Math III
The goal for my Growth Mindset project was to learn how to film and edit my own movie, so I produced an informational film on DACA and how it's implementation/withdrawal has effected my working class community. I chose this topic because I felt like the subject was the most pressing to cover and I had many relationships with students who were in some way impacted by the latest action against DACA.
After this project I learned that I had the ability to make a good video, so I now volunteer to make videos for school for projects. I have seen my filming and editing skills better since I first started the project and found that I enjoy making videos to share with my community. Doing this project showed me what way to approach problems that are completely new to me and fully expect to make mistakes and be okay with it, which is something that happened to me quite often in math class this year.
After this project I learned that I had the ability to make a good video, so I now volunteer to make videos for school for projects. I have seen my filming and editing skills better since I first started the project and found that I enjoy making videos to share with my community. Doing this project showed me what way to approach problems that are completely new to me and fully expect to make mistakes and be okay with it, which is something that happened to me quite often in math class this year.
The math problem that I enjoyed the most this year is the Cow Problem, which states that a farmer ties his cow to one end of his 10' x 10' square barn with a 100' rope. What we had to figure out was the maximum area in which the cow can eat the grass around the barn. I enjoyed this particular problem because I felt as though the math concepts were always challenging to me but in the end I understood what I was doing to solve the problem. My hard work can be seen through my work sheet annotations.
|
A content area that I struggled with this year was learning when and how to use SOHCAHTOA, a helpful type of acronym for remembering the definitions of trigonometric functions sine, cosine, and tangent. I was not able to understand when to use this to find angle measurements, let alone how to solve for side lengths of a rectangle by using this acronym. I knew that these types of math problems would come up on exams and finals, so I would have to eventually know how to use SOHCAHTOA. I asked everyone at my table to explain a problem to me and draw out examples, which helped me tremendously and I hope also helped their understanding.
This year I have grown to be a student that enjoys math class. I have always considered myself a humanities and social science inclined student, therefore being someone who struggles to understand math concepts. That was not at all the case this year. I found that through weekly lessons, note taking and group work, I was able to retain almost all of the information provided to me by my teacher and peers and bettered my problem solving abilities through in class practices. This can be seen through my exam results bellow, I achieved great scores on all of my tests.
I hope to continue to be this successful in math class in my senior year. I will bring in my own journal to take notes that will help me remember the information provided, create my own study group, and ask as many questions as I need in order to get to where I need to be. I will need all of these tools, especially since I am taking Calculus. I chose to take Calculus because I am working toward being the strongest candidate I can be when I apply to universities this coming fall. I want to show the universities that I am a student that is pushing themselves by taking on all of the most challenging courses available. I also enjoy math and find practicing my problem solving skills to be relaxing.
Honors
Math III Honors this year was challenging and pushed me to always be in the mindset of exceeding expectations no matter what class I am in. I loved being in my math class, and I am especially grateful for having made my decision of taking on Honors for both semesters of my Junior year.
During this Honors project I learned that I should not only give myself the necessary time to complete a project, but I should also add a few days "just in case." Doing this will help alleviate potential stress and will ensure a better end result.
To improve honors next year I suggest to cover more honors content during class time or potentially schedule lunch meetings for students, like me, who benefit from in class lessons vs. teaching themselves new concepts. If this would have been provided for me more often in the school year I would have performed better on my Honors portion exams.
During this Honors project I learned that I should not only give myself the necessary time to complete a project, but I should also add a few days "just in case." Doing this will help alleviate potential stress and will ensure a better end result.
To improve honors next year I suggest to cover more honors content during class time or potentially schedule lunch meetings for students, like me, who benefit from in class lessons vs. teaching themselves new concepts. If this would have been provided for me more often in the school year I would have performed better on my Honors portion exams.