My CAS experience so far has let me explore different learning approaches from the IB. For the initial process of my journey, I had to evaluate different ideas and use the approach of learning thinking. Deciding on a CAS project, personally, is one of the hardest steps in this class. I am a very creative person, which provides me with many ideas that have to be nailed down and studied to create a final decision of what my best option could be. Many decisions require critical thinking due to the different pros and cons a project may have, also while I'm doing my projects I have to use creative thinking to critically choose how to solve problems and prepare for different situations that may affect my outcomes in my project.
My current project is renovating the ib lounge therefore I have had to creatively evaluate the best options and design what accommodations would be best for the everyday functioning of the ib students. Many factors such as airflow, cleaning schedules, organization, and others, could affect the functioning of the ib lounge. I have also had to creatively determine which options would be best to communicate with my peers and with the people that come to school every day. An example of this would be the presentation Kassie, Dani, and I did to present to the school and our classmates. This presentation helped us explain our ideas more effectively and also receive recommendations from others that also use the ib lounge. On the other hand, communicating with our principal has also been a challenge and we have had to consider different strategies to approach her. For example, we have used Gmail before, but since her schedule is tight and she doesn't have much time to revise her Gmail we have had to look for her and plan meetings.
Collaborating with Dani and Kassie has been a wonderful experience. I have had the opportunity to connect with them and become close friends. We are also great at working together. We all have our parts and we all have different strengths and weaknesses that have led us into taking specific roles. For instance, Dani and me are more sociable and therefore we always take the initiative to discuss different topics with our classmates and principal. On the other hand, Kassie has great ideas and motivation and has provided us with many useful recognitions within our project.
The last month I have been dealing with a lot of pressure from school. I have had time to manage this situation and the past two weeks and now I feel more confident about my work and my ideas. This has led me to have a better self-management of my time and figure out what steps are to come next in the IB lounge. Me and my peers have discussed with miss Kenya multiple solutions for our upcoming step which is placing a new air conditioner and windows in the ib lounge. This is sometimes an overwhelming task since money and costs are involved, but we are happy to be on track and find new ways to gather the money. We have decided that in the next couple of weeks we want to make a bake sale but we have to figure out how to manage our time especially now that we have so much homework. Organizing a bake sale could be easy but providing food and finding the resources is time-consuming in most cases. Figuring out which people might want to help is essential for the bake sale. It is also hard to communicate without imposing their help or making them feel like they have to help. That's why we are going to ask respectfully those who want to help us to provide us with baked goods for our ib lounge.
On the other hand, recently we have had to research air conditioner devices and what their costs are as well as contact the local guy who installed the windows and door. This information we gathered helped me have a clearer understanding of how much an air conditioner could cost as well as windows. Other research that I have done such as investigating interior designing websites and apps has helped me learn more about interior designer careers and how they work. I find it very interesting how much technology has advanced to the point where high schoolers can design their ib lounge without any professionals involved.
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