Friday, December 14, 2007

(5) Based on your answers to the questions above, how do you wish to grow/ change as a student/ person second semester? What steps do you have to take to achieve that growth?

I definitely want to work even harder as a student, get good results so that everyone around me will be happy for me.

It was easy getting good grades when I first started in Secondary 1, as CA1 is easy. If you can recall what you learn in primary school. But along the way, homework, projects, school-related work gets harder and harder, until I wanted to give up and not study anymore.

But I know that is impossible, so I took all the challenges that came my way and did not give up. I just told myself to keep working hard and in the end, all I have done will pay off. Which it did.

It is all about determination, perseverance, how you manage your time, planning and lots of patience. Even though you work hard, the result you see might not be what you hoped to get. I know all this because I went through all of them.

-159 words (excluding title)-

(4) Think back to a time over the past semester when you faced a challenge or made a big mistake. ( A bad grade on something, letting your benchmarks pile up until the last minute,etc) What sorts of lessons did you learn about yourself from that challenge and/ or mistake? How did this influence the way you did things after that moment? IN what ways does this experience help you to plan for the next semester?

I remembered it was during math lesson. The test on algebra or angles’ result was out. I barely passed the test. I was upset, even though this test did not have anything to do with CA2. I always scored well for math and this test was a total flop to me.

I learned that without daily practice, my math’s result can drop. A lot. I then realized I had been lazing around, not serious in my studies. I wanted to work even harder, but I realized that it was too late, because CA2 was just around the corner. I had no choice, but to let it be like this and hoped that I passed my math.

I used to be like this in the past, not concerned about studies, so my failing marks didn’t influence me. But now that I got better results, it does influence me in a lot of ways, like how I plan for every exam, making sure I practice my math everyday, no matter what.

This experience has helped me plan better for next semester. I will make sure I revise and practice my math everyday, no matter how busy I am.

-196 words (excluding title)-

3) What are your thoughts about having to do projects in every subject? In what ways are project-type assessments more difficult, interesting, challenging, or meaningful than traditional ways of showing what you know? Cite an example or two to support your answer.

My first thoughts on doing projects in every subject were: “Find group members who can work with me and finish up as fast as we can.”

The project-type assessments that are difficult, challenging and interesting are those with graphs, comparing, coming up with a conclusion, analyzing, doing it on a blog where you have to share and respond as a group/ team, last but not least, those types you have never done before in primary school. In short, they are the project-type you have never come across before, therefore it is challenging, difficult and at the same time, interesting.

Example:
In June, there was an English project where every group must choose a question:
1) A book project
2) Game design
3) Movie Trailers
4) Creative Digital Story-telling
My group chose number 1, which was a book project. We had analyze the characters, the plot, and so on. We also had to post our thoughts, questions, and many others on the class blog. For me, it was whole new experience, which I never had come across before. It was hard at first, but luckily I got along with my teammates, making it easier for all of us.

-197 words (excluding title)-

(2) Describe one goal that you set for yourself in September. What steps have you taken? Where and how have you met that goal? Where and how have you fallen short? And how will you proceed toward that goal in the second semester?

The goal was that I wanted myself to score better results in CA2 than the Mid-Year Examinations. I worked hard but always came home late from school and had a lot of homework to do. As a result, I did not do much revision and practice.

I almost met that goal but I did not worked hard enough. My results were lower than the Mid-Year exam results, but overall considered good. I was not sad but disappointed.

Upon receiving my result slip, I knew what went wrong. Not enough of practice and revision. During the one week school holiday in September, I made good use of the time to revise and did practices on what I didn't have time for all subjects.

At the End-Of-Year exams, I knew I could get better results than CA2. After receiving the results, I was right. The results were almost the same as Mid-Year examinations.

-153 words (excluding title)-

(1) What talents (new or hidden) have you learned/ discovered about yourself this semester?

I learnt that, compared to last semester, my grades were almost the same but it was still considered good. Having good grades/ results is no talent. It is a matter of listening to the teacher attentively in class and also practicing in a particular subject, for example Math.

I admit that I did slack a little and my marks all dropped to a certain extent where two subjects failed. I was upset and reflected on where I went wrong. It was because I didn’t revise my subjects, and fooled around a lot. They say when you get good results; don’t be proud and stop being hardworking. Your results will drop and perhaps fail subjects that you were initially bad at but got good results because of practicing.

But I believe that everyone can get good results, if we are willing to be hardworking, take up all the challenges that we face and never give up just because of some setbacks.

-160 words-