12 Important Values (Click for Project Description)
Teacher Reflection: Over the summer, I watched the Netflix documentary Minimalism and then read the book of the same title by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus in one sitting on a day at the beach. While I have some thoughts that are contrasting to those in the text and in the documentary, I did pull out some very important things that have changed the way I approach certain everyday situations. For example, instead of asking people what they do when I meet them, I now ask them what their hobbies and passions are. It makes me feel like I'm getting to know a little more intimate a piece of the person I'm meeting. Inspired by the documentary and the text as well as the beautiful relationships I was able to build over the summer with new people because of the certain changes I made, I wanted to get to know my students in a different way as well. I wanted to know what made them excited, what got them passionate, what kinds of hopes and dreams they had for the future. I also have seen my 9th graders in the past struggle with organization and get confused about how to get one on one help from me during office hours and by appointment. With all this in mind, I thought this mini-project might help many aspects of my students' learning as well as my relationship with them. I built a binder myself that I shared with my students on the launch day of this project. Students were asked to explore values that were important to them, and create dividers decorated with images and text about their Relationships, Passions, Health, Growth, and Contribution--the 5 attributes that the authors of Minimalism say help us lead a meaningful life. Students then organized the different aspects of class in this binder, and were required to spend 5 minutes with me during office hours or by appointment to share their work with me. In the busy chaos that the project based classroom often is, these 5 minutes were a fantastic way for me to spend really focused time with each of my students individually, learning about their hopes and dreams. I will definitely repeat this project in the future. I got to learn such interesting and unique pieces of my students' lives and I got to make connections with them and converse with them in a great way one on one. If I were to do it again, I would make it clearer that these tabs were being decorated not simply for decoration but also for utility. Some of my students were confused by the way the project description was formatted and had trouble figuring out what each tab was for.
Student Reflections:
In this project it was a single person job, it was only me. I did a good job working, i got my work done with time to spare. It was simple task. We had to design covers for our binder, there were 6 sections to do. I worked on mine in photoshop. In this project we read 12 Angry Men. We learned about different life values and how to use them in the world. We took 12 values and on our binder cover we put them on there with some pictures we think are important to us, then planning a meeting with carol to show her the binder covers and explain them to her. I have some pictures of friends and YouTubers i met at vidcon. We used work ethic by having to manage how and when we worked on each tab. I worked ahead and in the little less than the month we were given to do this, i finished all my tabs in a week. I had time left and also planned my meeting with carol. It was nice having that done, it was a weight off my shoulders. In this project we used our class values a bit. I used grit because i didn't know really what to put on some tabs but after talking with other peers i was inspired to use some things. For contribution my friend mentioned the women's march so i put that. We had to do this project so we had to be responsible for managing our time and completing them. I found that pretty easy. I really enjoyed this mini project. Our “Exhibition” for this was just to present our covers to Ms. Carol. We set up a 5 minute meeting with her and just shared them. I used work ethic by completing my covers early and being able to finished them quickly. I liked this because it was very customisable and i got to choose how they were set up. I liked the freedom and creativity of this project.
~Maya L.
In this project it was a single person job, it was only me. I did a good job working, i got my work done with time to spare. It was simple task. We had to design covers for our binder, there were 6 sections to do. I worked on mine in photoshop. In this project we read 12 Angry Men. We learned about different life values and how to use them in the world. We took 12 values and on our binder cover we put them on there with some pictures we think are important to us, then planning a meeting with carol to show her the binder covers and explain them to her. I have some pictures of friends and YouTubers i met at vidcon. We used work ethic by having to manage how and when we worked on each tab. I worked ahead and in the little less than the month we were given to do this, i finished all my tabs in a week. I had time left and also planned my meeting with carol. It was nice having that done, it was a weight off my shoulders. In this project we used our class values a bit. I used grit because i didn't know really what to put on some tabs but after talking with other peers i was inspired to use some things. For contribution my friend mentioned the women's march so i put that. We had to do this project so we had to be responsible for managing our time and completing them. I found that pretty easy. I really enjoyed this mini project. Our “Exhibition” for this was just to present our covers to Ms. Carol. We set up a 5 minute meeting with her and just shared them. I used work ethic by completing my covers early and being able to finished them quickly. I liked this because it was very customisable and i got to choose how they were set up. I liked the freedom and creativity of this project.
~Maya L.
12 Important Values is a project to launch the school year. We had to put together binder tabs and covers for a binder to represent our interests. I think Carol, my ninth grade humanities teacher, had us do this project to start the year off so she can understand her students as not just students because really that is a goal for the teacher at High Tech. This was a project that we did by ourselves instead of with another classmate. I used skills such as; work ethic, collaboration, oral communication, written communication, and content. These are skills we should be showing in each project we do. The main skills I believe I used were work ethic and content. I showed work ethic in all of my tabs. I put a lot of effort into them so they look nice and explain me well. I used content in the overall project. I followed all directions to make each tab including the cover front and back look neat and put together.
I learned in this project a lot about myself and learned what I care about like family, friends and my faith. I used one of our class values, grit. I think I used grit because I had the courage to say what I like about me. That’s not something I do because it makes me feel and come off as selfish to be like “oh hey there I’m cool, funny and I have integrity”. I just don’t like to come off as someone self-centered so I think i did something I wouldn't usually do. The final product turned out really good and I’m really proud of the outcome. I also used oral communication at the end of this project when I had a five minute meeting with Carol. We were to show and explain each tab to her and connect it to ourselves. I think I did a really good job on the meeting. I even got a passing grade of 25/30. I would have gotten a better grade if I went above and beyond of what she expected. I still think I did a good job and I really do like the way my binder turned out.
~Grace J.
I learned in this project a lot about myself and learned what I care about like family, friends and my faith. I used one of our class values, grit. I think I used grit because I had the courage to say what I like about me. That’s not something I do because it makes me feel and come off as selfish to be like “oh hey there I’m cool, funny and I have integrity”. I just don’t like to come off as someone self-centered so I think i did something I wouldn't usually do. The final product turned out really good and I’m really proud of the outcome. I also used oral communication at the end of this project when I had a five minute meeting with Carol. We were to show and explain each tab to her and connect it to ourselves. I think I did a really good job on the meeting. I even got a passing grade of 25/30. I would have gotten a better grade if I went above and beyond of what she expected. I still think I did a good job and I really do like the way my binder turned out.
~Grace J.
This project was mainly about improving our artistic skills, something to get us out of the mindset of just arts and crafts to professional projects. What it consisted of was decorating and labeling our binder, to make it unique to us and serve its purpose of organizing school work. There are 5 tabs, on each one represents favorite hobbies, relations, food, goals, and contributions. The cover of the binder was another part, it had to have 12 values that you have. This project was an independent project, so that meant that there were no partners, and I can agree with that, it’s your binder so you should find a way to express yourself. That isn’t what other classmates can do, whether it was your future goals, contributions, relations, hobbies, anything in your personal life, it can’t all be described by your fellow peers. When I finished my rough draft, I went out to receive critique from peers and support teachers. That may have been the only collaboration I did in the whole project. The main thing I learned in this project would be organization, but branching off into the work, I also learned that I improved my symbolism. The class learning outcomes were also improved upon, for the first official project launched in August, I managed to finish the work in a timely fashion with demonstrates work ethic, and when I received critique from my peers and fellow teachers it showed that I collaborated to make a better product. When I made the tabs which include some of my personal life, I included a description showing why I put it on there, I feel that my written communicated can also be demonstrated like that. A time where I showed outstanding oral communication would be when I did my 5 minute check up with Mrs. Carol, I explained everything in my binder and gave some extra information what came with the pictures I used. The content that was displayed in the binder could use some work, but I feel like I’m fine with the way it turned out. The class has values that we honor, and try to connect to whenever we do projects. Our class values are Grit, Respect, Responsibility, Empathy, and Integrity. After I got critique for my work, I got to try and again and improve this, Grit is all about pushing through and I made it better by work on it more. Responsibility and Integrity were shown when I did my 5 minute interview before the day it was due on the original due date. Empathy and Respect are hard choices in this project, but I have a baseline of always treating others with respect and try to be empathetic because it should be expected from me. What I did for my binder was create a phoenix on the front, with each feather having values that make up who I am. The very first tab was relationships, and that one gave me a hard time, friends and family are considered my relationships so I put a collage of friends photos and family photos. Next, was the hobbies tab, what I put there was Rock climbing, video games, sleeping, and music. I filled out each tab with specific things I do in my personal life. What I offered to this, was hard work and determination, it those should always be shown in projects and I think I fulfilled those. If I were to grade myself for the learning outcomes and class values, I would probably get full credit on the class values, but the learning outcomes could have been better if I gotten more critique.
~Andrew T.
~Andrew T.
