Q: What advice do you have on completing the unit summative assessments?
A: Work consistently on the summative, set the goal for yourself, every time you start working(e.g finish OPVL today). I would say that the best option is to work 20-30 minutes every day. Q: What are some traps or things to avoid when completing the unit summative assessments? A: Thinking that the product is less important than other parts of the summative. Q: Do you have any advice about completing the ePacket? Was there a system that you found worked really well? Is there something regarding the research and investigation process that students should avoid? A: Read the ENTIRE epacket before starting doing it. So you will know what to research. It helps to build an understanding of how much time you will need for doing it, you will also know what questions exist so you won’t address the information you think is necessary to address in places not created for it. You should also read the ENTIRE summative page on Weebly, so you won’t miss anything. Q: What are your personal thoughts about the ePacket? What are some misconceptions about completing the ePacket for I&S grade 9? A: I don’t like epacket. No one likes epacket. But it makes you find enough information for the product. So you better do it thoughtfully and think about the text you write. Q: What should you absolutely DO? A: You should thoughtfully do research, before doing it read the questions in criterion A. Don’t do the research just to fill the table, because you will need to do research anyway when Q: What should you absolutely AVOID? A: Avoid making everything in the last moment, you won’t be able to sensibly analyze the text you write. Q: Do you have any other advice that you would like to give in completing the ePacket? A: Think about the difference between questions, analyze what exactly do the questions mean. Understand the difference between questions in different criterias, even if the question is the same in criterions C and D the answer isn’t the same because in C you should give more facts and in D you need to show critical thinking. Q: What advice do you have about the course in general? A: Try hard. I&S will take the most time out of all subjects. |
c/o 2025 |
c/o 2025 |
Q: What advice do you have on completing the unit summative assessments?
A: The very first advice which I would give to the students next year is making sure that you listen to the instructions given in class. This is because sometimes there will be sections in the e’packets or projects that you might not understand.In parts like that, Mr Dachpian usually gives a detailed explanation on what you are supposed to do. But if you don’t listen in class, you will be stuck and confused. Another prince of advice which I would give people is doing as much of the work done as possible when starting your project. This is because removing the bulk of the work from the beginning helps play a huge role in competing the summative on time. In ninth grade, you are going to have times where you will have a lot of summatives. In times like those you will forget about long term projects which will come to bite you later. So remove the bulk of the work before other summatives come in and give the finishing touch after the other tests and summatives are finished. And the final advice which I would give to future students would be reading the task description over and over again in order to make sure that you are on the right track and that what you are doing fits what is asked from you. Q: What are some traps or things to avoid when completing the unit summative assessments? A: There were a few things which I noticed that really get people in a lot of trouble which students should avoid at all costs. The first one of these is procrastinating. The projects that you get in I&S throughout ninth grade are long term projects where you have nearly two months to complete the assignment. However these projects are usually a lot more time consuming and difficult than they might seem to be. Therefore, it is important that you plan what you will do ahead of time, follow that plan and finish your work on time to avoid having rushed or overdue work. The second thing to absolutely avoid is rushing your work. I&S is a class where students need to critically think and evaluate specific things in order to come to a final conclusion or to make an argument. Therefore rushing your work to play video games is not a good idea. You need to seriously sit down and take some time to think about what you will do, what you will argue and what pieces of evidence you will do to support your arguments. So don’t rush your work and slowly clarify what you will be doing in the projects assigned to you. Another thing that you should avoid at all cost is writing unnecessary information to increase your word count. Speaking from personal experience, there will be times where your essay will have a 1000 words but your friends will have 5000. Naturally feeling overwhelmed, you will try to match their word count thinking that that is the only way you can get a good score. However that is exactly what will trip you up in your summatives. Most of the time, people repeat themselves or give unrelated pieces of information. Just stick to what you have and submit that. There have been many times where I did just as good if not better than some of my peers who have wrote three times more than I have. It is not about quantity in high school anymore, it's about quality. And the final trap which I would avoid is avoiding doing extra work. In your final unit of the year, Mr Dachpian will give you the opportunity to choose wether or not you will use the e-packet or not. You will probably want to not do it because a lot of us will tell you its annoying and that you want to avoid doing extra work by the end of the year. However the e-packet has everything you need to make sure that all of your information is being used for the right purpose and that you are fulfilling the task requirement. The e-packet might seem like a lot of work however it will help guide you to a successful project. A lot of us including me chose not to use the e-packet which is why we didn’t exactly meet the expectations given to us, resulting in a worse performance compared to those who did follow the e-packet. Q: Do you have any advice about completing the ePacket? Was there a system that you found worked really well? Is there something regarding the research and investigation process that students should avoid? A: Throughout the year, you will really find your own way of making the e-packets as everyone works at their own pace and something that works for one person might not work for another. However some of the advice that I will give here might actually be of use to a lot of you. The first advice which I would give with the e packet is completing the Criteria B section as soon as possible. Doing that very early on will get a lot of the weight off your chest as you will now have a good idea of what you will do in the project and how your idea links to the expectations put on you. Another piece of advice which I would give to the students is getting the criteria C section done with as much detail and with as much thought as possible. The C section is essentially where you will decide how you will communicate your ideas. Communication plays a key role in conveying your ideas to the other person and it is therefore important that you put a lot of thought into it. Q: What are your personal thoughts about the ePacket? What are some misconceptions about completing the ePacket for I&S grade 9? A: My personal experiences with the e-packet gave me a mixed opinion about the e-packet. This is because I had both positive and negative experiences with the e-packet. The very first thing which i would like to point out is that there will be times where the e packet will have repeated questions or questions which are very similar. In times like this, you should definitely go and ask your teachers to clarify. We did this in our class and it really helped us clear some of the doubts that we had on the questions. Another thought that I have about the e-packet is that it does not deserve the amount of hate it deserves. Mr Dachpian will probably tell you in the beginning of the year that we all told you to hate the e-packet and that you will therefore not like it. You will see that he is correct. We have also been told by the sophomores that the e-packet is useless and is a ton of work for no good reason. However you will realize just how important it is when you really take a time to think about its importance. |
Q: What advice do you have on completing the unit summative assessments?
A: Create your action plan first and stick to it. In order to make the e-packet seem less overwhelming try to focus on completing one section at a time (although use your research, knowledge, and answers for reference in completing the later sections) and if you have enough time you could try to just complete one question a day. Also, when picking your topic you want to avoid having to switch half way through, so when choosing one try to come up with short answers to the questions in your head and make sure it fits the SOI before diving head first into researching it. Q: What are some traps or things to avoid when completing the unit summative assessments? A: DO NOT LEAVE EVERYTHING TO THE LAST MINUTE. However, if you are unable to stick to your action plan and fall off of it for a bit that’s okay, just try to catch up again soon. Also, when picking your topic do that as soon as possible so that the one you want doesn’t get taken and you have to find a new one at the last second. Q: Do you have any advice about completing the ePacket? Was there a system that you found worked really well? Is there something regarding the research and investigation process that students should avoid? A: When looking at your first epacket try to not be too stressed out or overwhelmed, I know it looks daunting at first but if you just break it into parts it will be much more manageable. If you find yourself in a position where you are behind and need to complete a lot of it in one day focus on one thing at a time and set a small goal for yourself just to get started so that when you complete it you don’t feel like you didn’t do anything substantial and then you can keep going since you already started so you might as well, this works for other things as well. When researching make sure to keep the links to your sources in one place so that when creating your citations you don’t have to hunt through your internet history. Q: What are your personal thoughts about the ePacket? What are some misconceptions about completing the ePacket for I&S grade 9? A: When I first saw the e-packet I thought that it was too much work and was just made to keep us busy. However, although it may seem like that to you, and if I’m being honest I still think that some parts of it aren’t very necessary, it is quite useful in organizing your research and making sure that you consider every aspect of the project. Q: What should you absolutely DO? A: Absolutely cross reference with the exemplar if you don’t understand how to answer a certain question or do a certain thing and if you are doing your second, third, or fourth, project you can reference your old epackets as well. Also, make sure that you understand what the question is asking because the wording can be confusing sometimes. Also, get as many second opinions on your project as possible; so take the peer reviews seriously. You can ask your classmates to highlight any words that they don’t understand so that you can define them in the terms and definitions section of criteria A. Also, when you are finished, cross reference your work with everything that is available to you, the rubric, the exemplar, your past work, the instructions on the weebly, etc. Q: What should you absolutely AVOID? A: Absolutely don’t stress out too much about this class because although it can be a lot of work and seem to be impossible to do at times you will find a way to complete it if you are motivated enough. Also, do not count on extensions if you are behind, most likely, you will not be given one. Q: Do you have any other advice that you would like to give in completing the ePacket? A: Feel free to change the font, font size, dimensions of the tables, etc. to make your epacket shorter and easier to scroll through to find what you need especially with the part of criteria B where you have to copy and paste all of the information that you found. Q: What advice do you have about the course in general? A: Take notes on the videos, things Mr. Dachpian says in class, the textbook, and other things that could be useful for you to reference in the future; and taking notes is a good way to make sure that you are paying attention. Also, this can apply to other classes too: a thesaurus is your best friend because you don’t want to keep using the same word over and over again as this can be seen as unprofessional. You can easily do this by typing in your word and then syn right after it as google will autofill it to be synonym. Same thing with definitions, type in your word and then def. |
Katherine Hamilton
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c/o 2025 |
Q: What advice do you have on completing the unit summative assessments?
A: In the summative assessments you will always be given a choice on what you will research, and the worst thing you can do is pick a topic you are not interested in. Remember, the summative assessments are long projects, so I suggest picking a topic that interests you, a topic that you might have researched on your own time without the class assignments. If you do this, chances are you will enjoy the process of learning, which will make you more committed to the project, allowing you to learn more and be more successful. Q: What are some traps or things to avoid when completing the unit summative assessments? A: Don’t get lost writing about tangential evidence. The length of your essays have nothing to do with how well you will do on the assignment, and going on about evidence that doesn’t actually support your claim will inevitably just make your argument harder to understand, which will make you less successful in the unit. Q: Do you have any advice about completing the ePacket? Was there a system that you found worked really well? Is there something regarding the research and investigation process that students should avoid? A: Much of the Epacket is the same questions being asked in different ways. Learn everything about your topic first, and once you feel confident with the information you’ve found, then answering the questions should be a breeze. Embrace the questions as well though, sometimes if you go on about a topic you’ll realize something that will help your argument, which will ultimately make your project better. Q: What are your personal thoughts about the ePacket? What are some misconceptions about completing the ePacket for I&S grade 9? A: The biggest misconception is that it takes a ton of time and effort to complete. While it can be a pain sometimes to have to write out all of your thoughts, the Epacket will help you in the end. Don’t spend too much time writing each of the questions, and if you dedicate two to three hours a week to the Epacket you will be done in no time. Also, don’t bother editing your Epacket like you would an essay, in the end it is just your research and notes, so there is no reason to make it extremely refined in its presentation. Q: What should you absolutely DO? A: Use your time in class. Take little breaks if you need it, but don’t waste your time in class, because if you use it properly you’ll probably only end up with two or three hours of homework a week. Q: What should you absolutely AVOID? A: Avoid getting lost in the assignment. Sometimes the directions can seem confusing, but just break it down. Every assignment is just an argument in which you need a claim(thesis), three points of evidence and a conclusion where you discuss the topic. Q: What advice do you have about the course in general? A: Have fun with the class. While the course is content heavy, you are given plenty of opportunity to explore what interests you, and as such you should have some fun learning. |
Q: What advice do you have on completing the unit summative assessments?
A: Begin working on your summative assessment as quickly as you can, and whenever it is possible, choose something that somewhat interests you as it will make the whole process more enjoyable and it will make you put more effort into your work. Q: What are some traps or things to avoid when completing the unit summative assessments? A: Many people complete the planning part of the assessment after completing it fully, as they only think of it as something they are graded on. It can actually be useful especially for the people who usually plan their things out beforehand, so don't think of it only as a grade but also as a tool that helps you complete the full assessment. Q: Do you have any advice about completing the ePacket? Was there a system that you found worked really well? Is there something regarding the research and investigation process that students should avoid? A: Begin working on the epacket as soon as possible. The moment it is assigned, do some research about the assignment and the details and requirements of it and start working. It will allow you to complete it on time, while not stressing about it during the process. You will have time to add some final touches and you might even be able to submit it before time. Q: What are your personal thoughts about the ePacket? What are some misconceptions about completing the ePacket for I&S grade 9? A: The main misconceptions about the epacket is that it is not useful and that it is too much work. The epacket helps you complete your main summative assessment, as it asks you detailed questions which force you to provide specific answers, that you will later use to answer your research question. The key to answer the questions asked in the epacket is to read them carefully and update your knowledge on their precise meaning as they make all the difference. Q: What should you absolutely DO? A: Something that you should absolutely do is connect your own interest to the statement of inquiry. When choosing a topic for research, many people choose something easy yet not something that they enjoy. Picking a topic of your interest will allow you to expand your knowledge not only in INS but also give you an opportunity to inquire into something personal, that can be used in your other classes or for your own personal growth. Q: What should you absolutely AVOID? A: Something that you should absolutely avoid is forcing a topic. This is something that has been advised to us throughout the year, and as much as I personally didn't have problems with it I know some that did. Don;t force a topic to fit the unit or the statement of inquiry. If it doesn't fit then it doesn't fit and choose a different one that will be relevant to the assignment and will allow you to complete the summative successfully. Q: What advice do you have about the course in general? A: Through the INS course, you will be forced to think critically and to connect different ideas. At first it might seem quite repetitive and unnecessary, but spending more time to think about an idea and find a deeper meaning of it will make it easier for you later to complete your assignments. Use the discussions you will have in class about the topics, participate or at least think about the questions that are being asked and the ideas that are being shared as they will be crucial and useful for you later in the course. |
c/o 2025 |
Sebastian Mandujano
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Q: What advice do you have on completing the unit summative assessments?
A: Start researching as soon as the task description is given in class. Don’t think: “I will have enough time to do this later”, because there won’t be. The 8 weeks that you have to work on summatives may seem like a lot of time, but it really isn’t. It’s always better to complete summative assessments with time to ensure the best possible result you can achieve. Q: What are some traps or things to avoid when completing the unit summative assessments? A: Something that you should avoid when completing summative assessments is to automatically assume that your painting/ideology/explorer/revolution that you initially choose fits the Statement of Inquiry. Avoid not doing sufficient research before deciding what to choose. Q: Do you have any advice about completing the ePacket? Was there a system that you found worked really well? Is there something regarding the research and investigation process that students should avoid? A: To complete the ePacket, make sure you form a detailed plan so that you know if you are on time or not. A system that I used was to go in the order of the document from the top to the bottom because that is the process that should always be followed when doing any type of research paper. Regarding the research and investigation part, something to avoid is copy pasting the questions and changing a few words to make it specific to what you are researching. Instead, use the research to come to a conclusion yourself because in reality, it is you who has to answer the question, not the internet. Google isn’t there to give you the answer, only to help support it. Q: What are your personal thoughts about the ePacket? What are some misconceptions about completing the ePacket for I&S grade 9? A: My personal thoughts about the ePacket have changed over the course of the year. Like a lot of my peers, we thought that the ePacket was a bad thing. But this is a very common misconception that it is not necessary and it is really long to complete. But in reality the ePacket tells you exactly what you need to include and talk about in your final product. As a grade 9 student you underestimate the value of the ePacket but you will hopefully start to see the importance of it sooner rather than later and follow all the steps in the ePacket. Q: What should you absolutely DO? A: You should absolutely read the textbook for every unit because you will be able to answer most of the questions Mr. Dachpian asks as he is always trying to make his students see the bigger picture of what they are learning through asking such questions that will drive conversations in class. Reading the textbook will absolutely help in doing this because that's where all the answers are. Q: What should you absolutely AVOID? A: You should absolutely avoid giving an argument without providing sufficient evidence. Usually three pieces of good evidence is enough to back up what you are trying to say. If not then your argument will be weak and non-effective. Check how much support you are giving to make sure that you have enough. Q: Do you have any other advice that you would like to give in completing the ePacket? A: Other advice that I can give about completing the ePacket is more of the same. Put time into it but not too much time. Follow a plan so that you are on task and doing productive work. Make your research specific because this class isn’t about giving general information. Q: What advice do you have about the course in general? A: Some advice about the course in general that I would give is don’t think that this class is going to be really hard. If you go into the class with a good learning mindset, then you might actually find the class fun and engaging. If not, then you will find this class really hard. Also don’t procrastinate because time will catch up to you and you will submit an incomplete assignment. |