Brain Harmony Portfolio Projects
Mr. Halberg
Grading:
30% = Personal Portfolio
30% = Action Research
30% = Class Participation
10% = Reflection Journal
Personal Portfolio (30%)
This is a personal portfolio/binder made up of the assignments and projects from each unit of study. As we cover the information in class, this is an opportunity for you to collect, organize, and personalize assignments for reflection and future use. Students are encouraged to create their own projects. If this is difficult, students are invited to select from a list of previous student or teacher created projects. Students are always welcome to tailor the original project in a way that makes it more personally relevant to them.
Portfolio Assignments
1 / 10
2 / 10
3 / 10
4 / 10
5 / 10
6 / 10
7 / 10
8 / 10
9 / 10
10 / 10
11 / 10
12 / 10
13 / 10
14 / 10
15 / 10
16 / 10
17 / 10
18 / 10
19 / 10
20 / 10
21 / 10
Total / 210
Out of / 100
Introduction to Brain Harmony
1. Create a list of questions that you would like to have answered in this class.
2. What do you want to learn?
3. If you were to design a class for high school, what would you learn about? How would you learn? Why would you learn?
4. Search the internet, books, magazines, journals, or videos for a quote, saying, expression, scene, or story that is personally relevant and meaningful to you. Prepare discussion questions for reflection on this work and bring all of this in so that we can use this throughout the year for our reflection journal entries and class discussions. Three completed reflection topics will count as one portfolio assignment.
5. Look at the seven themes for this class, the list of previous assignments, and search the internet, books, magazines, journals, or videos to create new projects that are personally relevant and meaningful to you. Create detailed instructions for the projects and include a rubric for how the assignment will be graded. This is a continual assignment option throughout the year. Every three instructor approved projects that you create will count toward one project completed.
6. For each assignment, create a grading rubric that will emphasize the parts that you would like to be graded on. How would you like the teacher to grade this assignment? Then grade the assignment yourself before submitting for teacher approval. Five completed grading rubrics would be equivalent to one portfolio assignment.
7. Throughout the school year, we will have an idea box to pull discussion topics from that we will talk about in our circle. Write ten discussion topics. For example: “Tell a story about a dream that stuck with you,” or “Talk about a place where you feel calm,” or “What was the best thing that happened to you this week.”
8. Bring in a paper bag with materials that represent you and share with the class what you brought and how it represents you. For example, you might bring in a family picture, keys to your car, a special picture, a special note, a pair of your favorite pants, etc.
9. Write suggestions or comments for the class that would go into the suggestion box.
10. Each person in the class will have a small box that is designed for collecting comments or special memories throughout the year. Write a comment and put it in the box.
Portfolio Assignments
1 / 10
2 / 10
3 / 10
4 / 10
5 / 10
6 / 10
7 / 10
8 / 10
9 / 10
10 / 10
11 / 10
12 / 10
13 / 10
14 / 10
15 / 10
16 / 10
17 / 10
18 / 10
19 / 10
20 / 10
21 / 10
Total / 210
Out of / 100
Who am I? Holistic Self-Awareness
1. Create your own definition of mind, body, heart, and soul. What do these terms mean to you?
2. Create an image, picture, sculpture, artwork, etc. to express your image of mind, body, heart, and soul. Explain your image.
3. Reflect on your own self-image. Would you say that you have a realistic, pessimistic, or optimistic self image?
4. Reflect on your own self-talk. Do you tend to be critical, evaluate, judge, analyze, etc.?
5. Do you have difficulty expressing / understanding your own emotions? How could a greater self-awareness of emotion help you?
6. Write and then tell a story about an experience you had in early elementary school. How did this experience make you feel? Is memory connected to a strong emotion? What emotion?
7. Write and tell a classroom appropriate story about a recent experience that was emotional for you.
8. Write and tell a story that will make people feel: happy, sad, scared, enthusiastic, etc.
9. Create and act out a scene in which the audience will be able to guess the emotion.
10. Record how you feel after every day of one week and explore why you feel that way. Write about the events of the day and your reaction. (500 words)
11. What are your needs? Create a list of your needs. What are your five strongest emotional needs? What are your five strongest intellectual needs? What feelings do you have when these needs are not met? What feelings do you have when these feelings are met?
12. Create a personal needs poster with your top five needs for each holistic dimension of yourself. Use pictures, paintings, etc. to make this an attractive display.
13. Do you think that the world has enough resources to meet everyone’s physical needs? Why or why not?
14. Do you think it would be possible to meet everyone’s emotional needs? Why or why not?
15. Do you think it would be possible to meet everyone’s intellectual needs? Why or why not?
16. Create a list of your wants. How are wants different from needs? Do any of these wants come at the expense of others’ needs?
17. Spend some time looking at the list of universal human needs. Which of your needs are being met? How? Which of your needs are not being met? Why? Who is responsible? What can you do to ensure that your needs are being met? What can you do to help ensure that others also have the ability to meet their own needs?
18. Spend some time looking at the list of feelings that develop when needs are met or not met. Do you usually have positive or negative feelings? Why?
19. Do you think that all species have needs? Are these needs all the same? Pick an animal of your choice and create a list of needs for this animal. Pick a plant of your choice and pick a list of needs for this plant. From this exercise, do you think there are any universal needs for all species? If yes, list them. If no, explain why.
20. Do you think that there are universal laws or natural principles of the universe? If yes, what are they? If no, why not?
21. Describe your personality. What do you like or dislike about your personality? Describe your ideal personality or describe the person you wish you were. (500 words)
22. Complete the Big-Five Personality Inventory Questionnaire. Determine which personality best describes you. Read about that personality type online or from class readings. Provide a summary of your personality type. Do you agree or disagree with the personality assessment? Explain with examples. (500 words)
23. Complete the Myers-Briggs Personality Assessment Questionnaire. Determine which personality best describes you. Read about that personality type online or from class readings. Provide a summary of your personality type. Do you agree or disagree with the personality assessment? Explain with examples. (500 words)
24. Complete the Strengths-Finder Assessment Questionnaire. Determine which five strengths best describes you. Read about these five strengths online or from class readings. Provide a summary of your five strengths. (500 words)
25. Complete a Values-Assessment to determine five things that you value the most. Write a brief description of the value and what it means to you. (500 words)
26. Create a word chart with key words that you would use to describe your personality.
27. Create a word chart with the five strengths that you identified you possess.
28. Identify an influential person and write about how that person has influenced your life. Take note of the qualities that you admire most in that person. (500 words)
29. Create an “all about me” poster, video, power-point, photo album, or slideshow and share with at least one individual (5 points) or the class (10 points).
30. Tell a story of a time when you made the decision to: be responsible, respect, love, forgive, trust, be peaceful, grateful, and joyful, do good things, have patience and self control, be kind and compassionate, or laugh and play.
31. Create a children’s story to tell a story about making the decision to: be responsible, respect, love, forgive, trust, be peaceful, grateful, and joyful, do good things, have patience and self control, be kind and compassionate, or laugh and play.
32. Create a skit to act out an example of making the decision to: be responsible, respect, love, forgive, trust, be peaceful, grateful, and joyful, do good things, have patience and self control, be kind and compassionate, or laugh and play.
33. How could you make the decision to be responsible, respect, love, forgive, trust, be peaceful, grateful, and joyful, do good things, have patience and self control, be kind and compassionate, or laugh and play in this class, at Freedom High School, at home, in our community?
34. Create a collage or artwork demonstrating the key roles (relationships and responsibilities) that you have in your life.
35. Looking back on you list of top twenty values, are these really values or just ideals? For each value, how much time, energy, or money do you allocate to the development of these values?
36. Write your own eulogy. Think about how you want to fill your life. (500 words)
37. Why do you want to live? (500 words)
38. Keep a dream log by recording your dreams in the morning when you wake up. Turn these dreams into an artistic story book.
39. Using the life as a bucket analogy, create a real model of your own life. What are the big things that need to be put in the bucket first? What are the little things that may or may not fit? Paint or label the most important things and put them in a bucket to help remind you to put them first. Share this model with one person (5 points) or the class (10 points).
40. Create a list of things that you would like to do in your life—then prioritize them. Reflect on this process and what you may have learned.
41. Fill out a weekly planner and break all of these activities into a quadrant (urgent v. not urgent, important v. not important). Do this for one month. What did this activity reveal to you about how you spend time?
42. Using information from the book, What Color is Your Parachute?, identify ten skills that you have. How could you use these skills to help others?
43. What skills are necessary to survive or thrive in high school?
44. What skills are necessary to survive or thrive beyond high school?
45. Reflect on the skills that you think are needed in life and the current reality of your skill level. What skills do you think are most essential for your development?
46. Define the roles that you currently have in life. For example, your role in your family, your role as a student, etc. Project yourself forward in time and imagine how you would like to be remembered in each role. Use this information to help you write long term goals for each role. After establishing long term goals, create short term SMART goals to help you progress toward the long term goals. Which roles are most important to you? Are you spending more time on roles that are less important to you or more time one the roles that are most important to you?
47. Think about the four dimensions of your life: Mind, Body, Heart, and Soul. Create a list of ten ways that you could encourage growth or development in each dimension. When you feel stressed, or out of balance, try spending time doing activities in the more neglected dimensions.
48. Choose a task or skill that you need to develop for your own personal growth and development and write about your experience.
49. Write a personal mission statement or statement of purpose for your life. What character strengths do you have? What qualities do you want to develop? What do you want to accomplish? What contributions would you like to make?
50. After writing a mission statement or statement of purpose, ask yourself the following questions.
a. Is my mission based on timeless, proven, natural principles and systems? Which ones?
b. Do I feel this mission statement represents the best that is within me?
c. During my best moments, do I feel good about what this mission statement represents?
d. Do I feel direction, purpose, challenge, and motivation when I review this statement?
e. Am I aware of the strategies and skills that will help me accomplish what I have written?
f. What do I need to start doing now to be where I want to be tomorrow?
g. Does the statement inspire me?
51. Create a “Vision Board” or collage of your goals. A traditional vision board may include inspirational quotes, pictures from magazines, or photos of you and your family. A vision board is essentially your mission statement brought to life with pictures and personally powerful images. (This project is taken from an assignment created by Mrs. Warren and may be used for credit in both classes.)