As long as 5 school months might sound in a scale of 12, there's no point in spending about 130 days waking up at 7:00 am to sit down in a chair, unless you take time to validate the experience and initiative to take feedback and improve performance. For as long as I remember, those green and blue ATL fill-up papers have been recognized as a waste of time, in fact, taking a pen and filling it up with closed eyes -- "who cares" that's what students would say. Honestly, it is actually a waste of time to dedicate thought to a piece of paper that will most likely be ignored by teachers, as they have the last say in grades. Moreover, what's the point in giving yourself feedback and a 1 - 5 scale mark if you believe that you've been giving the best of your abilities; you many times don't notice small details that other people do. It's partially effective that you reflect on your performance, but there needs to be an extra incentive to improve, external commentaries from individuals who get a perspective of yourself from the outside picture: classmates.
As the end of this senior year first semester has arrived, there's been some constructive reflection done to realize specific details about myself and my work ability that should make a twist for next semester. Straight talks -- a method established by the IA to give ourselves grades -- has allowed me to understand what I need to fluctuate in order to become an A+ person and student. Giving ourselves feedback from multiple views, has opened the bigger picture of how you've added value to the class, encouraging yourself to modify parts of your work ethic for improvement. Once again, it's important to keep in mind that:
As the end of this senior year first semester has arrived, there's been some constructive reflection done to realize specific details about myself and my work ability that should make a twist for next semester. Straight talks -- a method established by the IA to give ourselves grades -- has allowed me to understand what I need to fluctuate in order to become an A+ person and student. Giving ourselves feedback from multiple views, has opened the bigger picture of how you've added value to the class, encouraging yourself to modify parts of your work ethic for improvement. Once again, it's important to keep in mind that:
-- School is not over until you reflect on your performance: GETTING FEEDBACK --
English Honors:
I bet that if you scroll down until the first blog post that I wrote in August of 2013, you'll see the improvement quite fast. It's clear that my ability to variate the structure, language, and creativeness in my writing was drastically gotten better as I've practiced through my articles, pitches, POL and blog posts; my voice as a writer has slowly become stronger. Nevertheless, if I were to CHALLENGE myself with the feedback that I received, I would focus on two aspects: many times -- and this is something I've noticed-- when I write I'm extremely redundant. I tend to have clear and purposeful ideas but I take time to get to my point; I don't synthesize my thoughts. Next time I write I gotta be MORE CONCISE. Secondly, they've challenged me with my style in writing. I experiment when I write, but sometimes, I'm "fluffy" and not purposeful; I use adjectives to describe my ideas and I try to add as much creativeness as I can, but it definitely gets recharged with no purpose.
Business and Entrepreneurship: I've build a reputation that most people can trust, and one that after feedback has been improving; If I get a task, there's no doubt that I'll have it done. One of the problems during the first quarter of senior year was lacking the idea of taking initiative, and honestly I can now say that I've gotten much better as I've been conscious of it. However, what I've been CHALLENGED with, is as follows: I need to start finding the fun anytime I work. Obviously I couldn't be happier with the idea of running a business, it |
fascinates me, but during the process of creation I need to start identifying the playful part of the work, having fun with all the tasks that I'm responsible of. Also, one individual task that needs to be nailed all the way down before summer ends is the website; I've got to have it perfectly done and ready to share with anyone before school starts, keeping in mind the brand and eyes of the company as well as maintaining a pattern in style.
Media Literacy:
I'm involved with media in a variety of ways: through my blog, twitter, website creation, and even the BlendZ FB page. I'n fact, as some mentioned, I'm creative when I get to express my ideas through media, for instance in my POL, were clearly I was passionate about it. But as in any other task, I'm up to the CHALLENGE. An important aspect of media is the amount of iterations done before a product reaches perfection: that's something I'm missing. I need to push myself to create different drafts of the same product at all times, and not necessarily feel
100% satisfied with the first shot, because if you keep on trying you will eventually get to better results. Moreover, as they've kept on challenging me since last semester, I need to be more critical and analytical. When I read, I sometimes struggle with the synthesis of the most important ideas, and that blocks me from expressing myself with key learnings that might support my thoughts. As well, when I do presentations, the POL for instance, I need to make sure to find out and research more about what it is that I'm talking about, avoiding my innate thinking that I know the topic perfectly: many times you need to have more than just your personal point of view. |
With no further due, I'm UP TO THE CHALLENGES...