Tuesday 10 June 2014

Active Learning Final Blog

Suraj Giddha                                                                                  
                                                       Active Learning 9: Final Blog
 
                 Wow, this has been a great year in Active learning! I am very happy with how I did this year in active learning. In this blog post I will review how I did using the format of the four Pillars: participation, social responsibility and contribution to the class, healthy living and digital portfolio and by using reflective skills. I will walk you through my journey of Active learning 9 and provide evidence in each category.
 
1)  Participation- I believe that participation is a key component in Active Learning. Everyday I saw people complaining and not even participating in activities. I think that people need to just let go of themselves and their phones and just participate without thinking about how they look or what other people are thinking about them. Everyday when I came to class I was mentally and physically prepared for whatever was next. I have never forgotten my gymstrip even once throughout the year and always change into different clothes after we are done. I understand that some people had problems participating because active learning was in the morning but I never let that affect me. I participated in all activities without beiing asked to my fullest. As I mentioned in some other of my blog posts I have tried to engage many people who just stand around and purposely never try. I have forced people to engage in activities by purposely passing the ball to them (basketball, capture the flag, soccer,etc) so they can also participate and contribute to healthy living. Even though I was usually very tired, sore, and sometimes even a little hurt from my Elite MMA program outside of school I chose intense activities to do whenever we has a choice. I always chose activities that I knew I would have fun with and also a good workout. I never just followed my friends if they wanted to do something else I was fine with it but I did what I wanted to do. I tried my best in activities and felt that I was fairly good in all activities. I was fast, strong, and even had good endurance (one of my goals throughout Active Learning.
 
2)  Social Responsibility and Contribution to the Class- This year I was a very responsible and punctual student in Active Learning. I made sure that I was never a bad impact on other and tried to bring positivity to our class. I helped in the organization of activities. Simple things such as bringing the hoops down when we play basketball, holding the door for others when they were taking stuff out of the equipment room and picking equipment off the field when we were done. I tried to take more of a leadership role amongst people and often told them to stop fooling around and listen, told them to help set up activities, etc. Other than that I was very respectful to my classmates and never needed a reminder from the teacher to be on task. As I said before I tried to engage people in activities and helped them achieve their goals. I always stayed honest in competitions or activities and accepted my teams lost or win in a game without hesitation. I never cheated on fitness days by making any excuses and  gave it my best everytime.
 
3)  Healthy Living- I believe that healthy living is a very important part of our lives and can sometimes be one of the hardest things to control. Before highschool began I really didn't care about what I ate because I knew I was healthy but in grade 8 I realized that an unhealthy diet can affect you future. So in grade 8 I started to pay more attention to what I am eating and what impact it has on me. I started a system of eating atleast one fruit a day and tried my best to keep it going. In grade 9  I kept that system going and I try to eat as healthy as I can. I try to eat as healthy as I can but I know that it is impossible to always eat healthy so other than active learning I play sports with my siblings, outside of school and go to an Elite MMA gym which provides me with intense training to balance out my diet. Another aspect of healthy living is what extra curricular activities you do to stay fit. I go to a MMA gym which provided me with very intense training and play sports outside of school to provide me some good exercise and fun. For example in my MMA program we run atleast a mile each day (usually more), do from 150-300 pushups/ sittups, learn about technique in fighting and fiinally do sparring (actual contact fighting with equipment). As you can see I am fairly busy outside of school and stay fit. I have met my goals in improving my strength, endurance and cardiovascular system and my future goals are to keep improving on these so when I actually fight someone in the ring I have no problems and am confident with my fitness. And of course one of my main goals is to continue to stay fit, eat healthy and inprove my fitness.
  
4) Digital Portfolio and Reflective skills- Creating a digital porfolio with digital evidence was a hard part of Active Learning this year because I had no device to take pictures and make videos of me. I had to rely on some of my peers to take pictures and videos of me and they didn't always want to do that, and usually couldn't do it the way I wanted them to. Even though it was hard for me to do this I have tried to provide digital evidence throughout this blog (some photos and videos of myself). Other than that I have done all of my blog postes and my accurate numbers and information on fitness tests and they tell the tale of my improvement. As you have probably seen the quaility of my posts is very good and are thorough. I have made good summaries and have demenstrated my learning the best as I could. Here are some of my fitness test results throughout the year that demenstrate my improvement:   
Tests
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
Beep test
9
9.9
10.3
10.8
T-test
11.5 s
11.3 s
11.2 s
11
Push ups
30
36
40
44
Sit and Reach
4
4
4
4
Body Bridge
2 mins
2.3 mins
3 mins
3.2 mins
25 minute Run
1st
2nd
Laps
7 laps
8 laps
  
 
 
 
           Now that you have read my blog you know that it has been a busy year for me. I have met goals, broken personal records and seen great improvement. You know how I feel about Active Learning and how I try to make it better for everyone. I believe that I deserve an A in Active Learning this year alongside with the work habit of a G for my effort and all the reasons listed in this blog.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 



Wednesday 9 April 2014

Semester 2 Reporting Interm Blog

Suraj G.                                
                                                                       Interm Blog


                       It has been a great second semester so far. I have been attending and bringing my gymstrip to every class. I have seen a great improvement in my fitness. One of my goals this year was to improve my endurance and my beep test scores tell the tale, as I went from 9 to 9.9 to 10.3 and now to 10.8. Since the starting of the Active Learning my T-test score have also improved from 11.5 to 11.3 and now at 11. I have also gotten stronger than before because I at the starting of the year I could only do 30 push ups in a row and now I can do 42. Other than my fitness another thing that I'm really proud of is my participation and the leadership role I've taken in class. For example I always try my best in all the activities we do and engage other people to do the activities honestly. Just recently when we were at the weight room and had the device that counted the amount of steps we took and had the goal to reach 2000 steps I got to 5181 steps without cheating. I even included some of the resistance exercises that don't count as steps and still got a lot of steps in. I try to include other's in activities be passing the ball to them and encouraging them to participate I put a lot of effort in class and even out of class I go to the park to run some laps and play sports. Considering all the reasons given I believe I deserve an A in this class and a G as the work habits

Tuesday 4 March 2014

Semester 2 Interm report!

Suraj Giddha
                                                               Semester 2 Interm Report!

It has been a great semester so far. I have been bringing my gym strip to every class and have been attending every class. I have been trying my best in active learning and my beep test scores tell the tale. I participate in all activities and try to take a leadship role by telling people to stop cheating and trying to engage them in the activity. For example if we are playing handball I pass the ball to people who aren't participating. I also try to be a role model for others by displaying proper behaviour and participation. I beleive that I have improved in all aspects of active learning and deserve a G as my work habit so far.

Tuesday 4 February 2014

Suraj's Fitness Test Scores!

Suraj Giddha
                                                                 Fitness Test Scores

My first beep test score was 9 then it went to 9.9 and after that it went to 10.2 and now it has improved to 10.8. My sit and reach level has remained constant at 4 and my push up level is constantly increasing with the max of 40. My T test score went from 11.5 to 11.3 and now it is 11. My body bridge also increased from 2 mins to 2.3 mins and now 3 mins.

I believe that my fitness scores show that I am improving in all aspects of fitness including flexibility, endurance, and strength. I have improved a lot and wish to improve even further in the following period of time.

Friday 17 January 2014

Semester 1 Final Post!

Suraj     
Semester 1 Final Post!

                It has been at great year in active learning so far. I have been attending all classes and have never forgot my gym strip once. I have a positive attitude towards active learning and always try to tell others who tend to cheat in fitness to stop because you can never improve if you don't try. One of the things I am very proud of this year is my improvement. For example in the starting of the year my beep test score was 9 then it went to 9.8 and now it is at 10.2. At the starting of the semester I could only do 30 push-ups in a row but now I can do 42 push-ups in a row. One of my goals this year was to have better endurance when doing any physical activity and I feel as if I can run faster now and for a longer time. I have been meeting all my goals and plan on continuing on this path.

          As I mentioned before I partiIcipate in all activities including fitness to the best of my ability without cheating because I feel that You can' t improve if you don't try. I try to tell others to not cheat and do the activity to the best of their abilities and on their own pace. I have taken a leadership role and tried to put the equipment away after we are done our activity for example when we were playing    
Blind volleyball I helped put all the equipment away. 

      Another thing that I am really proud of this year is trying to eat healthy. I try to eat healthy and try to prevent myself from eating junk food that could be harmful to me. In my free time I have also been playing basketball to prevent myself from sitting in front of my tv and wasting my time. In the future I plan to continue to continue with my goals and becoming even more physically fit. I think 
I deserve an, A this semester for all my achievements and the effort I have put in this semester and all the reasons above. Also I will start getting my digital evidence together soon although it gets hard sometimes because I don't have a device to take videos or pictures.

Tuesday 12 November 2013

Active Learning Midterm Blog Post

Suraj G.
                                                                   Midterm Reflection
 
I have been doing great in Active Learning so far. I have been participating, trying my best, and having a positive attitude towards active learning and have been improving exponentially. I am always prepared for active learning and have never skipped a day and always bring my gymstrip. I have been participating in all activities and have encouraged others to participate willingly. For example I have noticed that sometimes in active learning when we play any sports or games I have noticed some of the grade eight's just standing there acting kind of shy so I try to give them the ball and give them a chance to participate and play. Another thing that I am very proud about this year in active learning is that I have improved a lot; for example at the starting of the year my beep test score was 9 and now it is 10.2, at the starting of the year I could only do 30 pushups in a row now I can do 42, at the starting of the year my T-test score was 11.5 now it is 11.3, and lastly at the starting of the year my sit and reach level was 4 and now it is 5. As you can see I have already started to meet some of the goals I had when I walked into the gymnasium for the first time as I my endurance has improved as well as my strength and flexibility. I have been trying to eat healthy by eating breakfast and by cutting out the majority of sugar from my diet. I have also been consistantly been exercising at home on my treadmill, bike and using my weights. I think that we have been doing a variety of gamed in active learning but I have noticed that we haven't played basketball once yet; so I'm hoping that we can start to play more basketball so the variety of sports that we play can continue on. I believe that I should get a G as a work habit and an A as a mark so far in this semester due to all the reasons mentioned above. I look forward to pursue my goals and improve in the rest of the semester.
 
 
 

Friday 7 June 2013

Suraj's Active Learning Final Blog


Suraj Giddha                                                                                                                       June 7,2013

                                                          Active Learning Final Blog


         This has been a very productive and fun school year so far in Active Learning. At the start of this year I was a good athlete but I had problems with long distance running, exercising at home, and eating healthy. As this year started it was my goal to improve my cardio-vascular system and to start eating healthier. As the school year went on I started to change and slowly and I saw a new and better self arising.

         When the school year started I only had one thing on my mind becoming more fit and making the basketball team. I knew that in order to make the basketball team I would have to have a much better endurance/stamina. From the first day of Active learning I have been respectful to everyone, willing to participate in all activities and ready to try my best in every class.

          In the first few classes of Active learning I quickly noticed that on one hand I was a very good short distance runner but on the other a very bad long distance runner. On the day of my first community run I tried my best not to stop but I was forced to stop numerous times and had trouble keeping a constant pace and on my first beep test I could only get 8.3. I noticed that I was bad at long distance activities but very good at activities such as the pond run, insanity, A/B partner activities and trifecta. But as the year went  on I started to get better and managed to make the basketball team. With the help of Active Learning and me joining the basketball team I was able to see improvements in myself such as I got 9.3 on the beep test (thats is a one level improvement in two or three months). I was very happy as I could slowly see my hard work and determination pay off. Now I could do the community run with stopping only 4 times.

         Not only was I improving I was also participating in all activities, trying hard to accomplish my goals, showing respect to others, encouraging fair play, but also being responsible as I had never even forgot my gymstrip once. But as the basketball season ended I managed to hurt myself during a basket ball game preventing me to partcipate in a few classes and in order to heal this injury on my foot I had to take physical activity a bit lighter. But after my injury had healed I started to collect  digital evidense. I had trouble collecting digital evidense because I didn't have a cell phone or anyy other device at school that coould capture digital evidense. In order to solve this problem I had to ask my friends and classmates to take pictures of me but they were not always willing to do this  and were not able to take many pictures as I asked them to.

         
         Before I knew it the school year was creeping to the end. By the end of the school year I had learned  about pacing and could now do long distance runs. I tried to take a leadership role in my class and help set up and putaway equipment and most importantly I found out a way that I could make exercise fun because I noticed that most teenagers don't want to go home and go for long runs to improve their cardio-vascular system but instead I play sports with my siblings and friends to get my daily exercise done. I have tried eating healthy by eating atleast one fruit a day as my family has a variety of fruits at home I have a lot to chose from and this way I will get my nutritional food everyday. I
have also managed to keep my work organized in a binder so I can
record any improvements or what my goals are.

      










          I feel like I deserved an, A in this class for my effort and improvement. For example at the start of the year my beep test score was 8.3 then it improved to 9.3 and my score finished off with 10.2. At the start of the semester I could barely do one lap without stoping and now I have improved to five. MyT-test scores have also improved by a second and I have also seen my
 imporvementin the body bridge, body press and sit and reach levels. I haven't
even forgotten my gymstrip once and very rarily have been absent to class.
This was one of themost improving years for me in Active Learning and I am
 looking Forward to next year and still have the urge to improve and do better.