Day 16 & 17

Day 16 & 17

•       Thursday 5 min: Mr.Sweeney

•       Interview with Ms. Robins

•       Chinese CSOL4 & CLD1 class - song

•       Ms. Battioni: email received

On Day 16, we actually did not make much progress. Although we had the plans, all we had to do was wait for Ms. Battioni’s reply e-mail and coming out with more creative projects. Also, the interview with Mr. Sweeney was delayed to next class, since he was very busy with preparing Prom.

On Day 17, however, we completed two interviews. One is from Ms. Battioni, about the aurasma project in the middle school. She left us great replies of all the questions that we asked her. Moreover, we interviewed Ms. Robins for the literary journal project about A Long Way Gone in grade 10 classes, and she also recommended few of her students. Consequently, we completed two interviews, and now we just have to view the recommended students’ works and interview their thoughts. If we finish Ms. Battioni’s and Ms. Robins’ project at the same time, then it makes us three projects completed in total!

Project #3 Teacher Interviews

Ms. Robins

What project did your class work on?The 10th graders were working on making a literary journal based on a book about child soldiers, which is A Long Way Gone written by Ishmael Beah. They were required to include enough drawings, analysis, photos, and a lot of stuff that can make their works more interesting.

Do you have any recommended works for our project?Yes. I was impressed in several journals done by Deanna Pistono, Maria Philip, Anastasia Irina Groenestijin, and Cindy Park.

Why do you think it deserves to be recognized?
Their journals were really creative. Their use of expression and the works of connecting literary elements with visual ideas were quite impressive to me.

Project #2 Teacher Interview

Ms. Battioni

• What project is your class currently working on?

Students chose a partner and worked together (Collaboration ESLR) to create an expert analysis of an assign Animal Farm character AND the person, idea or historical event that character represents in the time period of the Russian Revolution and immediately afterwards. They had to use their character's actions, dialogue and other details about the character and the historical figure he/she represents. Finally, they had to create a trigger image, make a short 2-minute video and Aurasmatize the whole thing!

• Do you have any recommended works for our project?

Yes, Rick Choi and Thomas Kim analyzed Old Major and tied his actions, ideas and speeches to those of Karl Marx, who is considered by man to be the "Father of Communism".

• Why do you think it deserves to be recognized?

I mention theirs because they…

- worked very well together on all parts of their project.
- independently conducted additional research on Karl Marx, his ideas and writings
- expertly analyzed the connections between Old Major and Karl Marx and
- communicated their information clearly and in an effective and entertaining way.
- independently managed their time in and out of class to produce work that showed creativity, engagement and complex thinking.

Day 14 & 15

Day 14 & 15
- Ms. Battioni: interview
- Outline of poster #2
- Interviewed Mr. Sweeney; plans for 10 Humanities: journal

On day 14, we started the new design for our poster #2, which will be about aurasma project. We tried to continue contacting Ms. Battioni for more information about the Animal Farm aurasma project, but since she was too busy these days, we decided to start another project first and work on two projects on the same time.

As a result, we decided to start a new project in HS area. What we thought might be interesting was the literary journal project that grade 10 did after reading book A Long Way Gone, which is about child soldiers. We interviewed him for some recommendations, but because he was not finished in grading all the journals, we came up with a decision, to re-interview him later on next Tuesday. We asked if his other classes, junior economy or theory of knowledge, are doing some project, and he replied that actually the theory of knowledge class is doing a big project that will be completed in the end of May. The juniors have to pick a big topic about knowledge issue, come up with a bigger question and somehow analyze it as a presentation format. For example, if one's topic is related to religion battle, his or her question might be: does religion divide the people or unite the people? He also added, that the format of presentation is free.

Poster #1

Day 12 & 13

Day 12 & 13

• Interview with Ms. Battioni
• ready to print out the poster
• go to Ms. Chen
• put posters around

On Day 12, we finally had an interview with Ms. Battioni, the humanities teacher of grade 8, about the aurasma project. We went over our questions for teachers, and firstly asked her for a general explanation about the aurasma project. She replied, that currently her class is working on making an aurasma that incorporates Animal Farm by George Orwell. She added some explanation about that story: Animal Farm is an allegory, extended symbol parallel story, which talks about the Russian Revolution. Since every characters in the story represents an important role in the Russian Revolution -- such as Napoleon to Stalin, Boxer to the worker class -- she requested every student to analyze a chosen character. The analysis should include overall summary about the character itself, how it contributes a role in the story, and a description about the connection between the animal with the actual character in the history. However, since her class was not completely finished with the aurasma project, we asked her if she can answer the rest of the questions, which are generally about the student who showed his or her creativity in the project, and she accepted. 

On Day 13, we finished our poster about the first group, about Avivi and Donald's art work. However, because we worked the poster by using Piktochart website that has many problems about printing, we decided to ask help to Ms. Chen. She once have helped the students to print a big poster. Consequently, we were able to print out 6 copies of the poster, and we sticked 2 per floor, except the first floor. Now, we completely finished our first project. 

Interview: Ryan / Nikita

Student Interview
Ryan

1. Do you mind having a project posted around the school?
No, I do not mind having my project posted around the school.

2. What do you feel about your project? Are you satisfied with your work?
I am satisfied with my work because I was not expecting too much.

3. What were some challenges? How did you solve those?
Planning the FITT plan was not really challenging. However, it was challenging for actually doing the plan, it made me very tired.

4. Did you have any inspirations / motivations for this project?
Yes, I did had some inspirations. I got ideas from the work-out we did in class until now, such as Tabata work-out. It was pretty challenging and fun.

5. How do you feel about the recommendations?
I was very surprised that Ms. Knoflick and you guys have chose my project. Before, I did not really had confidence on my work.

Niki

1. Do you mind having a project posted around the school?
Yes, I do not really want to have my plan posted around the school, but  I do not mind being posted online on the blog.

2. What do you feel about your project? Are you satisfied with your work?
I am not very satisfied with my work, because I have noticed that I could have done better. I want to make some changes for improvements.

3. What were some challenges? How did you solve those?
When actually doing my FITT plan, I was physically incapable of doing some of the movements. I had found out that I have to alter my workout to my own fit level.

4. Did you have any inspirations / motivations for this project?
The motivation was that I felt I have been not doing much exercise nowadays that I needed to push myself to be more fit.

5. How do you feel about the recommendations?
I was surprised that I was chosen.

Day 11

Day 11

• See Ms. Battioni for aurasma project
• Ms. Grezeszak's class also does aurasma later
• Ms. Knoflick recommended Jared, Ryan and Nikita

Today, after completely finishing the student interview section of previous project and update the blog, we decided to find another project for next overview, about subjects other than art.

Consequently, we went to find Ms. Battioni to interview her about the aurasma project, but since we heard from Mrs. Kruse that they are just starting their projects, we decided to interview them later when they complete the work.

On the other hand, we went to ask Mrs. Grezeszak about the 9th graders' geometry. She replied: they are also going to make an aurasma video and display to the parents. 

In addition, we went to Ms. Knoflick for last -- because Ms. Lauder was in class -- and asked her for recommendations for FITT plan project. She recommended Jared Robinson, Ryan Yao and Nikita Frantz, all in 10th grade. As a result, we interviewed Ryan and Nikita. On next class, we are going to plan an interview with Ms. Knoflick, and also e-mail Ms. Lauder for some recommendations among all the atom model projects. 

Day 10

Day 10
• Scheduled meeting with Avivi and Donald
• Four suggestions for next project
• Ms. Battioni: Humanities Aurasma (Next Thursday)
• Ms. Lauder: Science Atom Structure
• Ms. Grezesak: Geometry Models
• Ms. Knoflick: PE FITT Plan (Next Monday)


As the last step of our first project, we emailed the students’ advisory teachers and scheduled an interview with the students in advisory time. We figured out that since middle school has advisory when high school has lunch, we would visit 7 Metal and 7 Earth A during our lunchtime. The first overview will be completed soon.


For next project, although there was an IB Art Show yesterday, we decided to overview a project based on a subject other than art, to make our blog contain various subjects. Consequently, we walked around the school, and came up with 4 possible projects, which are: Ms. Battioni’s Humanities Aurasma which will be due in next Thursday, Ms. Lauder’s Science Atom Structure that are already hanged in her classroom, Ms. Grezesak’s Geometry Models that are finished and displayed in her classroom, and finally Ms. Knoflick’s PE FITT Plan that will be due on next Monday.

At first, we wanted to overview a project based on Humanities subject, so we went to visit Ms. Battioni. Although there were already many projects done in that subject, such as the Revolution, she suggested us the Aurasma project that will be very interesting. We will interview her next Thursday.

Moreover, for backups, we thought Ms. Grezeszak’s geometry class and Ms. Lauder’s science class have finished a great project that looks very interesting. They are both models, one is displayed on tables that show different shapes of geometry, while the other is showing the atom structures, hanged on the ceiling. In addition, the project that we are also doing currently in PE – which is planning our own FITT plan – might be also interesting, so we will also talk to Ms. Knoflick about this.

Day 9

Day 9
• Backward plan
• Decide personal goals
• Schedule an interview with the students

On this day, since the teacher has introduced a type of planning strategy, which is called backward plan, our group started to plan the ultimate goal as a group as well as the personal goals. Backward plan is planning projects in the opposite way of executing. For instance, in backward planning you first decide the ultimate goal, then the processes, and lastly how to begin this project, etc., which will be in the order of completely opposite from the order that you will choose in the future.

As a group, we decided that our ultimate goal is to promote students work in the school community by comfortable ways, in order to make their projects more memorable and valuable. For individual group members, we decided the personal goals according to our roles. For instance, if the role is to update the blog, then the goal is to learn techniques for decorating and making the blog more attractive. If the role is to communicate with necessary people, then the goal is to speaking, writing or making questions more effectively. If the role is to periodically record our progress and write reflections, the goal is to diligently writing reflections that clearly shows what steps did we take and how did we accomplished.

Moreover, the communicator also sent e-mail to selected students, in order to arrange the time and have interviews with them. Since the students are in middle school while we are in high school, we will have to use our lunch time – which is advisory time for middle school – in order to have good interviews and to finish our first work.

Interview Questions (Students)

Interview Questions

1. Do you mind having a project posted around the school?
2. What do you feel about your project? Are you satisfied with your work?
3. What were some challenges? How did you solve those?
4. Did you have any inspirations / motivations for this project?
5. How do you feel about the recommendations?

Day 8

Day 8
• Interview with Ms. Yung
• Purpose and requirements in the projects?
• Poster template complete
• Updated blog, became prettier

On this day, our group has made a big progress in the CBL project. First, we went to Ms. Yung in order to get actual permission, for whether we can post the student’s work for our project, and she allowed. Moreover, we made another interview with her, asking if there were any purpose or requirements in the 7th graders’ art projects. She answered that the students were required to use magazine papers in order to represent one of the wild animals in its habitat. The students were also supposed to tear out the magazine pieces and make some colors outstanding by using art techniques.

After the meeting with Ms. Yung, one of our group members went downstairs where the gallery is, to take a photo that shows the picture in good quality. As a recorder and reflection writer, I wrote down about our progress, and our results from today’s acts. I also updated some components of the blog, so that people feel more comfortable and easier to read the passages and enjoy the students’ works.