Generating Ideas
I am good at formulating plans for my math. Especially on POWs. MY plan isn't like where I map everything out step by step, it is that I will sit there for 5 to 10 minutes and just think about the POW. I will think about how I should go about solving it. What equations I might use. What the answer should look like. Things like that, and it really helps me because then I know what I should be doing while I am actually solving and writing ll my stuff down. That helps me personally a lot, this tactic also helps me when I am super stumped on a problem. I think about those things and it always helps me get past the wall that I hit. A great example of this would be my llama POW, I drew a picture to help me see what was going on in this problem, I also figured out what the known variables were and I wrote what the final goal of the problem was so that if I ever somehow got lost, I can remind myself about what I am trying to do. A weakness I have is that I don't find different ways to solve one problem. There aren't always multiple ways to solve something but when there are I don't find those and I think it would be beneficial to have those along with the way I did it first.
Communicating Thinking In A Clear Way
I think that I am very good at responding to ideas of others. I always try to ask clarifying questions lie asking "why does that work" and "how does that work" and "will you show me", even if I already know how to do it. I also try to translate questions into a different way so that people who don't understand it are able to. I try to reword it so it makes more sense. One thing I think I need to work on is trying to get quieter people to participate. I should ask people who don't say much what they think of the answer on the board or I'll ask them if they want to show me how they got to their answer. A really good example of all this would be the seminars. During seminars is when I use these skills a lot.
Recognizing And Resolving Errors
I think I am good at finding logical errors sometimes. Every now and they we would be working on an exploration in seminar and everyone would get one answer, but I would get a different one. And since everybody got the other answer they all assumed that I was wrong. Well, I would show them how I did the problem and then talk through mine and then theirs and would show them what they all did wrong. Usually it was a very small mistake but it was something that most people wouldn't realize. For example when you have something like 5 + 7 - 4, the 4 isn't positive, it is negative because the subtraction sign is in front of it. The number will be whatever sign is in front of it. I don't think that I really have any weaknesses in this category.
Reflecting And Synthesizing
I think I am good at justifying my answers. I talk to this a lot above. I like to explain how I got my answer and why it is the correct one. I also think that I am good at reflecting on my mistakes. A great example of this would be my quiz corrections because in these I got half of the questions wrong but I reflected on that by learning the material again, and then rewrote the questions I got wrong with different numbers and solved those. Something that I need to work on is connecting what I am learning to the real world. I think that by doing this I might be able to understand it better if I am confused or I might be able to explain it better if someone doesn't understand it. Like in POW's, Dan relates these to things that happen in the real world which makes it way easier to do. For example the llama POW, in this one we needed to create a fence to keep the llamas in but we wanted to maximize how much space they got. And obviously we used math to do so. But the point is that helped me understand the problem better. So doing that to all my math might make it easier for me.
Reflection
I think that one topic that I have mastered is the compound and continuous interest rate equations that we learned about. Before this year I didn’t even know what interest was, now I can help people choose which bank they should use because of which one offers better interest rates. I have learned this skill from taking notes in class and doing little problems on the board together. I think I have shown my understanding of how to do this in my POW 6. I successfully answered the question which was, when should Eugene sell his statue in order to maximise his profit. You can see my whole POW below.
One skill that I think I am good at is proving people wrong when they think they have the right answer but they actually don’t. Most of the time when someone thinks that they have the right answer they don’t want to listen to somebody else telling them that they have the wrong answer. That is what I am good at, I think that I can be good at telling people they are wrong and showing them why they are wrong. I do this a lot in seminars, it is something that I use in my everyday life so I am getting better at it day by day. This also plays into my second skill that I am good at, which is restating the problem in a different way. Sometimes people can’t get the right answer because they don’t understand the problem. So I restate it in a way so that is is very simple and easy for them to get it. I also use this a lot, it is like dumbing the question down so anyone could get it. And I think that it definitely helps people. It helps me when I am confused about something, I make the question simpler so I can get it. There isn’t really evidence to put on my DP to show these skills because they are more social skills that I use in seminar but I think that they are very important and are probably some of my best skills.
One skill that I think I am good at is proving people wrong when they think they have the right answer but they actually don’t. Most of the time when someone thinks that they have the right answer they don’t want to listen to somebody else telling them that they have the wrong answer. That is what I am good at, I think that I can be good at telling people they are wrong and showing them why they are wrong. I do this a lot in seminars, it is something that I use in my everyday life so I am getting better at it day by day. This also plays into my second skill that I am good at, which is restating the problem in a different way. Sometimes people can’t get the right answer because they don’t understand the problem. So I restate it in a way so that is is very simple and easy for them to get it. I also use this a lot, it is like dumbing the question down so anyone could get it. And I think that it definitely helps people. It helps me when I am confused about something, I make the question simpler so I can get it. There isn’t really evidence to put on my DP to show these skills because they are more social skills that I use in seminar but I think that they are very important and are probably some of my best skills.