Welcome!
Hello and welcome to my TPOL 2015! My name is Shany and I am a sophomore in the Marshalls/Parsons/Vee team! I've grown a lot this year and I will now reflect on some of my celebrations and challenges in communication, collaboration, and beautiful work. But instead of listing communication, collaboration, and beautiful work, I decided to choose 3 major projects that incorporated all of the classes and draw out the celebrations and challenges in each one.
Museo de Vida
Starting in chronological order, I will start with Museo de Vida. Museo de Vida was our grand team's exhibition which incorporated all the classes including math, spanish, humanities, and chemistry. This project was one of my favorite this year because there was so much student choice. The students were able to choose what they wanted to focus on. I wanted to act in the Bodas de Sangre play. However, I couldn't just do the work for that. I had to do my work for all the other classes that would be displayed in this exhibition. One that required more of my time was the chemistry component because I had a partner. So it wasn't a project I could do by myself but wasn't something I could let my partner do by herself either. There was a lot of research and experiments that went along. This is where the communication celebration comes in. We were able to split the research in half and even though I couldn't do it in class, I made sure I did it on my own time so I wouldn't let her down. We also split the materials in half. When it came to the inclass experiments, I had to miss most of it because I was rehearsing for the play but in any break we had I would go and check in with her to maybe clean some dishes or something small since she was already in the zone of doing the actual experiment. So even though she did 90% of the experiment and presented exhibition night, we both came to the decisions together and split the process to get to that point in half.
However, prior to the play we had to create set designs to represent a specific scene in Bodas de Sangre. It was such a small set that required so many small details. And just when we thought we had it, we realized how modern our kitchen looked when the play was from the 1930's! The kitchens back then definitely did not look the way they did now. And finding images of that time in Spain wasn't the easiest thing either! When we were able to conquer that, the next step came in which was the lighting. Which sounds easy right? Just add a lamp in the background and you're done! Nope! Our scene took place in the morning so we wanted a very soft light coming in from the window that casted a long shadow on the floor. Getting the perfect color of lighting at the perfect angle took a lot longer than I want to admit! This was definitely a beautiful work challenge!
However, prior to the play we had to create set designs to represent a specific scene in Bodas de Sangre. It was such a small set that required so many small details. And just when we thought we had it, we realized how modern our kitchen looked when the play was from the 1930's! The kitchens back then definitely did not look the way they did now. And finding images of that time in Spain wasn't the easiest thing either! When we were able to conquer that, the next step came in which was the lighting. Which sounds easy right? Just add a lamp in the background and you're done! Nope! Our scene took place in the morning so we wanted a very soft light coming in from the window that casted a long shadow on the floor. Getting the perfect color of lighting at the perfect angle took a lot longer than I want to admit! This was definitely a beautiful work challenge!
Chemistry Analysis
For this project, I stepped out of my comfort zone in working with my best friends and honestly it was one of the most efficient choice. As a group, we dedicated our whole class time to the project. We attempted to split the work completely equally but some people don't work as fast as others so when one group member started falling behind, we immediately acted on it and helped take some load off their shoulders! This successful collaboration kept us strong and united and we never ended up falling behind. Which was crucial because the research was very dense!
Foodtopia Video
The last project we worked on this school year was based on food. We researched fats, protein, and carbohydrates and learned about obesity and just overall about nutrition and how to stay healthy. The final piece was creating a video based on a topic the group wanted to pursue. My group decided to do the biochemistry of obesity. We were able to work well together and come up with ideas that we could all agree on and when it was finally time to shoot, I got sick and was absent. I was incharge of bringing the props for the video! How could my group do the video if they didn't have the supplies they needed? I should have told them beforehand that I wasn't feeling too good so they could prepare themselves! Or I could have asked my mom to drop them off when she dropped off my brother! That was a communication challenge! If I had taken action when I knew I was sick, we wouldn't have fallen behind!
And because I didn't bring in the supplies, my group mates had to just do with resources they found around school! We had such a limited time that my group couldn't afford to wait for me to bring in the props. When I did come back, we edited it added voiceover and showcased it to the teacher and immediately were sent off to re-shoot... the whole entire thing. We started to panic. All the other groups were getting their first approvals while we now had nothing! It hurt to see how happy other groups were doing some easy touches when here we were starting from point zero. Our group definitely felt like we weren't good enough. And to top it off, we only had a week and a half to redo and re-edit everything. We were all stressed out. And that wasn't the first round of critique, no, we were flooded with some more. And the more critiques we got, the farther away it seemed we were from the final result and the more stressed we became. It got to the point where it was more of a 'we have to complete this now because we only have 2 days before exhibition'. That mindset is what I think would be a collaboration challenge. We were all so down or stressed about it that we couldn't think of the positives.
But in the end, all that critique paid off. I would consider our final video an example of a beautiful work celebration! There is no way I would feel proud of showing our first draft of the video. I'm glad we pushed ourselves because the outcome turned out amazing!
And because I didn't bring in the supplies, my group mates had to just do with resources they found around school! We had such a limited time that my group couldn't afford to wait for me to bring in the props. When I did come back, we edited it added voiceover and showcased it to the teacher and immediately were sent off to re-shoot... the whole entire thing. We started to panic. All the other groups were getting their first approvals while we now had nothing! It hurt to see how happy other groups were doing some easy touches when here we were starting from point zero. Our group definitely felt like we weren't good enough. And to top it off, we only had a week and a half to redo and re-edit everything. We were all stressed out. And that wasn't the first round of critique, no, we were flooded with some more. And the more critiques we got, the farther away it seemed we were from the final result and the more stressed we became. It got to the point where it was more of a 'we have to complete this now because we only have 2 days before exhibition'. That mindset is what I think would be a collaboration challenge. We were all so down or stressed about it that we couldn't think of the positives.
But in the end, all that critique paid off. I would consider our final video an example of a beautiful work celebration! There is no way I would feel proud of showing our first draft of the video. I'm glad we pushed ourselves because the outcome turned out amazing!
Goals
Experiencing both successes and challenges during sophomore year, there are a few goals I want to accomplish junior year. I've always had a homework buddy to bring me assignments we do in class when I'm out but I'm thinking of reversing it to where they could bring in stuff that was due the day I was gone on a major project. Also, when a teacher says to choose a partner, I probably shouldn't just immediately run off to my friends arms. I like working with other people too. Lastly, I want to make sure I set aside some time for some trial and errors so I'm not failing a project at the last minute. I need to give some time to adjust and retweek my ideas!