Collaboration

A humans ability to collaborate is both handicapped and yet boosted. As I've seen, humans and their sheer "will to survive and thrive" affact this. I've always seen a philosophy that humans will collaborate using the most useful components/people they can find. This was reinforced this week, both based on our choices of people to rescue in a disaster scenario, and our choices of people to trust. As I observe, people become dependent on their peers as they view a higher aptitude for a skill they see as "desirable" within that person. Not often considering either the moral or the possible.

I was given the task of spectating Ellen Reckamp as a collaborative person within scenarios. I was taken aback at the cooperative spirit that she possesses, and the odd sense of morality. In all honesty, these are characteristics to be viewed in a competent leader, such as a President or Ambassador. These are mere examples of things that I would trust Ellen to be and accomplish given an opportunity.

Fixed vs. Growth Mindsets

Growth Mindset

A growth mindset is definitively, a mindset of a person who believes in growth and development of knowledge rather than a person who believes in doing the work, and succeeding. A growth mindset believes in failure as an opportunity to learn and develop skills. This is the kind of mindset that we at the open program strive to have.

Fixed Mindset

A fixed mindset is a mindset that belongs to a person who only believes in success. This person fears failure and will deny it at any opportunity. This is also the kind of person who will cheat to succeed, and coasts through school. This plan however, fails in the real world as they cannot do so without failing at a task. This is the mindset we resolve to conquer.



Punctuation

The working grammar relates to the four tenants, in a sense of mathematics--Cross-Curricular knowledge--being "related to mathematics" as Mr. Sitze put it; grammar within use of commas in clauses and phrases is fairly mathematical. This isn't a well-known fact, but it should be clearly known. English relates to lots of things:  Drama, math, and even science.

Creative Problem Solving

During the past week we focused on learning our skills and creative problem solving. We first approach to this , by working to create a free standing structure out of paper, cups, tape, and popsicle sticks. Although, I do feel that we work very creatively in such conditions, we did not fully understand the instructions, and thus did not accomplish what we fully could have accomplished. There was yet another exercise that worked on our creative problem solving skills that involved saving a person who could not swim from their capsized boat without touching them using only only paper clips. I do believe that we all work very creatively, and showed that we are creative problem solvers, and can one day also improve our creative problem solving skills.

The Contract

  In my opinion, the writing of the contract was unprofessional, chaotic, and focused on making the students work easier. There were  far too many students working on the contract than there truly needed to be. There were arguments among us over rules, and when we tried to split up to optimize our work. We had people who refuse to give up their positions, even when someone more efficient for that position was asking to work. And much of the contract seemed much more focused on responsibilities of the teachers, and the parents in the responsibilities of the students, who were the true domain of this contract in the first place. We simply could have been far more optimized in this work process. These are my reflections on the work we did it during the contract, and I feel that we can do better next time.