, and I think that is is quite interesting. At first, it was pretty intimidating because there are a lot of rules and procedures to follow, making it hard to follow and understand, constantly making me overwhelmed by all the information and specific language we had use.

However, as I attended more practices, it started to become easier and I managed to learn most of the common procedures we had to follow. The practices helped me learn how to debate and discuss issues with others, improving my skills on communication, and improving my public speaking skills. The SHAMUN experience was also helpful. We got the opportunity to participate in big debates with people in different schools, and even wrote our own resolutions.

Now, I find MUN to be not as tiring. I think that it is really exciting to look at issues all around the world, and debate on them with others. I am really looking forward to the rest of the year, and I hope I will be able to improve myself even more.