Tour Guiding at Open Day #2

Welcome to our school!  - Open House again!

Just two weeks ago,  it was the second Open Day of this school year for our international school here in Germany! As previously, the grade 11 students, i.e. my classmates and myself, were to provide extra help in showing guests around the school campus and facilities, as well as explaining the International Baccalaureate to potential new-comers.

Activity Planning

With our CAS coordinator, we arranged and allocated shifts to each pair in order to form an organised scheduele that allows tour guiding time and leisure time on the following Saturday morning. The whole planning phase was identical to the one of the first Open Day Tour Guiding activity which we accomplished several months ago.

The next morning, we were ready for action! We wore our representative badges and looked forward to a half school-day of voluntary work. 

Reflection

Whilst some of us were on duty, the rest were studying silently in class. In the midst of our productive session, we were surprised by a visit from a fellow student’s father in our school. Initially, we thought the poor man was lost but as he introduced himself to us, we learned that he was eager to know about our experiences with the IB so far and the science behind it since his child will be growing up to be a grade 11 student in a few years time! We collected ourselves and began sharing our subject choices and views on the course so far. My classmates and I worked to bring the best possible interpretation together.

Overall, I believe it went quite well although it certainly would have been more professional if we were prepared for possible class visits. For improvement, next time we will remind each other to be ready at all times since life can throw random situations when you least expect it!

On this Open Day, there was unfortunately not as many visitors as we had estimated and so the majority of my shift was spent discussing with a teacher, who was with me on duty at the main entrance, about my future plans for university. We had a productive conversation although one hour and forty minutes later, I was only able to offer warm greetings to visiting parents of students in our school.

Despite the lack of tour guiding this time, I was still able to learn from this CAS experience. Firstly, when doing a CAS activity (or be it any activity at all), always be aware for the chance of surprises as they may turn out to be a useful and valuable lesson. Secondly, everyone in the team must be ready and willing to replace a shift in case of an absence which was unfortunately the case on this Open Day. After we were informed of this, my shift partner and I offered to take the empty slot. Soon enough, our classmates decided to accompany us which made it more enjoyable. Lastly, I was still able to achieve my objective of improving my people skills as I actively engaged in a conversation in German with the teacher. 

To summarise, I have achieve the following Learning Outcomes:

① Improved my ability to engage with others, i.e. people skills.

② Extended and continued a previous CAS activity.

③ Planned and arranged shifts suitable for my classmates and myself to be tour guides.

④ Worked collaboratively with my classmates organise tour guiding and being ready to replace absences.

⑤ Showed perseverance and support for one another as we explained the IB and shared our experiences so far.

⑥ Engaged with a very important issue of our local school community!

⑦ Discussed issues with the teacher in German which included: importance of after-school activities, paper costs and saving in our school etc.

⑧ Further improved people skills and foreign language, i.e. German.

Evita ☺

Volleyball Reflection #1

Training - for the love of the game!

Similarly to my previous CAS reflection on badminton club, I have been training devotedly every Thursdays after school in volleyball club for the past six months. Unlike badminton, I was unfamiliar with this sport and recently introduced to it about three years ago in school.

Reflection - Action

After a total of about 23 hours of training to date, I believe I have improved both my stability and agility. To this day, I can set the balls much more precisely than before. Likewise, my bumps are stronger and more directed, although not always as accurate. From our hour-and-half practices, I have learnt that no matter how talented each player is, without perfection of the basic skills, no game of volleyball will be thrilling since it is the simplest techniques that form the foundation of the sport. 

A Numbers sheet to keep track of my volleyball training progress

With exhausting warm-up activities, together as a beginner team, my club has improved substantially - right from the beginning where the majority of the class was completely new to the sport to now - where we are currently advanced players of sets, bumps and even an attack technique - dips!

Helping Mr Wessely to coach!

Furthermore, we have learnt the three-step approach to any attack. I can now do this well enough along with a dip, or in German: ein Lob. In the near future, I hope to be able to do this approach without much thought and allow it to evolve into a reflex movement over time, just as professional players can do so! Nevertheless, with all the patience and perseverance my coach teaches us with, he warned that approaches like these take years to truly master and naturally execute. With this, I therefore want to motivate myself even more for volleyball practices.

Three-step approach execution

A perfect Lob!

4 VS 4

Reflection - Service

As much as I have been training myself to improve the necessary volleyball techniques, I have also been actively using practice time from volleyball club as a Service activity! This was inspired by my CAS coordinator, who suggested me to enlarge my Action activity into something bigger than physical education. Therefore by thinking outside the box, I presented the idea of helping to train the new students to Mr Wessely, our volleyball coach. To my surprise, he was not only thrilled about my enthusiasm but wanted me to think up of simple yet purposeful volleyball drills that I could teach to the class at the start of every training. This is a very beneficial activity not only to my teammates, but especially for myself since I would have to practice the tasks I set for the team beforehand and also teach confidently of a sport that I am actually learning!

After each training and the dismissal of the class, Mr Wessely and I discuss his plan for next week. Hence the theme of the session would be my ‘homework’, i.e. to come up with one or two drills preparing for the actual training.

During the beginning of each session, I usually spend about three minutes explaining my activity to the class. We then use 15 to 30 minutes of the session to practice it/them. These activities that I brainstorm are mostly adapted from videos that I discover online for professional teams as well as my own experience from PE class with our general warm-up tasks.

Volleyball Team!

To summarise, I have had a great experience overall on coaching my teammates and helping them in their techniques as they practice given activities. There were times where I stumbled on my own words and even made errors on a technique. Mr Wessely would then support and help me coach the students. I have learned to speak clearly and slowly when explaining, which usually comes after several mental recaps to myself. Towards the start, I constantly felt nervous as I was afraid of making faults. However, I see now that with those errors, the class can learn just as effectively to see why it was wrong and how to avoid it. Whilst they practice, we patrol the hall and provide tips for improvement, which is usually my favourite part because I can focus with the student one-on-one and help them as best as I can.

In future trainings, I will work harder to improve my coaching skills and remain confident in  the explanations. This way, I can further develop communication with my teammates and even practice speaking in German when required.

Volleyball Team!

More recently, Mr Wessely kindly lent me his volleyball handbook from which I am able select ideas for warm-up. It also clearly explains every rule and regulation and demonstrates specific techniques with easy-to-follow illustrations. I have been regularly reading the handbook as it will improve my knowledge on the sport. In fact, it is entirely in German so it aids my language skills too!

Mr Wessely's volleyball guidebook

In regards to the Learning Outcomes, I think I have attained the following: ① ② ④ ⑤ ⑥ and will work towards successfully achieving the last two: ⑦ ⑧.

Last but not least, I should mention that I watched my very first live volleyball match two weeks ago! (It was actually also the first official match of any sport I have ever watched live!) It was suggested by my coach and since it was being held in my school’s sports hall, nothing could have been a more excellent chance! 

Live. Action. Volleyball!

The atmosphere there was completely novel and unique to me. To see this sport played by girls of the fourth league allowed me to realise the how to techniques were properly used to effectively score points and how to rules were applied to the match. Overall, it was a great experience and I definitely hope to visit more matches in the future.

Evita ☺

Badminton Reflection #1

Confirmed: No Pain - No Gain!

It has been officially six months since I commenced training in Badminton Club after school every Wednesday for an hour and a half and I can confirm that there are no gains without pains! 

Reflection

In regards to my physical health, I do feel more comfortable with my step-approaches as I play. An example would be that I can reach the shuttle and get swiftly back to my starting position ready for the next hit. 

My hits are much more accurate nowadays and although there is always room for improvement, I can see a difference from the precision in my shots currently as compared to the very beginning of the year, where before that I have always been playing badminton on and off as a hobby. To my surprise, my shots are also slightly stronger now which is an advantage to my control of the racket. 

Attack stroke

Likewise, I am more flexible with my backhand strokes now than previously. I recall initially having some wrist aches after a practice as I trained my stoke more and more aggressively. However after all that work, I can confidently say that the strokes come smoothly and naturally without much thought.

Backhand stroke

These little steps of improvement all lead me towards being the best player I can possibly be with only weekly trainings. As time progresses, I hope to continue the motivation I have for this sport just as in the previous months.

train - TrAiN - TRAIN!

Inevitably, there were some difficulties I encountered whilst doing this CAS activity such as my lack of energy at the end of the long school day - right before I begin badminton practice. This issue is a consequence of time management. Although I am very well aware now that it takes a lot of effort to organise homework, socialising time and sleep, this task is still a working process. I hope to further improve my time management skills as I grow older and prepare for arduous years ahead in university. Nevertheless, I look forward to my future studies with much enthusiasm!

Additionally, I can communicate more comfortably with my teammates now. Not only to provide moral support to one another but to offer some advice. I clearly notice some common mistakes that many of the younger students do - mistakes that I was guilty of as a child since I would unknowingly constantly repeat them. In fact, I also feel more at ease when speaking in German, even though I do catch myself making grammatical errors every so often.

Badminton Team

As in every sport, training never gets easier but the contrary - it toughens as you improve. Nonetheless, with every swing of the racket and each bead of sweat I have enjoyed this past few months more than ever in with respect to badminton trainings. 

So far, I have met the following Learning Outcomes with badminton: ① ② ④ ⑤. I plan to achieve the last three outcomes by the end of this school year.

My Numbers sheet to keep track of training hours

In the coming months, I hope to work on my stamina so perhaps jogging or, more preferably, jumping rope. Additionally, I would like to acquire more knowledge about the sport by actively reading and researching articles and advice from professional players. It will be beneficial to learn about my hobby rather than to only simply play it.

Keep your head up and keep playing!

Besides these two main goals, I will certainly hope to develop my previous aims further and work to perfect my strokes in general. With the continuous support I receive from Mr Schneider and my teammates, I am able to train enthusiastically every time!

Evita ☺

Grade 11 Max-Planck Biology Trip

Pipetting, DNA amplifying, genotyping and more!

Exactly one week ago, my Biology class visited the nearby Max-Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research. As mentioned in my post months ago, regarding the Max-Planck Science Barn Trip for Grades 3 & 4 which I planned and organised, this institute was where I accomplished two weeks worth of student internship, learned so much externally of school and gained incredible experiences! This time however, I had organised a trip for my own classmates and teacher…

Activity Planning

Inspiration: This idea came into mind as I recognised similarities directly from our IB Biology course and the wide-range of things I had learned from working at the research institute in the summer of 2014. Just as I have done genetic fingerprinting and gene amplification there several times, my classmates themselves will get a chance to view how this is truly done (i.e. experiential learning) and not only from learning through pictures provided in a textbook.

Although I may have organised a larger scale school excursion before (i.e. the Grades 3 & 4 trip), this was certainly still a challenge since I had to organise this trip myself and make it a complete success for my classmates so they can enjoy practical biology at its best! With this CAS activity, I hoped to accomplish all eight of the Learning Outcomes!

To begin, I contacted my supervisor from the institute and informed him of my plan. Together we discussed all the possible activities we can do together to touch on the subtopics which we learned in school. Next, I explained to my Biology teacher, Ms Mutie, of the plan and then selected a date that best suits our school time-table, so that we are able to miss half a day of school for this productive trip. Since Ms Mutie accompanied us on the visit, she was therefore the most appropriate CAS supervisor for this activity.

Reflection

Arrived by Mr Max Planck!

After spending a total of 2 hours calling and planning, it was finally time for the trip on the 10th of February. The half-hour walk from our school to the institute in the late winter morning was very refreshing. Upon arrival, we were warmly greeted by my supervisor who brought us directly to the laboratory! There, we commenced with some pipetting exercises to learn how to use these highly accurate instruments used vigorously in research. We continued with the punching and making of FTA card samples and then together followed the protocol for the PCR mixture which would later be used for DNA amplification. All the while my classmates and Biology teacher were learning and asking questions and in fact so did I! There is always so much more to learn and it was exciting to be back in the lab once again!

Let's start pipetting

Careful pipetting

Vigorous pipetting

Ms Mutie carefully handling a young Thale Cress plant

Before taking a tour of the institute, we took a short break and allowed for snacks and warm beverages. Here, we discussed many curious issues about the research in the Max-Planck society, the ethical problems associated and also about global news in the world of scientific research.

Touring around...

Two hours later, we returned to the lab with full stomachs from lunch and analysed our gel that had successfully gone through electrophoresis. We studied the samples and had further discussions about the knowledge constructed from this piece of information. Finally, the excursion has come to an end and we were thankful for all the new things we learned that half-day!

Ready for the PCR machine!

Our gel electrophoresis results

This entire trip was a complete success! My main objectives were met and all my friends had a brilliant time learning by doing - so did Ms Mutie! It was enjoyable to be in another environment outside of school campus and to have a new learning atmosphere. My supervisor did a fantastic job in teaching us and I am very thankful for all the patience and support he showed us!

Nonetheless I did encounter two difficulties through this activity…

1. During school hours, attending classes means that I am unable to pick up the phone when needed. This was therefore a time management issue since my supervisor and I were to discuss the plan and time slots. In order not to repeat the same mistake I did previously when I called him during the wrong time, we e-mailed the times where we can exchange phone calls. This thus made things much easier for the both of us.
2. Initially, the visit was to take place on the 17th December. Unfortunately, Ms Mutie had suddenly fell sick on this day and it was due to her absence that I had to make the sad cancellation! This honestly frustrated me and it was because I worked with all the careful planning, I completely oversaw the rise of an unexpected event! This was a lesson learned to be prepared for anything and never take anything for granted as we might never know the what could happen in the near future.

CIS IB Biology Class at the Institute!

These were the weaknesses which I was able to overcome. I have learned so much from organising school trips and I believe I enjoy doing so. Hopefully there will be more chances in the future for more of such CAS activities!

A Numbers sheet to keep track of the hours spent altogether in this CAS activity

Evita ☺