My Site 9th Grade
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Last junior year write up
Growth mindset project
When we had our very first growth mindset project I wanted to take on American Sign Language. I learned the basics and started using it around my friends and letting them know what each sign meant. Luckily my aunt was also taking classes at the time, so I could use to by signing everyday. Learning sign language wasn't easy, but I made a goal that I was going to stick with it. I often found myself going to ASL club every Fridays, watching videos on the weekends, even spent my free time learning. I just didn't want to give it up. I found myself wanting to learn more, and I picked up pretty fast. I am so proud of myself for learning the alphabet in British Sign Language in one night, and reviewed it the next day! This made me change my view about myself and capable of. Moving forward, I've currently know four songs in ASL in hopes to improve my skill. When it came to applying my growth mindset project to math it was difficult because math has always been difficult for me. I find that I work better one on one. If I'm working one one on one or ask questions I do feel like I'm able to get it, and be productive.
Something that i actually enjoyed
I am a person that strongly dislikes math. To my surprise I took on extra credit when my friend Thalia pitched a cool ideal that we could make a hexastix. This project required forty-eight pencils, glue, and colored coded to tell them apart when they intersect. When we kept going through this we came up with 12 intersections with the corner pencils, and 11 intersections at the center. The equation we came up with was (12(6)+11(6))4. The reason it was times by four because there a total of four groups of pencils that intersect. We broke this down piece by piece (12(6)+11(6))4, which made it (72+66)4. From there this got us (138)4, which equaled 552 total intersections. Even though I enjoyed it, we did struggle with miscounting how many intersections there were and could not come up with any equation. When we finally did come up with possible equations we were getting closer to getting one part down. The last step was coloring coding all the pencils, which I liked because that was the only easy thing about this project. The reason we colored coded all the pencils was to tell them apart at the intersections.
a concept that i struggled with
I am not strong in math. I still struggle with learning how to read and plot graphs. Quadratics are even harder when it comes to figuring out how it's plotted, wondering if I did it right. I have a hard time graphing parabolas and solving equations. For example I would have a hard time solving the equation X^2=16y. I always think I should solve a problem like this with y=mx+b, but that's not always the case. Defining to solve equations by what they are is really hard to remember. I don't want to sit there and not do anything so I ask my groupmates or the people around me for help.
how i grown and senior plans
I don't really know how much I've grown this year, but I consider my skills in ASL to be better. When I think about what I did I reflect on taking honors, and getting my regular homework done. I've grown showing that I can take on so many things at once and keep up with it. I got up at three in the morning to work on honors and homework making sure I met the deadlines. I also came to school in the mornings tired and stayed after school until six.Honors was tedious and stressful, but I did get trough it with support from my family. I've learned that I am capable of so much more if I am challenged than what I'm used to. This is also an early start to getting a college feel.
What i plan to take next year
I plan to take pre-algebra just because my sister gave her honest opinion it was a better fit. She said calculus is was is way too hard, and you have to know your algebra in order to really understand calculus. My sister said I would be stressed, so I'm glad she was looking out for my well being. As a senior, I plan to be successful at math by choosing who I work outside of class with. I may do the same thing that I did for first semester of junior year. I will get up super early and study, come in the morning for help, and stay after school for tutoring. From hearing the seniors' experience this year of math is pretty brutal. It's important to keep up the good grades because we will not be able to revise test and/or exams. I honestly think that this will bring on more of my stress and anxiety, so I really have to learn to be mentally prepared and stable for that.