Zac's Portfolio
Sonoma Mountain
Philosophy of education
my attitude when i entered Sonoma mountain was good. i finally got into the school that i worked very hard to get into. i kinda messed around because of the group i was hanging-out with. but now im doing my best to stay on track.
societies idea of education that I agree with was that you need it to live and get a job. The only way to be successful if if you have been properly educated also it will help you in real world situations. Some skills I have or need to acquire relative to your 1st career goal would be science, business, I definitely want a job relating to some sort of science. I would like to learn about plants, medicine and other things relating to the medical field. I've thought about being a pharmacist or a doctor.
Some skills I think are important are your work ethic, responsibility, and being able to cooperate and be polite. Work ethic is very important because no one wants to hire someone that doesn't to give it full effort and they would slow everything down and mess it up. You need to be responsible because if your boss asks you to do something you need to do it and if you make a mistake you need to tell your boss. And when you are polite and can cooperate it looks good because if you don't respect the other workers and customers could be offended. Being able to cooperate so you can work together with people and make sacrifices.These would help because they are the most important skills and they are useful anywhere and many employers look for these traits in their workers. If a person doesn't have these skills it would make customer want to bring their business somewhere else. Also you could get fired if they complained to your boss.
History
One thing i enjoyed in history was when we watched movies and reflected on them every once in awhile to have a different way to learn. One movie that i enjoyed was when we watched dances with wolves when we were learning about native Americans. Something i found challenging was writing assignments when we had to do things like intercept or take a quote and explain what they are explaining. Something you can do differently as a teacher is change up the assignments. Every day we do the same assignment and it's very repetitive and i don't feel it's a effective way of learning. A little diversity in the assignments would make the class more interesting and help people that belong at this school not just kids that don't want to do homework. Some people don't learn the same way or work as fast. Something i can do better as a student is try to get my assignments done faster.
One assignment that i enjoyed or that was challenging to me was america before the railroads. Railroads are a very big part of history because it is what started the large movement west. This was challenging because we had to answer questions about railroads and where they need to be to be useful to people. Then we had to think out railroad routes that are useful to many people without having to have a large amount of railroads. Then we made railroad route for each of the following, a farmer in the middle of the Nebraska territory, the US government, a business in San Francisco, a citizen of New York who would like to travel west, then we were supposed to make one one for a railroad company which will tie all these together to be the most efficient. I tried very hard and thought out the assignment to the best of my capabilities and to what i think is the most efficient route.
Another assignment I enjoyed or that was challenging was life in an Indian boarding school. The directions on this assignment was to read an article about Indian boarding school then answer questions relating to each section. The sections would talk about how the tried Americanizing them. I enjoyed this assignment because i haven't heard about native american boarding school and I've never heard about a lot of the things that the native Americans had to deal with and go thru every day. Also i was never taught this before in other history classes. I tried very hard at this assignment because assignments like this are usually very challenging for me and i was able to get a lot of good information. I chose this assignment because i think i did a good job on it also i thought it was very interesting.
English
My experience in your class has been pretty good. I enjoyed not always having a bunch of work piled on and having time to finish assignments. I also enjoyed the grammar activities because it confusing to me and it was good to practice it. Authors assignments
sometimes interesting and different, some was very boring and too much talking. Something that challenged me was having the two different classes it was a lot to handle and worked got piled on. Usually we have the second class to finish our assignments but with Arthur we have him talking to us for a class. Something you could do the same as a teacher is allow us time to do our work and not pile on work. Also you could help your students on their assignments instead of talking to all the kids that are done.As a student i can try to have better attendance and pay better attention.
One assignment i enjoyed was the childhood map. It reminded me of my childhood and where i grew up. Also it was challenging because i had to pick what places i wanted to do and how to set up the map. I worked very hard at this, it was very hard for me to come up with what i was gonna do and i had to make a small map of a town. The directions of the assignment were to create a map of a childhood location. This could be your hometown or places you have memories. This assignment wasn't for geographical correctness it was more about effort and having the correct information on the map. Also to have the right amount of places labeled and having certain items on your map. You need ed to have 10 or more places labeled with things like “ Dangerous street” or “best friends house”. There was extra credit available for color and being artistic also things like moving pieces. I chose this assignment because we got a break from normal school work, and were able to be creative and artistic on a assignment for English.
Something else i enjoyed or challenged me was when we learned about Wikileaks and people that released information to help people. This was very interesting, people were getting in a lot of trouble for releasing information that helps the world. Some of the stuff they released i couldn't agree with or support why they did or think they shouldn't get in trouble. These people are taking risks to better than world. I worked very hard on this and tried o pay attention to the best point a i could. We would listen to Arthur talk about the specific person for the whole class or majority then he would assignment on him. I liked this but also it made it more challenging because we didn't get time to finish the assignments. I chose this because i wanted to pick something from Arthur's class to since he was a big part of this school year. Also i enjoyed learning about some of these people.
Science
I have had a good experience in science this year. I enjoyed when we watched finding nemo and answered questions relating it to what we were learning about . something i didn't really like the warm ups. I didn't like them because they were repetitive and boring. Something that was challenging to me was the current events and other assignments like that. Something you can do as a teacher is try to do more activities and have the class like it was last year. I think we had a more interesting class last year this year feels like it is repetitive what we learn and how we learn it. Something i can do differently is keep my notebook caught up with the classes assignments.
A assignment or experience that i enjoyed or challenged me in some why was going to the petaluma river. It's a way to get out of the classroom and learn something school cannot teach. It was challenging for me when we had to plant our plants because it was very muddy and i wore white shoes and they got covered in mud. This could have been avoided but i forgot we were going to the river that day. I tried hard with picking the spot and designed the whole and all of that even tho i had on white shoes. I enjoyed this because it was something a normal science class does. Also it's gonna be there for ever and help make Petaluma a better place. Something that was annoying is we kept getting our plant changed and we don't know what our plant was. I believe i followed the directions and completed this to best of my abilities. I chose this assignment because it's one of the only real things we have done this year other than notes and stuff.
Math
I think this class is alright. The warns ups are okay and notes but the paper assignments are way to hard and confusing and we move on too fast to learn anything or finish any assignments. One assignments takes like 4 days for me to finish. I like the digital assignments because they are a nice change of having packets everyday. If we would spend more time on our assignments instead of just doing multiple assignments a day. If you had shorter assignments people would be able to get help easier and remember it. I feel with the assignments it just shows you how to do it you don't remember or learn at all from it.
This year in math was very challenging for me and most likely the hardest I've had to do. Geometry and stuff like that doesn't make any sense to me and never has. So i haven't really understood this yer a tall. I don't think the new math is fair because we aren't a normal high school and we don't have normal teachers so everyone has a different level of intelligence. Especially when you need help on every problem and still don't get it. Every assignment takes me at least 4 classes and we have multiple a day so it's impossible to keep up. Now the weird geometry stuff is even worse and a few kids get it so that's all that matters and you expect everyone to get it. I believe it was all very challenging but the worst was the new math stuff. None of them were easy at all i don't even understand any of them. I would like to do anything not as hard and stupid as the stuff we learn now, also something that doesn't have anything to do with shapes.
Areas of Polygons/Quadrilaterals/Triangles/Circles was more challenging. It was more challenging because it was more confusing and complicated. I don't get any of them so none of them were easy but one i almost could do is area of circles. I would like to learn about stuff that you can actually teach to us because i don't get anything in this class.
Test reflection
1) How do you feel about the grade you earned on the test
I feel good about the grade on the test i could've done a little better but i still did a good job overall.
2) Was this unit easy or hard for you, why?
Yes, reflecting on stuff is boring
3) At Casa/PHS your math grade is 50-75% based on tests. Here it is only 25%. Which do you think is a better system and why?
I think this is a better system because it does not grade you just on one part of the class, it is more even because we do work everyday.
Golden Gate Field Trip
On Friday the thirty-first Sonoma mountain and Carpe went on a field trip to San Francisco. After going to Carpe Diem we drove to the golden gate bridge. First we waited at the parking lot so people could go to the bathroom and get ready. Then We all got off the bus then walked down so we could go to the other side of the bridge. We all walked across the bridge then walked to a parking lot to wait for the bus. The bus came and picked us up and we drove to golden gate park. We got there and everyone went to sit down to eat their lunch. I ate my lunch and drank some water then talked to people from Sonoma mountain and Carpe. Then we all had a chance to play kickball but i wasn't really feeling good so i decided not to play. The game was kids from Sonoma mountain against Carpe Diem. i chose this to share because it was a fun field trip and nice to get out of the class.
Zac Archibald
Email: zarchibald18@petk12.org