This is my Teen Wellness Compass Self – Assessment
Organization I organize my time and plan ahead to make sure that I allow enough time to get everything done.
I chose this sentence because I am not doing a great job organizing my time and work right now, and I am aware of the pain it brought to me. So I wish to be more organized in HS.
Stress Resilience I feel good that things going on in my personal life rarely interfere with my concentration at school or work.
I chose this sentence because I sometimes bring my mood or stress from home to school, and it impacts my concentration a lot at school. I wish to change that in HS.
Healthy Relationships I am happy with my friendships and other social connections.
I chose this quote and sentence because I have never had any friendship issues before, but also not a lot of truly close friends. But as I am moving closer to HS, I am realizing the significant effects a good bunch of homies could bring to your mood, concentration, and overall life. I wish I could make closer friends in HS.
Rest and Play On a regular basis I get enough rest to energize myself.
I chose this sentence not because I have the problem right now. But because my sister is in HS and she always complains about having too much work, and falls asleep as soon as she comes home. I am worried the same would happen to me. I would feel like a dead person doing the bare minimum to stay alive for the sake of a chance to get into a good university, which doesn’t impact your future life THAT much.
Handling Emotions I am able to communicate my emotions in a positive way without being irritable, critical, or angry.
I chose this sentence because I act rashly with my emotions especially with my family members. I am going to change that.
Spirituality I have a clear sense of meaning and purpose in my life.
I chose this sentence with no second thought because I am aware of the hundreds of students who end themselves each year because of school stress. Sometimes at night, I think about what the purpose of life is and the answer is so easy. I already have a clear sense of meaning in life and I just want this sense of knowledge to last forever.
School and Work I am pleased with my overall involvement in school.
I chose this sentence because I am currently not satisfied of my involvement at school. In HS, I wish to join more clubs and activities.
Care for the Body I have positive feelings about my relationship with food.
I chose this sentence because I eat too little and it will effect my energy and mood. I will change that in HS.
This WOOP goal is for the Healthy Relationships section, my statement is = When someone I care about is upset, I am comfortable listening and really being present to them. I want to work on my EQ so that I can be more helpful emotionally to people I care.
Example of me working towards my goal. I am working on my goal and a example is that I am trying to act nice to people I don’t know on social media. Before, when someone say something that might be aggressive or something I don’t agree with, I get into fights with them, but now I act passive and I tend to ignore people who act aggressively. I am also trying to act more calm in situations just to allow myself to think twice before saying something, I figured that in the past, a lot of arguments start because I said something that I thought would help them but later found to be really dumb and offensive.
Why did I choose this goal? I chose this specific goal because I feel like whenever I talk to people that I care about or just casual texting with them, I always edge them into a awkward position that we don’t know what to say or makes someone mad. I don’t really know how to comfort my friends and family when they are upset. I believe that a good relationship must have people who are willing to listen to you when you are upset, be happy and laugh with you when you are feeling good.
Steps to achieve, obstacles/challenges. Some steps I would take to achieve my goals are to start making habits and staying calm whenever something sudden or emotional happens. I get easily angered and when I’m in a angered state I don’t think logically. I think staying calm is one of my biggest steps to achieve my goals and the biggest obstacles because I’m really bad at controlling my emotions and staying calm to listen to other people.
My wish I wish that when I achieve my goals, I would be really calm when facing awkward situations and I have the ability to give quality feedback and listen to people talk about their life, their challenges. I hope that my existence can help people feel better instead of making them mad.
I used to think that mental disorders are a hoax, a fake scenario someone made up just to get either attention, or special treatment. But now, after I looked at all the presentations, I changed my view about the mental disorders. It is a serious thing that is happening in real life and we need to help the people who are in need.
Our group have been researching about eating disorders, a serious condition that has multiple different types, and people who are diagnosed have disturbances in their eating behaviors. We specialized in researching Anorexia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder. People that are diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa starve/eat as less food as possible most times because of unrealistic beauty standards portrayed online. Binge eating disorder’s symptoms are feel really good when you eat, you are constantly hungry, feel relieved and guilty after eating food. These disorders are really serious and they must be helped.
How are we going to treat eating disorders? We researched a lot for this and most of our research states that eating disorder cannot be entirely curable, but it can definitely be treated and maintained. Some options are early detection, treatment, medical care, individual, group, family psychotherapy, and medication.
UNDERSTANDING STIGMA AND STOPPING STIGMATIZATION! There are a lot of stigma (Negative Stereotypes) that are portrayed and movies, tv shows, books, and day to day life. It might sound scary, and realistic, but most of these are often fake and made up to bully a certain type of people. Some common stigmatization for eating disorders is
*Only young white women get affected *Slimness is a sign of eating disorder *Patients are ashamed of their body
The reality is
*Anyone can be affected by eating disorders *Body shape does not mean people have eating disorder *You do NOT understand what people who are diagnosed feel like so we cannot simply assume someone’s feelings about themselves!!!
Here are some ways we can stop stigmatization.
*Learn about these eating disorders and what the reality is really like *Be aware of your attitude and behavior *Support and include everyone
Throughout this unit, we didn’t just learn about eating disorders, we also got to watch a presentation about other disorders. Here are a little of what I learned about each of them.
Depression Symptoms include sadness, loss of interest, low energy, and changes in sleep. People can use treatment such as medication and therapy to help maintain their depression and help lower it. Most patients show signs around their teens.
BiPolar Symptoms include mood swings, sudden emotion like happiness or sadness, and hallucinations. We can treat this by using medication, psychotherapy, and other treatments. Less than 2 percent of people have this disorder, it is passed on mainly by genetics and other events, and there are 2 main types of BiPolar.
OCD Some symptoms include trying to be too perfect, it can be treated with anxiety therapy, and deep brain stimulation. 1.2 percent of people are diagnosed with OCD.
PTSD Some symptoms include anxiety, panic, fear. It can be treated by talking with them and giving lots of compassions.
Anxiety Symptoms include panic, fear, nausea, and shortness of breath. It can be treated and maintained with medication and psychotherapy. People who have anxiety need your help because you can help them feel better by giving them space and talking to them.
The purpose of my conference is students explain why they are here and what they want to share with their parents about their learning journey.
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
My Vision Board
Some of the things included on my vision board are:
My Goals
My Hobbies
My Life
My Pets
These are important because: They are everything that builds me up as a person.
My Goals Are:
1.Get better at badminton by practicing more and joining more clubs
2.Try my best on school assignments
3.Exercise 30 minutes every day
My TTG goal:
Be a creative thinker/learner
I showed my creative learner skills during passion project.
My strengths
I am working on being creative in many projects for example science projects and social studies project. But I think I would be able to show my skills as a creative learner the best in my Passion Project. I also have a big interest in biology and science-based stuff so I have been really engaged in science work. Another strength is that I have been using some of my lunch time to go in and do work or do my passion project.
Improvements
I can improve by coming in at lunch and talking with the teachers more about my work so that I can receive more help. (Multiple Subjects)
Math Core 1
These are my artifacts for math, these include tests and quizzes. These artifacts are evidence of my growth in math.
We also did a pumpkin exploding challenge that made us do a work sheet and going out to explode pumpkins with rubber bands.
Social Studies Core 2
Artifact 1
This is a project we did at the end of Unit 1. My project is about how fishing changed throughout the years especially during the 21st century.
Artifact 2
This is a debate we did at the end of Unit 2. Our team won and our debate topic is wether we should have stricter regulations in terms of ability enhancing drugs. Our side is CON.
ARTIFACT 3
This is a WW1 Simulator we did at the end of Unit 3. We are the central powers (germany) and we started out strong, but at last we lost to the allied powers.
In UNIT 4, we have been discussing the impacts of migration. For the interview, I chose to interview my grandma because she has a lot of experiences in life and migrated from Fuzhou to Shanghai when she was small and there were barely any technology.
ELA Core 3
Artifact 1
This artifact is about the inquiry essay we are working on in class now, my inquiry question is “How does badminton enhance personal development, affect our community, and contribute globally.”
Artifact 2
This is my brainstorm and script for my motivational speech in public speaking unit. My motivational speech is for people who think they are not successful enough. I started with a quote by Thomas Edison, and I gave examples of my own life and my teacher got motivated.
Science Core 4
Artifact 1
This is a picture of my Ocean Food Web that I did in Science Class semester 2.
Evidence of Organization
This is my organization at the start of 8th grade. I didn’t take time to add color to my models, or write my words in a clear way.
This is my work now, it is clear and legible, but I still have work to do on perfecting my handwriting.
My science notebook is pretty useful for rechecking what we have done during class and to study for a test. At the start of 8th grade, I didn’t go back and visit my notes, but I got better gradually.
I mostly understand the key concepts of science class, once in a while I have a little gap in understanding.
Evidence in Growth and Science Skills
Model Growth.
CER Growth.
This is a CER I did after a while in 8th grade.
My CER grades improvement
Presentation Growth.
The pictures shown above are evidence of my growth in science skills during these few months.
Science Notebook
Chinese Encore 1
Artifact 1
These are the two tests in Chinese class that I have done. I got a M+ in all of the tests which means I know and understand what I am doing in Chinese.
This is my second artifact about a recent ppt I made. This ppt is about 端午节，a traditional Chinese festival that includes dragon boat racing and eating 粽子.
Orchestra Encore 2
In Orchestra class this semester, we did a series of practices on are techniques, skills, and performance pieces.
First artifact
I included this artifact because this is a recording of me playing one of our concert pieces. This is a L2 playing evaluation and this part is played by me and mark.
Health Encore 3
My first artifact is about my wellness app review.
This artifact is a review of the app that helped me with my mental wellness and to achieve my WOOP goals. The app I chose is called Habicat and it is a wellness app designed to be addictive like a video game by implementing unboxing items, and getting more strength. But to achieve that we would have to do healthy tasks like sleeping early and waking up early, and finish all schoolwork that day.
I learned many new things about myself for example we have less logic than adults because we are using our amygdala (our emotion center) as the main power of our brain instead of the prefrontal cortex (the logic side of our brain).
Artifact 2 is a video we made on how puzzles can reduce stress and help with our mental health. We explained how we get dopamine for solving a piece and we brought puzzles for the class to try out after we are done.
PE Encore 4
I worked well on my basketball skills during PE and I have gotten better. A feedback I will give myself is to try harder and exercise everyday. I help our team reach success by being a effective communicator and collaborator.
These are my grades from Semester 1 and 2. I got mostly M+ and E’s so I am doing well in PE.
My favorite sport in PE is badminton because I am really good at it and I enjoy playing with my friends and getting better in a sport I love.
Art Encore 5
Artifact 1
This is a project we did in art that is supposed to be very cool because of all the angles and balance from the shapes.
I demonstrated my creative thinking skills by exploring multiple possibilities for our projects design and reflected on feedback from my peers and teacher.
I demonstrated my active learner by participating in discussions, asking for feedback and giving feedback to my peers, and prepared resources as well as putting them back after we finished with them.
Passion Project 4.0
Our Passion Project is “Simulating a river ecosystem for 1 month” We hope to learn how a functioning ecosystem works and what biotic and abiotic features are included in it. We brought our own tank, decorated the tank with sand, mud, rocks, and wood. Then we brought in plants and other life.
I am super proud of my passion project because we finally got a period of time to do something we love and something we care about. Also it gives me a excuse to buy more fish for “””Passion Project”””.
The App I chose to track my habits is called “Habicat”. It is a App that has a list of good habits for you to complete throughout each day for example Exercise for 20 Minutes, Read 1 Chapter of a Book, and Note Down Tasks For Tomorrow.
Functionality
This app is very easy to use. When you open the app, it takes you into a home page where there are goals for you to complete. The reason I really enjoy using this app is because it looks like a video game and has all the rewards and experience of a video game. For example every time you complete a task, it rewards you with a little bit of experience points “XP”. When you earn 6 of these points you level up, which makes your character stronger in strength, intelligence, and speed.
Some advance features of this app is that you can earn gems by completing daily tasks, with the gems, you can unbox treasure chests which gives you a variety of items that further boosts your characters abilities. You can also challenge bosses by participating in monthly challenges for example using the stairs instead of elevator and drink a cup of water every morning.
Usefulness
The image above is my Woop Goals. My Woop Goal is to organize my time and plan ahead to make sure I allow enough to get everything done. I think this app perfectly supports my goals because it lists everything I have to do in the home page area. I can check once in a while what I have done and what I need to get done. This will improve my organization skills and my efficiency.
Design
This app uses addictive design, but in a good way. We get addicted to this app because we get a dopamine boost every time we level up or complete everything in our home page for that day, which brings us back and complete more tasks. This app adds value to a person’s life by making them complete healthy tasks for their body and making the person feel proud of what they have accomplished that day by leveling up their in-game character. The long term impact of using Habicat is you will no longer need to use Habicat and you will develop a good habit and do all of these tasks without the need of a app or someone to remind you daily.
I have learned about how to create a good mental health for my brain throughout this unit. We first learned about why we get bad mental health, for example stress, eustress, and distress. During puberty we develop our amygdala first, which controls our emotions. This means we would have poor logical decision thinking skills. Later in our life, our pre-frontal cortex develops and we get the skill to make smart, logical decisions.
With the knowledge of some common stressors and why we might have bad mental health, we also learned ways to deal with bad mental health and how we can have a good mental health. Some ways include meditating and doing mindfulness, creating and doing puzzles, exercising daily, journaling, sleeping, listening to music, and doing yoga.
We also kept track of our progress by recording and doing mini tests in our wellness compass. The wellness compass is a tool we use to see how we are doing with our mental health.
This is a project we did at the end of Unit 1. My project is about how fishing changes throughout technologies advances.
Artifact 2
This is a debate we did at the end of Unit 2. Our team won and our debate topic is wether we should have stricter regulations in terms of ability enhancing drugs. Our side is CON.
ARTIFACT 3
This is a WW1 Simulator we did at the end of Unit 3. We are the central powers and we started out strong, but at last we lost to the allied powers.
In UNIT 4, we have been discussing the impacts of migration. For the interview, I chose to interview my grandma because she has a lot of experiences in life and migrated from Fuzhou to Shanghai when she was small and there were barely any technology.
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:
