Unschooling for Learning Apr 17-22, 2022

by | Apr 28, 2022 | Blog | 0 comments

This week, not much happened. I’m not sure why. But anyway, this week, I worked on a lot of IXL English, and I worked on a lot of Khan Academy Health. I also learned about divergence and curl for Multivariable Calculus. Other than that, I did a bit of Big History, and I worked on a faster version of my Scratch sand simulation. And on Friday, I was sick, but luckily I don’t have COVID.

This week, I did a lot of Brilliant. Since I’m doing calculus in math, I decided that I would try and find a Brilliant course on it.
I worked on IXL English. I learned about predicates, which are the things that clarify what the subject did, and they come afterwards.
I learned about the structure of the cell, learning about membranes and nuclei and cytoplasm.
I finished a version of my sand simulation that I made a long time ago, and I tried to make it a bit less laggy by putting every single pixel into a list instead of using Scratch clones. I used lists instead of clones because clones are really slow if you put a whole bunch of them in your project. And it worked!
I learned about the derivatives of multivariable functions. I learned about how to calculate partial derivatives, and I learned about divergence (which is for vector fields, and calculates how divergent are the vectors) and curl (which is also for vector fields and calculates how much the vectors are in a circle).
I learned about how the solar system formed in Big History. I learned about how the solar system’s mass is 99.99% the mass of the sun, so everything else (all the planets, asteroids, and people) are only 0.01% of the mass of the solar system.

Thank you for the Zoom Ethan and Carl!

It was a pleasure Zooming with you Ethan and Carl!

Ethan, you’ve done so much wonderful work on your communication-related goals this year. Thank you for writing so thoughtfully about your work on these goals; and telling me more details about your work on your YouTube and taekwondo leadership skills in our call. It was also great talking with you about your preparations for transitioning to public high school next year. You’re doing so much work in learning to manage your time and schedule, and putting a lot of time into building skills in English and social studies to prepare for your high school classes. I’m sure you’re very prepared and expect you’ll have a very positive experience in high school.

Below are a few notes I took about your YouTubing and taekwondo leadership during the call.

Best,

Shannon

-YouTube: He has been working more on getting a basic idea of what he wants to say before running into it. For planning out the YouTubes beforehand, he’s finding it makes it easier to communicate what he wants to communicate and he doesn’t have to do as much planning and thinking in the middle of the video.

-Doing tae kwon do leadership is a big aspect of building communication skills. He takes the training (ongoing) once a week, and then helps with two classes a week. In the training they mostly listen to the instructor, and then they practice teaching particular taekwondo patterns to each other, in preparation for teaching those patterns in the classes.

-Further goals — he thinks it would be nice if he could get to a point where he knows what to say to explain the taekwondo skills well and easily to kids even though it’s a complex subject and they don’t have much background in it. He also wants to get better at his YouTubing so he isn’t having to think on the spot as much; the scripting he has done has been helpful. He’ll continue practicing in these areas.

Spring Connection 

I can communicate for a purpose.

I’ve worked communicating for a purpose by making YouTube videos and trying to think of what I want to say before I make the video. I have also worked on communication by doing Taekwondo Leadership, where I have to communicate with little kids how to do this thing, but trying to say it simply so that they can understand.

I can gather the basic information I need and present it.

When I make my coding projects, I need to research how to make this thing work, by finding and using math and formulas in my coding projects. I can also make YouTube videos to better explain things. I’ve worked on this by gathering information based on reliable sources (like wikipedia) and trying to use those facts to help me in my coding/video making.

I can synthesize, deepen, and transform my own and others’ thinking.

I can make YouTue videos to try and explain and deepen my knowledge of coding and trying to teach other people how to develop their knowledge of coding. I’ve improved on this by learning about how I can teach things easily and simply in Taekwondo Leadership, by learning how to teach difficult things efficiently to little kids.

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