For my growth mindset project I decided to improve on a skill I had already had, playing guitar. Over the two week period I wanted to improve on my guitar skill by learning new methods of playing. One method that I hadn't really dove into was finger picking, using your fingers instead of a pick to pluck the strings and made sweet melodies. The song I wanted to learn was 'Fly me to the Moon' by Frank Sinatra. The reason I wanted to improve on guitar in particular was because guitar is something that I've always struggled with and I really wanted to improve. I felt like my guitar playing was adequate but I wanted to turn it into the passion it was already slowly becoming.
This growth mindset project set the stage for the rest of my projects during my junior year. This project was all about growing at whatever you wanted to grow at. The component of it being our choice was very important because it didn't make us focus on math, it was something that we wanted to change or grow in, whether it be from our personal or academic life. It helped me realize that if I had this "Growth Mindset" I could accomplish a lot of things I sought out to do.
Using this mindset, things in math could get easier. Knowing that I could get my skills to grow to be able to solve a problem was all the encouragement I needed. In math, knowing that there's a wrong answer is usually the most daunting part to a student wanting to answer a question. Looking at that "wrong answer" with a growth mindset allows you to realize that while there is that wrong answer, if you find the wrong answer you're able to look at what you did, find out what you did wrong, and correct it so that you don't make that mistake again. So now, not only do you have the right answer, you also have the knowledge and experience of getting the answer wrong and knowing what steps to take to prevent you from getting the answer wrong.
The Cow Problem
The Cow Problem is a problem I think about a lot, not because the math was hard, but because how that problem helped me grow in my group work, leadership, and math skill. At the end of this problem, we took a group test. During this group test, I ran into a stump, I didn't know how to get passed a step. I looked to my group members for help and got none. I soon realized that I was alone in this problem and if I wasn't to solve this part of the problem, we would fail. This was the complete opposite mindset that I should've had during this problem. I had the choice of either pushing through or giving up and I chose to give up. While I am disappointed that I gave up, I am in a way glad that I gave up because if I hadn't given up, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to advocate for myself to Mr. Carter and decribe to him what was going on in my head. I would've probably just gone through the problem by myself without my group members. I would've always been seen as the kid who does all the work for you. Instead, I met with Mr. Carter and we went through ways that I wouldn't be that kid. I would be the kid that helps my peers understand, the kid that you could go to for help. That's why The Cow Problem is so memorable for me.
Trigonometry
Trigonometry is a subject that I've struggled with since I learned it. Trigonometry is the functions created to find different sides and angles of a triangle. You can use different equations like sine, cosine, or tangent to find missing angels or sides.
As with most really complex math theorems, picking it up was really confusing and hard. The more I felt like I knew what I was doing, the more I realized that I had no idea what I was doing. The mindset I had going into trigonometry was that it was easy and that I was able to do it. This was yet again, the wrong mindset to have going into any problem or concept. It was my mistake that I was overconfident when I shouldn't have been and my test results showed.
This made learning it all that much harder, but I sat myself down and looked through several websites, such as Khan Academy, to help me learn it. Now I am evidently confident in my ability to perform trig.
Growth
My love for math has definitely grown this year in several ways. I have gotten opportunity to help my classmates and expand on my skill in teaching them. I've gotten to learn so many new concepts, but the most important way that I've grown this year was the way I looked at math. During my second semester, I began to read a book titled The Tour of the Calculus. This was one of the most challenging books I've read due to its austere vocabulary and sentence structure, but I wanted to get through all of it because I knew that what lay on the other side of confusing words was the ability to look at math in a completely new perspective. This was what I got out of this book. I was able to look at math as something of an advancement of human thought, not something designed to fail high school students. This change in thought encouraged me to try harder in math and other studies, and also inform my peers of the revelation that I had just read. being able to look at math with this mindset has allowed me to transfer this thought process into my other subjects, allowing me to succeed.
My Future in Math
Next year for Math I will continue to expand on my knowledge and skills in Math. I will be taking Calculus because I want to challenge myself. I want to prepare myself and, to me, calculus is that first step towards the math genius' that created the math we do today.
I know I will do whatever it will take to be successful in math next year. What's next for me is asking more question, getting more confused, and realizing math is one of the hardest subjects to concept. But it'll all be worth it in the end. I plan on involving myself in more group tutoring, trying to get the most help I need. I won't wait for my teacher to tell us to form study groups, I have learned how essential and helpful these groups will be, which is why I want to form them as soon as I can.
Honors
My first semester of junior year I decided not to take math. I don't fully remember why I made this decision, but it was something of me not having encouragement. You'll see throughout this DP, I had a really bad mindset coming into junior year. I wasn't encouraged to do much, I just wanted to get by. By the end of my first semester my mindset had completely shift. I had multiple talks with Mr. Carter and we decided that I would take honors in the upcoming semester. Honors was scary for me because it was just daunting. Something I had never done before and at this time my confidence in math was still growing. Writing this at the end of my second semester, I am more confident than ever in my ability to do math. And I have the test results to prove it. At the beginning I didn't realize that while this was something that was scary, if I followed through with it and committed it, it could be my proud achievement. I think the honors system is great as it is. Giving all students to do honors even if they're not doing honors is such a valuable asset in improving your skill without having to commit. It builds confidence and allows you to want to try honors. It's a good system.