9th Grade

Minglong Gu
Mr Ziegler
MYP Core
23 feburary 2026
Reflection

My identity is not fixed, but rather evolves through my experiences and relationships. I've developed my own personal identity in terms of hobbies, and several key experiences have shaped who I am today.

Moving to the United States had a significant impact on me, forcing me to adapt to a new language and culture. It taught me resilience and independence. My interest in trading and quantitative trading has also influenced me, training me to think logically and remain calm under pressure. Furthermore, my family and teachers have played a crucial role.

Some labels suit me well, while others don't. I accept the labels "student" and "learner" because I genuinely enjoy improving my knowledge and skills. I also identify as an analytical and goal oriented person. However, I don't agree with the notion that "I'm quiet because I have nothing to say." Sometimes I simply feel that explaining concepts to those who don't understand requires a lot of time and effort. There's a saying, "Think before you speak," and before I speak, I always carefully consider what I'll say next to avoid unnecessary trouble. My teacher had the greatest influence on me, and two of his sayings have always stuck with me: one is to remain untainted by the mud, and the other is to have the ability to think independently.

Approaches to Learning

I used a variety of ATL skills. I employed Self-Management for planning and broke tasks down into smaller steps to avoid feeling overwhelmed. I've been working on this project since the holidays. I also used Creative Thinking to design a format that reflects my personality and experiences. Originally, I intended to write something similar to a blog, but I spent some time learning how to write a blog post myself, which would be clearer and more concise. This really took up a lot of my time, and I thoroughly enjoyed exploring and creating my own webpage.

Design Choices

Firstly, I've always wanted the opportunity to create my own blog. Then, I learned some basic JavaScript and CSS skills, but never had a chance to use them. Now that I finally have the opportunity, I've created my own blog. The mouse cursor uses my favorite animated character, Reimu, and the layout reflects my programming skills. The layout also reflects my preference for simplicity and personal style. Although many images aren't loading yet and I still need to learn, it already showcases a part of myself. I love modern design and technology.

Minglong Gu
Mr Ziegler
MYP Core
1 April 2026
Reflection

We do the project "Who are we". We do a podcast, we choose coding as the community. We wanted to talk about it because it connects to our interests, our goals and the way to think. For me, coding is not just a technical skill. but also a way to solve problems, expressing ideas, and understand the modern world, such as AI. I think being human means learning adapting and creating and coding reflects all of these things.

One of the questions is what has shaped our community. I think the coding community has been shaped by technology, education, online collaboration. As the technology becomes a bigger part of daily life, coding has become more important in areas such as business, robotics, games, AI, and finance. Education has also helped shape this community because more schools and online platforms now teach programming, like khan academy. In addition, communities like GitHub have made coding more open and collaborative. On GitHub, people can share projects, learn from others, fix bugs together, and improve code as a group. In our podcast, we talked about how coding can help people build tools, improve logical thinking, and prepare for future careers, shows that coding is not only about computers, but also about people can work together to make life more efficient and creative.

The pocast also made me think how communities shape the world around us. the coding community has a huge influence on society because so much of modern life depends on websites and digital system. coding affects how people community work and solve problems. because of that being part of this community means contributing to changes in the real world.

I used several ATL skills during this project. I used communication skills when working with my group members and helping organize ideas into a podcast format. I used thing skills especially critical and creative thinking, when deciding what coding means to us personally and how to explain it clearly to listeners.

We choose a podcast because it felt more natural than writing an essay. It allows different voices and ideas to come together, especially matches the community.

Unit 3 Project Reflection

Answer the following questions honestly and thoughtfully. This is worth 30 points. The total reflection should be around 500 words. No AI will be used for this assignment. This is the only document you will work through. If AI is detected, it will result in a zero.

What were your individual strengths and weaknesses with this project?

My weakness lies in verbal expression, I struggle to respond to others in a natural manner. Specifically, after someone has finished presenting their arguments, I find it difficult to quickly organize my thoughts and formulate a rebuttal on the spot. However, my strength lies in thorough advance preparation, specifically, drafting a complete script beforehand and then identifying the specific sections best suited to counter the opposing arguments.

What were your group's strengths and weaknesses?

Our team's strength lies in our ability to prepare a complete script prior to the competition. However, what we lack is the capacity for improvisation during the actual event. This is primarily my own shortcoming, I still struggle to formulate a timely verbal rebuttal to counter our opponents' arguments, although the other members perform very well in this regard. Our specific weakness is that, when attempting to refute points, we tend to rely rigidly on our prepared script rather than adapting our responses to the flow of the debate.

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the other group's arguments?

Most technologies are concentrated within specific domains, consequently, each one is indispensable, and from an argumentative standpoint, there is simply no basis for comparison. When engaging in debate, participants merely present facts rather than attempting to negate the utility of the opposing side's technology.

What would make you vote for a particular group?

What matters most is the first impression, in the majority of cases, due to the vast disparity in technology between the two sides, the actual impact of the debate is quite limited.

If you were to go back and start this project over, what would you change? What would you keep the same?

I would choose a more useful indeed, indispensable technology. Furthermore, I would ideally like to have a comprehensive set of prepared responses, ensuring that I am never left flustered or at a loss for words after the other person has spoken.