My goal(s) for the rest of Spanish 11 is to improve my reading abilities spelling and writing to comprehend text better and allow others to comprehend my text as well. I will do this by paying attention in class, reviewing lessons I do not feel too confident in, and expanding my knowledge in such skill. By doing this, I will further develop my language abilities and feel more confident in Spanish 11

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Pillar: Content

Current Strengths: The current strengths which I am able to obtain and continue within understanding content is consistently showing curiosity in the course and seeking ways to connect and deepen my learning. I believe that I can do this well with little to no help but much guidance. I am always seeking guidance in class when I am able due to the urge of mine to be a better student and understand the content which is given to me. I am also able to apply past knowledge to the content in the course. I am confident and comfortable in using my numeracy skills from grade 10 to solve for the variable. I am also able to apply deeper knowledge from Science 10 Honours and other courses such as Math 10 and 11 which help me explore a deeper understanding of physics and allow me to apply skills to solve problems which may be given to me in class. 

Areas of Future Growth: A specific area of growth which I am able to work on is demonstrating my knowledge of understanding through assessments. On the assessments, I can show a decent application of understanding but am not as confident when I am doing the homework or labs. I am able to leave space for mistakes and grow from them, however. I believe that this will grow as the school year continues. 

Goal: My goal is to be able to work towards a more confident zone where I am able to proceed with higher marks on assessments. I believe that this is a SMART goal since I am able to achieve it in time towards the ending of the course and it is realistic. To reach the goal I will set less reliance to the answer key and be more confident with my answers so that when I am doing the tests I will be able to feel that level of confidence on it. I will also try and practice more and study efficiently and actively instead of feeling over confident. This goal will help strengthen my content understanding and make me feel prepared for higher science classes that I will hopefully be taking in the future. Overall,  I believe I am able to grow within this goal and aim to be a better a physics student in the last half of the semester. 

Revisiting Midterm Goal Setting – June 18th

Revisiting my goal and reflection from the midterm assessment, I believe that I worked towards my goal but did not fully meet it. I tried my best by studying and continuing asking for help. I did however incorporate less reliance on the answer keys and some how did feel more confident on the tests.

I am particularly proud of the Car project which I worked on with Emily and Zoe. This project really allowed me to think about all the physics which I have learned so far and allowed me to corporate that understanding in making a moving object. However, if there was anything that I would’ve done differently to be more proud of my self in this course, it would definitely be reading the lab instructions fully to help me with concluding questions. I believe this would’ve gotten me better grades on Labs, specifically, the pulley lab.

For my next semester courses, I would like to work and focus on managing my time and being less anxious for assessments and study effectively by not being distracted by my electronics and activities. I believe that this will be a good skill which I can take into my post-secondary education which will help me grow and be stronger student.

Overall, I was able to work towards my goal while trying my best and have created a better understanding on what I actually need to work on, not what I just want to work on within my goals.

Blanket Exercise 

Tarek Diabmarzouk

A) Reflect on the Blanket exercise. What did you learn? How did you feel?

During the blanket exercise, I was able to connect with my emotions while still demonstrating an understanding of knowledge based on the shared discussion with our guest speaker. In this session, I learned a timeline of events where first peoples were unrecognized and silenced. Many new subjects were hard to talk about, but was completely necessary to work towards truth and reconciliation. By accepting that all these events did happen, we are able to at least reach the truth in “truth and reconciliation.” As well, it was interesting to learn more about Métis culture and when the guest speaker was in school, the other students were not as educated as her on this subject.  Personally, It was a bit harder for me to stay focused because of the fact that many people are still being assimilated, colonized, and undergoing genocide during this day and age. As an arab, I feel strongly about the Palestinian people and what is happening during these hard times. I recognize and acknowledge the colonization of Palestine that has been going on for over seventy five years and how similar it can be to how Indigenous people have been assimilated and colonized. Because of my strong feelings, I made some connections with what was happening during the blanket exercises and it made me feel frustrated and useless and hopeless in such way I cannot help with anything that goes on. However, I agree that the discomfort of the blanket exercise made me realize how Indigenous people may feel about the colonization of their lands and the assimilation of their culture. In some way there is a connection in that most people of colour are Indigenous to somewhere and have very strong feelings toward that land and area. Therefore, I was able to learn about the different events that happened during the colonization of different first nations, and recognize my feelings of land that is being colonized outside of Canada.

Land Acknowledgements

Tarek Diabmarzouk

a) What are your feelings towards land acknowledgements? Is there a specific article we read or video we watched that resonated with you? How could land acknowledgements be made better?

Land acknowledgements are needed to be able to work towards reconciliation and revealing the true history of Canada. Ever since I was in the fifth grade, land acknowledgements have been recited, but I’ve never really understood the true meaning until this week. Now that I’ve been able to study why and when we do come together to say a land acknowledgement, I have some mixed feelings about them. Reading the articles from class, I was able to connect with them and understand why some people feel that land acknowledgements are great, and some think the exact opposite. I believe that it is a great method to work towards decolonization in Canada, however, I also believe that these acknowledgements should not only have words to it, but actions. For example, all schools in British Columbia come together and say land acknowledgement at their assemblies. They are taking action towards it by getting students to take a class where they learn about the first peoples to be able to graduate. Words can move people in different types of ways, however getting a group of people to learn more about what the words really mean, especially young people is in my opinion one of the best ways to work towards reconciliation.

b) What did you learn about local Indigenous communities this week?

This week in class, we were able to learn more about local Indigenous communities. One thing that I found interesting was how many Indigenous communities, especially the downtown east-hastings side are still being stereotyped and discriminated against. Many people look past the actual human being and go straight to the data or rumours they have heard of what’s happening in these communities. A very big example of this that I learned in class is the news and media. When I take a look at the news or media, it tends to take headlines about Indigenous people dealing drugs, being alcoholics and more, however, they never include the different ways many Indigenous people have learned to cope throughout their intergenerational trauma. Many Indigenous people have created amazing things, for example, Indigenous people have created a diverse group of items that differentiate from birth control to genetically modified crops, but you never see that in the media. These are the people who have come before us and have a better understanding of this land than settlers do and yet they are still discriminated against and stereotyped. This would have never happened if the Canadian government hadn’t put so many Indigenous people in residential schools, involved them in the sixties scoop and so many more examples I cannot list. Therefore, the biggest thing that I noticed and learned this week was that settlers are still stereotyping Indigenous people, but to work towards decolonization, we must learn that this is the effect of what the settlers have done, not Indigenous people.

Circle Talks 

Tarek Diabmarzouk

a. Why do we engage in circle talk? How could circle talk help create a sense of community?

Every person has ideas, emotions, and the knowledge to learn more about a subject. Circle talks help ease this concept of talking to everyone and allow for everyone in a group to communicate about whatever may be discussed. Everything said in the circle must stay within the circle and not leave it, making everyone more comfortable sharing their ideas. There tends to be a feeling sometimes that one’s idea may be stupid or dumb, however, the circle talk works to ease or erase this idea. Since people will start to get comfortable in circle talks it will create a sense of community especially once people share stuff that may be uncomfortable for them to do.

b. What does listening look like? Why is it important to respectfully listen to others during circle talk? How does it feel to be listened to and understood by others?

The ability to be respectful and silent is a simplified definition of listening. To listen it means that you are paying attention and giving respect to the person who is speaking. Everyone is at a different level while speaking publicly or even speaking in front of a few people that they don’t know. When people are not listening or being disrespectful to the speaker, it can be hard for them to share their ideas and make them feel disrespected. It is important to respectfully listen to others during a circle talk so that you can expect the same back and make others feel comfortable while sharing. To be listened and understood by others make you feel respected and that you are not wasting your time with a group that does not care for what you may be speaking about.

c. How did you feel after circle talk? What did you remember, and what did you take away? Remember not to speak another person’s story.

As a person who has contributed to a diverse amount of circle talks, there is many feelings that one can feel. For this specific circle talk we completed as a class, I felt curious and interested to learn more about others. I remember that we went over our names and had a topic to discuss, however I do not remember what we particularly discussed about. Learning everyones name and how they act in a group environment was interesting. I was able to know more about my classmates and my teacher by just observing everyone in the circle talk.

We are currently learning about Evolution in Life Sciences 11. This unit talks about how humans have developed, and so have animals. Darwin plays a significant role in this. Today we will answer the question(s), “how did the discovery of DNA prove that Darwin’s theory of evolution was correct, and how does it change how we view evolution today and into the future?”.

The question that will be first answered is, “how did the discovery of DNA prove that Darwin’s theory of evolution was correct?”

When DNA was discovered, it played a primary factor in identifying the theory of evolution. DNA and the genetic code reflect the shared ancestry life. I would like to include that humans have a 1% difference in the DNA of our bodies from chimps. However, chimps have 18 letters in DNA sequences compared to humans. Many know that it is believed that specifically, humans evolved from apes. However, Darwin believed that humans also evolved from fish. In other words, it is said that the bones of the human inner ear developed from fish gills. This is allowed since a switch in the body tells the “stuff genes” what to do and when. That will enable us to understand that all life forms are related but evolved into different species. This shows that all species come from one ancestor.

The next question I will answer is, “how does the discovery of DNA change how we view evolution today and into the future?”

The discovery of DNA changes how we view evolution today since it allows us to understand how every living animal is. An excellent example is the discovery of how slight differences in DNA can create enormous changes in an organism, such as chimps and humans.  Scientists are now able to discover not just the genes but identify the bases thanks to the discovery of DNA. Bottoms allow us to distinguish other organisms from each other. In the future, I believe that evolution will be even viewed differently when more findings of DNA are released. As well as, our current technology shows that legs only appeared 365 million years ago. With new technology being developed every day, more and more will be learned, and the discovery of DNA and genetics will help us understand the theory of evolution even better.

Works Cited

Boersma, Alex “This 365-million-year-old fish fossil reveals how life came to land.”  Inverse, July 2022, https://www.inverse.com/science/new-fish-fossil-land-animal-evolution. Accessed 3 March 2023.

Ramirez, Israel. “Comparing Chromosomes.” Quora, 2019, https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-big-key-differences-between-a-human-and-our-nearest-genetic-relative-a-chimpanzee. Accessed 3 March 2023

“Explain the difference between Lamarck’s and Darwin’s theory of evolution. Why was Darwin’s more successful?” Telgurus, https://telgurus.co.uk/explain-the-difference-between-lamarcks-and-darwins-theory-of-evolution/. Accessed 3 March 2023