All posts by lee82530@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg

EE Final reflection

During the Viva Voce after the final submission of my EE, we discussed the outcomes of and learnings from the EE process and the content, areas of improvement, and how I feel about the journey. Although I felt that some things could have been better such as planning, especially with the choice of the RQ for which I felt I would narrow down and have a more refined aim if I were to do it again, there were meaningful learning outcomes from the journey itself such as learning my strengths and weaknesses in such big assignment. I also think the experience of writing an extended essay hinted me a sense of what higher education, which I am planning to pursue, looks like and that by itself was good preparation and warning to myself to be prepared for what will come next. I think the essay itself was not of the quality I wanted it to be, however, I find the content meaningful because the message I was trying to deliver with it also impacted me and my thought process, and that itself is another valuable learning outcome from it.

 

(189 words)

Reflective Converstation 2

I learned more about topology as a focused area of study of “closeness and position”, which I think is a fabulous and accurate way of describing it. I understood the nature of more abstract mathematics as opposed to the regular imaginable (2- or 3- dimensional) mathematics we learn in high school. The learning I have gained, such as the abstract thinking, and different ways of visualizing and thinking about a problem, will be my valuable strengths in and be a great preparation for studying and pursuing a career in mathematics in the future.

Yet I also realized that a focus of my essay should also be in truly understanding and communicate well the learnings such that the readers could also follow my arguments and proofs. Especially since my topic was very visual and abstract, my supervisor suggested that I have far more visualized drawings and illustrations of what I am verbally describing as well as reassuring and making the content more precise and accurate.

 

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Maths end of year reflection

I like maths and am often enjoying and confident, however, I tend not to perform particularly well in tests or exams and it sometimes makes me question my ability in maths and affects my confidence in class and in general.

For the next test, I would change the way I prepare and practice for the test. I tend to just enjoy the maths and enjoy the process of getting it right but do not really pay much attention to the speed. As a result, I sometimes feel that I run out of time and cannot attempt some questions, regardless of my ability to whether I can actually solve it. I felt this during the exams and there were some questions which I had to leave empty, although after the exam I thought they were doable.  Over the summer I would also focus on the timing and the speed as well as just practicing my skills to really do my best in the long test after summer.

If I could remember only two things from this exam I would remember that I really need to make use of my time effectively to prepare for it and also using my time effectively within the test and strategically approach questions to deal with time pressure. I did not make use of the April break very effectively and I felt underprepared for the exam. I would remember these when preparing for the real exam next year, especially carefully planning my time effectively beforehand.

I love this course because maths is fun and learning new maths and being able to solve challenging problems is very very accomplishing. Although I prefer calculus over stats, doing stats is still part of my maths learning and I find it interesting and fun. Over the course, I learned about whole new maths and also the year of IB maths and further maths changed who I am.  I also learned the importance of continuous effort and individual practices, because it really takes just time and sitting down and doing maths is the only way one can improve in maths. I really learned that when practicing makes my body just remember what I need to do and when I could immediately recognized what I had practiced in the exam and solve them easily.