​Anjali Phadke's P​ortfolio

At the Dayton Regional STEM School, collaboration is a big deal. We use collaboration in every class all year. But, to me, there is a difference between collaboration and sharing the passion of learning between two people. Don’t get me wrong. Collaboration could include the sharing of learning. But, sometimes. I have noticed that the passion that is in learning and sharing that learning, is not always present in collaboration. This year in Conceptual Physics, we had an opportunity of sharing our learning with others in a group project about the Universe. Throughout this, I am proud to say that I have grown in being able to passionately share my learning with a person who was older than I. 

 

 Now, age doesn’t have to matter in a group project, but to me, it was actually a big deal this year to work with someone that was older than me. Throughout my years as a student, I have been on the lower end of the age scale. I guess I have always been working with others of my age, but they were always in the same grade. So, the knowledge was the same and the only thing that was remotely different was age. This year in Physics, my group member was a whole grade bigger than me. You may ask, How was I partners with a 10th grader? I am glad you asked. My partner is new to the Dayton Regional STEM School. In her previous school district, she took classes that were offered in 10th grade here. So, she had to take a lot of 9th grade courses, one of those being Conceptual Physics.

 

Anyways, collaboration to me used to be doing all the work in a project. To be completely honest, I have always known a few more facts than the other learners in my group. Because of this, I was the one who did most of the work. I wrote most of the assignments and helped out the others when they had work to do. Now, during this project, I didn’t work as hard as I did before, in the sense that I didn’t have to work for two people. She was able to transfer her learning into my brain (in a less creepy way of course) and vice versa. We both understood our topic and we both “collaborated” together in a way I really haven’t before.

 

Although I haven’t directly experienced this sort of collaboration in other classes, I have seen the way older students work and I have gotten their feedback on assignments. For example, in Art, there is another student who has the same situation as my partner for the physics project. Whenever I have questions about Art, or if I want feedback, I always ask her for help. She always knows the right answer and she shares her knowledge with me. Like the way my partner shares her knowledge with me, this person was able to, too. I guess the sharing of knowledge doesn’t necessarily have to be during a project or even two people collaborating. It can be as simple as two people asking each other questions about a topic.

 

The one endeavor in which I grew by being able to passionately share knowledge, was during the Transit Photometry Presentation at the beginning of the year in Conceptual Physics. This assignment was basically a PowerPoint or a Prezi presentation that talked about a specific topic that our teacher gave us. Our topic was Transit Photometry. The purpose of this assignment was to teach our fellow peers about the specific topic, so that they could be knowledgeable about the topic when we go on our field trip to the Boonshoft museum. Basically, this assignment was a presentation about one of 12 specific topics. The PowerPoint had to include pictures, as well as a graph. The actual presentation of the PowerPoint was hard too. We had to present in front of the class, for 3-6 minutes. The purpose of this assignment was to create a visual, informative PowerPoint or Prezi that helped our fellow peers learn about our specific topic. Also, the overall goal of the assignment was to create a presentation that taught the teacher as well as the students about the specific topic. This is where the sharing of learning came in. We researched the information, and got to the stage where we had to share our knowledge and learning with others. When we first started this project, we were given a topic, and a partner. We only had about 4 days to finish the presentation, so we had to get cracking. On the first day of researching, my group tried to get as much information as we could about our topic (Transit Photometry) so that we could become experts. Also on that day, my partner and I created an outline of our PowerPoint so that we could divide the research and divide the slides up. Then, we started the actual slides. Since we divided up the slides, my partner and I were kind of separate on this step. My process of the 6 slides was this. I basically made a brief summary of all the information we found out for that slide. I did this because I knew that we had to talk about more than what was on the slide in the actual presentation. After adding in the text, I added a few pictures that related to the text (even some funny ones) and I was done! I was also in charge of the slide that had a graph on it. 2 of the requirements were that since our topic was a method of finding exoplanets. We had to relate our topic to the other topics. The other requirement was to have a graph. We killed two birds with one stone. We had a graph that showed how well the other methods were doing. (Our method had the highest number of exoplanets found). Then we presented. The presentation wasn't as scary as it seemed. We had to wear business attire (for example, we couldn’t wear sweat pants or a baggy jacket). We were also scored on our eye contact, speech, and clothing.

 

One artifact that shows my growth is the final presentation or the PowerPoint we completed. Now, it seems sort of obvious that more than one person worked on the PowerPoint and that is why it is a good example of collaboration. But, that is completely wrong. To others, the artifact could just be information on a slide. But to me, it is hours of work, hours of research, and passion all into one little presentation. This PowerPoint shows the final draft of all our notes, and all of our work put together into one place. It also shows how we didn't use all the information we had. It shows that we only boiled down the information so that our peers could understand the complex topics in a basic sense. It also is the basis for our presentation. So, you could imagine what we were talking about with our slides present. Now, this presentation was a big deal, but to me, I liked the process of creating the PowerPoint more than the presentation itself. Mostly because I got to work with my partner on all of this. The saying “it is about the journey, not the destination” is completely true. I am so glad I got to work on this project with my partner.

 

Now you may have many a question about what Transit Photometry is, so let me share my knowledge with you. First of all, Transit means to pass over or through; to cause to pass over or through;   to pass across (a meridian, a celestial body, or the field of view of a telescope); to turn (a telescope) over about the horizontal transverse axis in surveying. Photometry is the science of the measurement of light, in terms of its perceived brightness to the human eye. It is distinct from radiometry, which is the science of measurement of radiant energy (including light) in terms of absolute power. These definitions are textbook definitions. For the definition of Transit photometry, Transit photometry is the measurement of a star's brightness as an orbiting planet passes in front of the star as seen from the Earth. We found basic definitions (with credit to the respected owners /websites/resources). Also, when scientists think Transit Photometry, the Kepler Mission comes into mind. Now, some facts about the Kepler Mission are, it is an instrument for finding exoplanets, it contains a device called a photometer, it has founded about 2,700 potential exoplanets, and it helps us obtain the knowledge of the orbit of the planet, if it is in the habitable zone, the size of the planet and so much more.

 

Another artifact is the notes that I took for this project. Now, for you, you may think that I just copied and pasted information from the internet into a word document, but you would be wrong. My notes were originally on a piece of paper and I transferred them onto a word document. Unfortunately, that piece of paper went through the wash and it cannot be read anymore. So, I have the notes that I took on a word document. I used my original notes from the beginning of this project. These notes shows all the resources and all the research we got from the respected sources. These notes show the beginning stages of the assignment, before we even started the actual PowerPoint. Now, you may think that this has nothing to do with collaboration, well you would be right. But the sharing of learning? Absolutely.

 

Okay, what did I take notes on? We researched the actual meaning of transit photometry, and the good and bad things about it. Basically, researchers look at a star. Each star has a specific luminosity. They look at when the star's luminosity dips. The dip in the luminosity directly correlates to the size of the planet orbiting the star.  Using transit photometry, researchers have been able to find 1800 planets! The most recent mission was the Kepler mission which found about 800 planets in 2014. Also with the good and bad things about it. It is the most effective and sensitive way of finding exoplanets. Now, even though it is sensitive, the exoplanets have to be directly in front of earth, and this method cannot go too far into space into finding planets. So. They have only been looking into a tiny piece of the sky.

 

My first artifact, the final PowerPoint is a very good example of my growth. Why? Because we contributed our learning to a PowerPoint so that we could share our learning with others. Although I don’t have my actual presentation available for show, the PowerPoint itself shows the sharing of learning. And, to be honest, this sharing of learning is way better than I ever thought it could be because my partner was older. Now, this could be a little weird, but I honestly think I worked better with her because she was of older age and she was able to teach me things someone my age would never know. Now, one specific slide I think really shows our growth is the slide about one of the Kepler mission’s planets. Even though you may not be able to see the actual research and time we spent for the slide, you can see the slide itself in its entirety. It was the first chance this year that we got to work with someone and create something to help another student learn. It was the first and last time that I, a 9th grade student got to work with a 10th grader, a full year older than I, on a subject that I knew very little about.

 

For my second artifact, most of the sharing of learning happened while I was writing the actual notes. These notes were taken by me while my partner was spewing out all the information she knew about the subject. Although this was during the project, it was the first time in which I actually interacted with my partner. I learned about my partner and her strengths coexisted with mine to create something beautiful. I actually learned so much more because she knew so much more. It was like she was the teacher and I was the student. I loved learning like that.

 

The implications for this type of growth are endless. Because I know how to collaborate, share my learning with others, and work with others older than I, I can now learn to work with others of different personalities or strengths. Where did that come from? Well, now that I know how to work with others that are older than me, I could get used to working with others that have different strengths or are “hard to work with.” Now, when I become a pediatrician, I will always have to work with other doctors. Some doctors will be older. I am actually glad about this because I will learn a lot more. Come the rest of my life, I will always have to work with others. Thankfully, I have one step accomplished: Work with someone that is older. Now, all I have to do is finish the hundreds of other steps on my list.

 

Sharing and learning is a skill that will never be the same as I grow older. Learning new things changes my perspective forever. Working with new people changes my perspective. Living life changes my perspective! Basically, I will never be perfect at learning or collaborating. It is about living and learning, not be perfect…right?