Symposium 2017 Reflection #1
So far, working on Symposium for 2017 has been an experience that has been unique from any other project I’ve done before. As a group, we have discussed the multiple paths and choices to think of a topic that is unique or different. First, we decided that our topic would be the apocalypse, we later thought that we wouldn’t be able to find articles for this topic so we decided to shut it down. Our next topic that we researched was medicine and the wealthy cost, but with little interest, we decided to exchange the topic once again to healthcare and the deals of Obamacare. As we researched our topic, we began to see how passionate we are about this topic, after talking with a mentor, we realized that we want a topic that includes many unknown questions, so as of now, our topic went back to the apocalypse. We decide to return to the apocalypse because it contained many unanswered questions and many ethical viewpoints that we can work with. Researching our topic, I’ve learned that the apocalypse can mean many different things for different people, and can be viewed through for instance, the religious our society’s perspective on the apocalypse can be very different. Some articles that i found include the reason as to why some people are obsessed with the idea of the apocalypse or the ways people prepare for the phenomenon. As we continue our research we are searching for how exactly we will interpret the apocalypse and what universal theme and generalization we will it connect to. The collaboration between the project has been going well, for instance each of us are trying to ways, to meet up whenever and wherever we can in order to work on this project. At first it was a bit difficult with one partner having meetings after school, but with those subjects being over, we are able to meet more frequently and attend and talk with different mentors. As we continue our project, we hopefully wish to create something that is unique and create that can make people critically think and something that we can be proud of.
Symposium 2017 Reflection #2
Now that we have been working on Symposium for the sixth week, we’ve accomplished and completed many assignments. Since our last reflection, our topic changed to the flaws of the education system, to apocalypse, then with the help of Mrs. Park, we finalized our topic to Hollywood religious Pedagogy. Our driving question was never changed, first we thoroughly thought out how we were going to implement our gate icon and universal theme, and converge them into a question and get it approved. For our student lead research component, we decided to go with an interview, as of now, we have received feedback from our two interviewees. We chose to do an interview, since we thought it was important to view the perspective of a professional and their experiences through film and religion. Working on the interview, things that have been hard was trying to figure out questions that we can ask the interviewee that relate to our driving question, something easy was contacting and getting their feedback through email. Through the whole process, factors that have been difficult include, meeting up with our group after school to work, annotating and researching our articles because the process is time consuming, and deciding what we can put into our board design, that can relate to our topic and is very eye catching. Factors that have been easy include, working together with my partners, since we can work well together if we decide to, and hopefully painting will also be easy and entertaining to work. Things that we need to do to make sure is properly schedule and interview with the interviewees and try to record their thoughts, also to always be under supervision of an adult, in order for everything to go well. Our collaboration has been going particularly well, but does contain some struggles. First of all we try our best to equally do work so that one does not do a lot by themselves, and we try to meet up whenever we can. Some flaws include trying to make sure we all understand what we are doing and meeting up on different schedules, also trying to go to mentorship but a teacher might be absent is a little difficult to deal with. Working on symposium has been a real struggle, but an experience to remember.
Our Progress Through Images
Symposium 2017 Reflection #3
Symposium is coming to a close end, nearly two weeks away, and my partners and I are trying hard to finish this off in a bang. Since last time we have research our topic we have found out many things, including things we have found through an interview with Erin Runions we have also learned how to implement our topic onto our board and soon to be made, creative piece. One thing that i learned about myself and my ability to work with others is that it is important to be patient with your partner, as they might not know enough or might need help, which is why it is important to be patient and allow them to learn. We want our board to symbolize our topic by having a design that relates to our driving question, for example, on one side of our board, we have a red curtain to symbolize red curtains found in theaters. Another example includes having a stone wall, which represents a church wall, in order to have representation towards the Christianity portion of our research. For our supplemental creative piece, we are planning to do a sculpture. At first, we were planning to do a mural, but with the amount of time we had, and my absence on upcoming Friday, we decided to go with my partner's idea and go with a sculpture. On our sculpture, we plan to have a bible , and pieces of films coming out of the bible, and we also want hands to be holding the bible, made out of modeling magic, to represent god, and other hands holding the film, which represents people in taking what film is taking from the bible. We plan on making this idea reality by using cardboard, modeling magic, with paper and paint. In our next step, we plan to work hard to have our creative piece completed. By doing so, we all plan to stay after school to work on our piece together. Our collaboration is going well, we always try to keep in touch to know how or when we will approach things about our project, for example, planning our creative piece, requires our whole team's approval and guidance. Something that is going well is our hard work and our dedication to this project, what is not working, is trying to work at the same time, as one of my teammates do not share the same ELA period, but we try our best and make it work, so that we can complete our Symposium Project and be proud of ourselves.
Info Synthesis Document including Student Lead Research Results
Symposium Reflection #4
After nearly 3 months, Symposium is finally over. Our driving question was "How do the adaptations of Christian pedagogy in Hollywood films impact our worldviews?" Before turning in our project we had to make some revisions, some of which include properly gluing things down again or fixing our additions and designs on our board to make it stable. During rehearsing I learned and remembered some ideas about our topic, one of which is in the Savior concept of our research, which was that in savior movies, we found that the old people were found saving the younger people in the movies, which can also portray what is important or valued in society. One of the most important aspects of this symposium project is the scholarly research that must be conducted in order to learn information. What I learned about the idea of scholarly research is that it requires an abundant amount of observations that are necessary, for example, it is important to look at when a certain source is made, as you will be making research from them, who it is made by, and where you are getting this source from. The art of an oral presentation is important for your symposium project when you exhibit and showcase your research for it is a way that your audience will intake your research. Something that I learned about oral presentation is that it requires a lot of mental energy and you will have to memorize a lot of information, it also requires a lot is skill and experience in order to look at someone in the eye, for me at least. Student-led research is a component that we conducted, for example, we conducted an interview a professor from Pomona college, named Erin Runions. I Learned about this process is that it requires from the student to be formal and sincere to the interviewee, and show that you are passionate about you project, so that your interviewee can gladly demonstrate new information to you. Overall I think that the group's collaboration process went really well, we all displayed passion for our project, determination that we can succeed and accomplish this, we also tired to equally work as hard between the three of our group. If I were to do anything differently for my project, maybe we can do different bible concepts, or change our creative piece into something much more. I'd also like to start from scratch and do something that I can show a bit more compassion for. One piece of advice that I would give to an upcoming student is to be very prepared for a lot of tough work, it will require a lot of mental processing, but in the end, with the guidance of you mentor teachers, or even your self, it is possible to get through this and be proud of the end result.