“The 7 habits of highly effective teens” by Sean Covey is the book that we have been focusing on for the past three months. In maker, for this project, we have been working on answering the driving question “How can I use the 7 habits to be my most effective self”? We were given the option of reading three books: the one for people, teenagers, or a graphic novel, and I chose to do the one for teenagers written by Sean covey. The book was separated into four parts and for each part we completed a workbook and a choice board activity. To answer this question I have read, practiced and shown my understanding of the 7 habits. This final blog post is titled “Believe in Good” because our final product will demonstrate how in the future I am going to use the 7 Habits to be a more effective teenager. 

The Process

Highlights from my Choice Board Assignments:

I am really proud of most of my Choice Board assignments. They were all different and all showed the part of the 7 habits I needed to show representing my understanding of my learning. 

• • Paradigms: For my first choice board I took a photo up close of my brother’s hair and then a photo further back. You can’t tell what the first photo is without seeing the second picture.
  • Private Victory: For my second choice board I used the app Sketches Pro to create notes with graphics. These notes were about each of the first three habits to show how my brain remembers the learning from this section. The images represent an idea.
  • Public Victory: For my third choice board, I created a Keynote animation that clearly shows habits four, five and six. My focus was on visual representation.
  • Renewal: For my last choice board, I created a playlist to represent the four sections of habit 7, Sharpening the Saw. 
  • Overall, throughout the choice boards I was able to grow my skills in using ipad apps I had not used as much as the others such as animating in keynote. I showed I was a creative communicator through the variety of ways I represented my knowledge of the 7 habits. 

Highlights from the Workbook:

• The workbooks made me think about the 7 habits and how they could apply to my life. For example, I found it very interesting to look at my personal bank account assignment and discover how many withdrawals I have in a week. 

Highlights from the Notes Chart:

• My notes chart helped me to remember the main ideas of the 7 habits, especially when I was doing the choice board activities. Using my ipad to construct my understanding was one way I showed myself to be an empowered learner. Even though my notes to some people, may not make sense, they help remind me about what this whole book has been about which is developing habits that will make me an effective human.

The Final Products of My Learning

Our final product needed to demonstrate my learning of the habits by connecting them with the core competencies. This meant that the habits would be shown within three products to relate to the three core competencies: communicating, thinking, and personal and social. Even more challenging, we also needed each product to focus on communicating knowledge in a different style such as visual, audio and kinesthetic.

Communicating/Visual

With a focus on the communicating core competency, I chose to represent my learning of habits 5 and 6 in a visual way. I decided to create a photo Collage of group projects. This visual display demonstrates my growth in collaboration skills. We have had a variety of projects that require working in a group such as DI, Revolutions on trial, metaphor machines. Seeing all these photos showcases all the skills I have to use when I work in a group.

The next competency I reviewed was thinking which I chose to represent my learning of habits 1, 2, and 3 in an auditory way. I created an audiobook recording of me talking about future jobs I could have and ways I could accomplish those goals. 

The final core competency are personal and social skills which I chose to connect to Habits 4 and 7 in a kinesthetic way. Since building relaxes me and allows me to show my creativity, I decided to make a fort. I like to be in comfortable places and forget the world around me. I also love being with my family/friends and decided that building with my friend Maya would be something we both enjoy and a way for me to recharge.

All of these assignments and products ultimately are good evidence that I am becoming more of an empowered learning and that I can construct and communicate my knowledge in many, many, different ways. I will continue to build my skills in the 7 habits and bring good into my life.