This year, the main goal I set for myself was refining assignments and tests if I wasn’t happy with the grade I recieved. I think that for the most part these goals were achieved, because I have almost always done corrections on tests we’ve had unless I got nearly a perfect score. First semester I was a bit better about doing these corrections. During second semester I would decide to not do test corrections if my grade was still an A in the class overall. So although I didn’t refine every single test and assignment that I could have, I still think that I met my goal, because I ended the year with a grade I’m happy with.
I think that after this year I have about the same confidence in my math abilities that I’ve had in past years. I am generally fairly confident with math, but at the same time there are definitely aspects of it that I struggle with. I do feel more confident with some math concepts, especially the ones that we spent a lot of time on in class. Somewhere I think I’ve grown in math this year is describing my mathematical process in POWs. In past years I’ve struggled to turn my math into words in an understandable way, but this year I think that’s changed. I felt like this class was very easy to balance with other classes. We rarely had more than fifteen minutes of homework a night, and when we did it was because of studying for a test or other optional assignments. At times I struggled with the homework, but this was only because of the level of math homework I had due to pre-calc. With these two combined math classes I felt that sometimes the level of homework was a little much. There were also many lulls in homework load, meaning at times we’d have two hours a night for a week, and then none for three weeks.
I feel very prepared for Math 4 next year, especially because of the improvements I’ve made with my POW write-ups. I’m considering taking calculus next year, and I believe that I will be prepared for that as well, because of all the work I have done in PreCalc this year. By taking two math classes this year, I think I’m even more prepared for Math 4 next year. Many of the concepts we focused on in PreCalc this year will be addressed in a more project based style next year in Math 4.
Project Reflection
The aspect of the independent research project that I liked the most was how much freedom we had when formulated and conducting our projects. This allowed for an exhibition with lots of unique projects, and never the same thing twice. This project also allowed groups to work at their own pace, and dive into something that they’re really interested in. I felt like a bit more structure concerning work time would have been beneficial with helping people create their own deadlines, but it’s also important to learn how to create and stick to deadlines individually.
If I could change something about this project, I would’ve added certain requirements that were the same for each project, so that it was a little easier to identify what was needed to complete a successful project. Although even without those requirements I felt like there were lot’s of impressive projects, so clearly this isn’t a necessity.
I decided to do my project on gambling statistics. Before starting this project I didn’t even know how to play poker, and so for the first few days I just focused on learning some of the main card games. After I had an understanding of those games, the statistics that my group was researching made more sense to me. For exhibition I created spreadsheets of my groups research so people at exhibition could easily understand the statistics/probability for the many different games that we presented on.
Pictured above are two of my favorite POWs (problem of the week) that I've had so far this year. The first POW Growth of Rat Populations was very logical, and there were multiple different ways that you could solve it. I'm proud of it because I put in a lot of effort into my process, and my write-up is understandable and in depth. The second POW Planning the Platforms was, in my opinion, the most difficult POW we've done this unit. Although I struggled with it I believe that I learned a lot, and am proud of my perseverance through this problem.
The report below was a joint POW/lab report between math 3 and chemistry. We utilized data we had collected to infer information about the Animas River in Durango through the use of math and chemistry skills.
One of the goals I set for myself this year in math 3 was to end the semester/year with a grade that I can be proud of. I assumed this would be easy for me seeing as last year I took advanced algebra which is essentially the same content we are learning this year, but I have had a surprising amount of struggles throughout this unit. As the semester has gone on I think the work has gotten easier, but at the beginning we were going over concepts that I had never practiced before, and really had to put serious effort into understanding them. I have definitely become more collaborative with my peers so far this year, due to the fact that when I'm confused, a peer can almost always help me out. Next semester I hope to continue collaborating on difficult math problems, and also dive deeper into the POWs that we are assigned. Meaning that instead of just finding an answer, I'll think about the process, and other processes I could have used, as well as why I got the answer I did.