Blog 27: Senior Project Reflection

1. Positive Statement

I am most proud of my activities during my 2-hour. I believed they were really strong and reinforced the content of my answers very well. I had the class actually solve some chess puzzles and then share-out and all of the groups seemed really interested so I can take pride in the fact that my hard work planning and practicing paid off.

2. What assessment would you give yourself on your 2-Hour Presentation? Why?

a.

I feel I deserve an AE on my 2 hour because I prepared thoroughly prior to doing it, and I think everything turned out very well. I met the necessary talking time, I had strong activities that supported my answers, and I covered all the topics I wanted to cover.

What assessment would you give yourself for your senior project? Why?

b.

For my senior project as a whole, I would give myself a P+ because I received that same grade for my exit interview and all of my senior project work throughout the year has met the requirement for a proficient.

3. What worked for you in senior project?

I liked the fact that we had so much freedom with our 2-hour presentation. We weren’t tied down by a strict plan for how we should present. We were basically given the freedom to convey our content in any way we deemed fit.

4. What didn’t work for you in senior project?

I didn’t like the constant looming threat of getting on the NC rules list. It never motivated me more to do an assignment and it only made the people who were on the list hate senior year. While I see the advantages of having such a system in place, I believe it is a cruel way to punish those who haven’t turned in a component and an unnecessary rule throughout senior year.

5. Finding Value

My experience presenting during my 2 hour has really given me the confidence for future presentations of any size. After talking for over 30 minutes, it’s hard to get nervous over a simple 10-minute presentation. I have also found that with the large amounts of important deadlines in the year, I have actually become more responsible with turning my work in earlier. 

2-Hour Presentation

Blog 22: Answer #3

Essential Question: What is the best way to win a game of chess?

Answer 3: It is important to remember to remain flexible during a game while also remaining consistent with your strategy.

Evidence
- A player who is flexible to the opponent's moves (can quickly adapt to any situation that occurs on board) will not have much success in the result of the game if there is no underlying strategy that your ultimate goal ends up in. 
- In the same way, a player who doesn't deviate from his per-determined strategy will also be unsuccessful because adapting to an opponent's moves is a huge part of knowing what specific strategies will work against them.
- It is important to keep a combination of both flexibility and consistency during a game, flexibility to react well to an opponent's strategy and the consistency of using a set strategy to actually work towards an endgame.

Source
- An article called flexibility vs consistency found on chess.com actually enlightened me on the importance of both factors and made me consider it as an answer.
- During my 3rd interview I actually asked the question, " What is more important, flexibility or consistency?" to be answered with wise advice that a combination of both is essential.
- Speaking on personal experience with the game, I have found that responding to every opponent's move will make you aggressive but will not give you a solid board position. Playing stiffly off a recently-learned strategy might be terrible against an opponent who is reacting to your moves and continuing with a failed plan will only lead you to a loss.

Room Creativity

(1) How do you plan to address the room creativity expectation?  

I will have a number of different self-made chess display boards all over the classroom that I can easily manipulate to provide a challenge or a puzzle to the students. This will demonstrate a creative approach to teaching the students, seeing as they can have physical interaction with the board's themselves. 

(2) What activity ideas do you have for answer 1 or 2?

My answer 1 is to play against higher skilled opponents to learn from their experience. I might have students play against the computer on a higher difficulty making them experience what my answer actually entails. 
For my second answer( Study the games played by chess Grandmasters) I'm still not too sure about how to actually do it inside the classroom. However, I will probably just show a famous game move-by-move on the board and stop at certain points to get predictions from different groups as to how "Kasparov" will move next, therefore having the students actively participating. 

Answer 2

EQ: What is the best way to win a game of chess?

Answer 2: One of the best ways you can improve your game in chess, and therefore lead to more wins, is to study the popular games of Grandmasters. 

Evidence: There are a large amount of games that can help a player with their skill. I will list 3 historic games that every player should know about:

- Deep Blue(Computer) vs Kasparov(Best player) 

- Bobby Fischer vs Boris Spassky (Cold War confrontation)

- Karpov vs Kasparov (2 Chess Icons) 

Source

- "Why they Play?" An article published by TIME magazine describing the fascinating reasons why grandmasters do what they do and their motivation behind it. 

- My Service learning gave me a lot of examples of games that I should study in order to improve.

- Chess.com provides most historic games ever played that can be easily accessed in order to study. 

Presentation 2 Rough Draft

Google doc link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ohkod8eLSIZdLfZztLy9W4s7C4NHZs6uoydHScDwQY4/edit

Answer # 1

EQ: What is the best way to win a game of chess?

Answer: Personally play against superior opponents as often as possible.
(2) What possible evidence do you have to support this answer?

One of the best ways to improve your game and play better is to simply watch good games of chess. They don't have to be played by grandmasters, as long as you watch enough games, you will eventually pick up on patterns across the board. When this happens in one of your games, because of your experience studying, you will know what the opponent might be planning and be able to counter it. 

(3) What source(s) did you find this evidence and/or answer?

My source was my service learning instructor. When I asked him my EQ, he said it was important to study better player's games, especially if when they have more experience playing than you. He said no matter what level you are at, you can always learn more.