After my Intermediate Interview for CAS this term I made one very big connection with all of my activities which is a skill I have developed over the last year. During my initial CAS conversation I discussed that one of my biggest weaknesses was collaboration as I had always felt that I needed to be in full control and did not trust other people to do work with them. After battling this weakness throughout the year, I began to trust the people that I was working with, not only in actives but also in the classroom. Additionally, I found that in order to use my personal organisation and discipline (which I originally viewed as a negative trait as it prohibited me from working well with other) I had to transfer these skills into leadership ones. I never used to see myself as a leader, but rather a shy individual, but over the last year, I have found outlets to use my leadership skills and take control in group situations. Whether this be by running the play in Lighthouse, or allocating roles for my project week group, or even leading a dance in Kahaani I have managed to use my organisation skills to allow myself to stay on top of things, while guiding a larger group of people as well. This has also helped me build the trust between people and thus has improved my collaboration skills.
Month: May 2018
Preparation Stage
L01: Identifying own strengths and develop areas for personal growth
L07: Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Now that we have finished all the initial investigation, we have begun to work towards the preparation stage for project week. Our group has been extremely organised and have met all the deadlines and have handed in all the required forms already. Now we are beginning to prepare materials and finalise our itinerary for our trip. With Blue Dragon, our service partner, we have decided that we will assist the staff there by joining in on their daily activities as well as work with the students there on putting together a performance that they can do when they visit our school next year. To do this, we have to do some research into Vietnamese dance in combination with hip-hop (the style that the children are familiar with) and see how we can use this to help them come up with some steps. I think that this task plays to my strengths, as a dancer, and will help me grow and expand the ways that I interact with dance. It will stretch me out of my comfort zone, as it is a style of dance I am not familiar with at all. I think that it is important that we are very careful from the cultural aspect when we present ourselves. We do not want to inaccurately portray the Vietnamese culture as this could, in fact, harm the bond between our school and Blue Dragon. Therefore, we have to be very careful and detailed with our research first. On the whole, I am excited to take on this challenge and see what results it will reap.
Investigation Stage
L02: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
L03: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1r7oy4u5BtmLon5zkmozv3UKR-FEaaSBa
Planning Documents can be found here:
New Project in Service
L03: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
L02: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1I_WKTDrWQgjWsC6a9lNHrmkvj78JXhOO
Final Editing for EconomEast
L04: Show commitment to and perseverance in your CAS experiences
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1venMW9hAkUTD_UNktPiF2JQq8AokC5dV
Handing over leadership positions in GC
L05: Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaboratively
https://drive.google.com/open?id=17CoMjvbkd6Csg8ZzIbjNigJ9rnLhh3i4
EE Writing Day Reflection
After the sessions today I have learnt how to properly embed research when explaining a theory. I have always struggled with integrating data into describing theories and therefore I think that this is a very important skill that will be able to enhance my extended essay. I am very proud, since today I had to change my EE topic. I was originally doing an economics EE but today I realised that I had to change to a world studies EE. I am proud of this because I was easily able to adapt my research question to incorporate psychology and address a global issue. Surprisingly, I feel as though I have a better direction to my EE now than I did before. Since I have changed my topic, I now have to redirect my research. I want to form an outline for myself on what I will research and how I will approach the research. Once I have a proper outline I will then try to formulate questions for my primary research and begin conducting that so that I can begin to analyse my results and form conclusions.