Holiday Reading Assignment

"When others trust us, they give us greater leeway because they feel we don't need monitoring to assure that we'll meet our obligations."

This is a nice quote from the reading that connects directly to the idea of self-regulation.  When you are given a project or an assignment, there is an expectation of trust that you will complete the work.  It connects also to your project, your goal setting, and my trust in you that you will meet your goals instead of coming up with excuses.

When you come back on Monday after the break, please bring back the reading on trustworthiness with a written response to the idea that stands out to you the most.  Which one do you think is the most important, difficult, or challenging?

• Honesty

•Integrity

•Reliability

•Loyalty

 

Based on the do now, which was to define honesty, integrity, reliability, and loyalty in your own words, write a one page response on how your definition or understanding of ONE of  the terms connects to the text.  

• What is similar or different about your understanding of the term and the definition in the text?
• What do you agree with or disagree with in the text? (pull a quote)
• Describe a moment in your life where your own honesty, integrity, reliability, or loyalty was challenged (write about the term you selected).  What was the situation?  How did you respond? 
• Why does trustworthiness have four parts? What makes it so complicated? Based on your understanding of all the terms, try and make a connection between the one you have selected one of the others.  
  

You can write your response on the back of the packet.  Please bring it with you next Monday.

Goal #2 Reflection and Goal #3 Setting

Today, leave a comment on Goal #2 explaining whether you met the goal or not.  If you met the goal, be prepared to show your evidence.  I will be checking during class today.

After you have finished reflecting on your previous goal post your #3 project goal.  You're third goal should be something that you can complete over the holiday and come prepared to show next Monday.

The second marking period ends next week, and we will be having project conferences to evaluate your progress.

• Leave a comment on last week's 2nd goal.  Did you complete it?  What is the evidence?
• Post a 3rd project goal on your blog to complete over the holiday.  

Self-regulation and continuous learning

Working independently or within a group is something that requires a lot of each you. In order to be successful in college you must be able to set and meet goals to become a self-directed learner. What does that mean?

Imagine it's your first day in class in college and a professor says, "write an 800 word paper on Government due in one month?" How would you do it? What are some steps you might take to meet the professor's demand? Write down some of the steps you would take to accomplish this paper. Add the most important one as a comment on this post.

Self-Regulation is an important part of assessing your own progress on any given task. To self-regulate you must take control and responsibility your work.  Hopefully, in college and with your own digital portfolio project you will be pursuing an area of study that you value and would want to learn about outside of school.  To help you self-regulate you have to set some basic goals, know when they have been met, and if they meet necessary standards. 

Part of of this process of self-regulation first requires you to think about your own style of learning. A self-regulating student or worker doesn't wait for other people to get them started, but uses inquiry and experimentation to accomplish their own goals.  Answer the following questions on your blog in a new post.  Copy and Paste them into your blog and answer the questions honestly and thoughtfully:

1. What is the best environment (home, school, work, library, etc.) for your learning? Where do you work the best?
2. Where do you choose to study? (If you don't study, why not?)
3. Where do you choose to work creatively? Where do show your individuality?
4. How do you work with others (school, teams, work, family etc.)?
5. What is your favorite way of learning (listening, looking, doing, experimenting, etc)?
6. What do you think are your talents or strengths (drawing, writing, speaking, problem solving, etc,)?
7. Where do your personal interests lie (sports, arts, music, dance, socializing, etc.,)?
8. When do you check for accuracy and precision in your life or work?
9. Are you persistent in developing your work or accomplishing things in your life?
10. What will you work on independently in class tomorrow?

Self-regulation begins with your own internal reflection on how you learn and work best. Once you start to realize your strengths you can start to work towards those on your own.  When you become a self-regulated learner engaged in continuous learning, you would have something to do everyday in school even if there were no teachers to tell you what to do.  

Searching for an Expert and an introduction

Today, before you do anything else, write a brief and polite introduction to any potential experts on your topic area that you may end up interviewing.  In one paragraph, introduce yourself, your project, and the purpose of your email, which is to ask the expert some questions you have about your project/topic area.  The introduction should be well written in proper English with no slang or texting shortcuts.  It should have a greeting "Dear expert (for now)", a body, and a salutation "Sincerely, your name".

Send me your introduction and your 7 interview questions to mr.powhida@gmail.com.  Then, for those of you who do not already have someone to interview move onto the next step. I will review your introduction and questions and send it back if there any corrections/changes.  Then, when you discover some experts to contact you can send out your questions.  

How do we find experts? While there are some experts in the school that you can contact, everyone in here can start searching for an outside expert to ask for help and briefly interview with your questions. In fact, one of the best ways to gain new knowledge is to interview a person. That way, they share their knowledge in their own words, which means they are putting that knowledge in their own words from their perspective. This is a higher order of thinking that just giving you a list of facts and/or advice.

To start your expert search, you should begin by searching locally in Brooklyn and New York City in general for people with careers related to your field. For example, Brandon might search for chefs, television, New York

Let's look up the results that pop up and see if we can find contact info like an email address for Brandon.

Now that you've seen it's possible, spend some time trying different combinations of keywords in Google and see if you can find as many contacts to email your interview questions.  Save any contacts you find in your Google Research Worksheet in a new box and label it Expert Contacts Include the person or business's name, email address, and area of expertise.

Finding An Expert

Many of you are struggling with the idea of how to start your project, because there is an overwhelming amount of information on the Internet. As you know, information is nothing unless you are able to comprehend, apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate it. In order to help find some guidance we will be searching for experts, or people who have already applied the kind of higher order thinking you will have to, to help us out with the project. 

We happen to live in a city of experts. In terms of your projects, many of you will be able to find help and ideas within the school and others will have to look beyond the school walls. How you do find an expert? You search for people and contact information in the industry you are researching and you reach out to several of them until someone responds. I was contacted by a student at the Young Writer's Academy to talk about my work as a writer in Brooklyn. I sat down for an interview about my writing process. The student found my email on the Internet and contacted me. I responded because I thought it would be good for the community. 

Before you start searching for an expert on your project (or area of interest), you will need to think of several questions to ask your expert. For example, Milaida  wants to make a film about her dancing. She might ask an expert on film "Why did you get into film-making?", "What are the basic steps to making a film?", or "How can I plan out my film?", "What should I learn about editing?"

Before we move on to writing our questions, you need to search for a published interview with someone in your field or area of interest.  For example, Kenyetta could search for an interview with a famous Jamaican or Jamaican-American to find out if they talk about their background and culture.  Nephteli could search for an interview with one of her favorite dancers or choreographers.  Jeff could search for an interview with a famous graffiti artist like Shepard Fairey or Banksy.  When you find a good interview, copy and paste the link into your RESEARCH WORKSHEET in google docs.  

Each of you needs to write a series of at least seven questions for an expert about your project. They should not be yes or no questions, but ones that will help guide your work. Add your 7 questions to one of the boxes in your Google Research Worksheet.  

If you finish your questions early, start searching for people in your field of interest or if you know a faculty member that might be able to help.  So, if you are making a video/film search for "Brooklyn, Film makers, production companies". If you are doing fashion, search for "Brooklyn, fashion designers," If you find any contact information, save it in your RESEARCH DOCUMENT in google docs.

1st Project SMART Goal

Based on your writing prompt in class, try and make a very achievable and simple goal for yourself to help you get started with your project. What is one thing you need to accomplish so that your project can move forward? Steps might include:

•Gathering materials and resources
•Making lists of areas to research around the topic
•Drawing sketches of designs
•Making a list of materials you will need
•Writing a backwards plan
•Summarizing your research

Depending on how much planning you've done during the getting ready phase, some of you can make very concrete goals about what you want to do next. If you still need to clarify what you are doing, make that a goal for yourself.

Post the SMART goal on YOUR blog using the SMART goal template:

By blank blankI will blank blank blankand I will show blank blank blankaas evidence.