Final Reflection

Name: Emily Alascio Date:

Theme: Inside Out
My Project:

Instructions: Fill out the following few questions before you provide your reflections below.

1. Who did you interview? (Name, title/position, topic discussed)

a. For our business project, my group and I interviewed three different food directors from three
different schools. We interviewed Crystal Gauss from South Western’s cafeteria. Mark Czapp
from Spring Grove’s cafeteria. And Holly Sorice from Delone Catholic’s cafeteria. During all the
interviews, we asked all the same questions. The questions that were asked, Would you ever
consider bringing outside franchises into your school, How often would you bring in the outside
franchises, if you were to bring them into your school what regulations would you have to worry
about if you did have outside franchises in your school, Does NSLP apply to your school, What
is your school’s policy on competition with the cafeteria? We also discussed with them how
much their foods normally cost and what it cost for the students who would get the reduced
lunches. My group and I also made sure that we asked about the variety of foods from Spring
Grove and Delone. Those schools even gave us one of their food menus to look at and
compare all three of the school lunches together and see if they have same or different
varieties.

Instructions: Each question must be answered in a short paragraph with complete, grammatically correct
sentences. All minimum writing requirements apply (Correct spelling, punctuation, etc.). I am looking for
honesty above all else.

1. Backward-Looking
a. In what ways have you gotten better at this work? How can you improve moving forward?

I feel like I’ve gotten a little bit better with the dealing with the work and the workload of this
class. It was a lot different from doing to a individual project to one with a group. I just was so use to
being independent and doing all the work myself. It was just strange to split the workload of a project
and it to be slightly easier on me. I think I’m getting a hang of what Mr. B is expecting from our class
when we do projects. This class with projects is definitely about learning how to time manage. So, for
this class I’ve also have gotten better at managing my time. You learn which parts of the project need
more or less time to work on them. It is always great to plan out your weeks at the beginning when you
receive the project topic to make sure everything is completed in a timely manner. I want to keep on
improving my time management skills throughout the semester. I want to be able to sit back on the last
project work day and be able to go through my project and make sure I completed everything that
needed to be done and to look over my work to make sure my grammar, spelling, and punctuation is
excellent.

b. What problems did you encounter while you were working on this piece? How did you solve
them?
Some problems that my group and I encountered while working on our personal
business/company project was when we were trying to get in contact with Hanover High School for an
interview date. For our project, we wanted to interview 2 bigger high schools and 2 smaller high
 schools. Spring Grove, South Western, and Delone reached back out to us, but Hanover wouldn’t get
back to our email or phone calls. We called and emailed Hanover High school multiple times. We
solved that problem by trying to find another smaller school to interview, but we actually couldn’t find
another smaller school. When it was almost into the second week of the project, we looked over what
information we had from our interviews from the three high schools that we previously interviewed. We
were all content with the interviews and information we received that we felt like we didn’t need need to
interview another school for more findings. Most of the information we found was similar, but Delone
was the only school that didn’t want inside franchises into their school.

2. Inward-Looking
a. How do you feel about your work? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What
did/do you enjoy about this work?
I feel pretty great about our work for this project. We found a lot of similar things within
each school. Like which types of regulations they have to follow from state and federal regulations.
They also all use the NSLP and have to use a snack calorie calculator website whenever they want to
try to bring in new types of foods. My favorite parts of this project was probably being able to leave
class and interview and see different schools and how they run. It was amazing meeting new people
that work within our own school district that I didn’t know existed. I didn’t really particularly dislike
anything within this project, I just wish we had more guidance with the topics within this project. It was
kind of rough trying to teach yourself on supply and demand, price equilibrium, and trade offs. Like I
said before, the part I enjoyed the most about this work was seeing similarities and differences in each
school district.

b. What did you learn about yourself as you worked on this piece?

One thing that I learned about myself is that I stress out and need to have a set schedule for
each week to make sure everything gets done. Even though the workload was split between three, I
just don’t like getting distracted and possibly getting off the set schedule. I just like being able to cross
things off my “to-do” list. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment, but we kept on running into problems
and it felt like it took forever to get things done so we couldn’t cross things off in a timely manner. I
know that there are always going to be “roadblocks” in life when it comes to completing things, but I
know that my goal will always be overcoming the problems and keep pushing forwards and always do
the best that I can do.

3. Outward-Looking
a. Did you complete your work in the same manner as those around you? How were you
different?
I feel like even though we ran into problems, my group and I completed our work in a
different manner as those around us. Our group was on task for most the time when we were working
on our company. There were some days that we would get slightly off task and just mess around, but at
the end of the work time, we always got done what we wanted to accomplish that day. We even did our
projects after school a few days out of the week to make sure that we were still on our set schedule to
make sure we would finish in a timely manner. I feel like our class is always distracted and never really
works on their projects during the time that is provided. My group made sure to use most of our time in
class and sometimes after class.

b. If someone else were looking at this work, what might they learn about who you are?
 If someone else were to look at my work that I did within my group’s project, they will learn that
I’m dedicated to my work and research. I also like making my work creative and interesting for all the
people that would possibly look at my group’s company. I like to organize my research and make sure it
is easy to follow so I don't confuse the person viewing the slideshow presentation. I think they can also
see that I take my school work very seriously and try to go above and beyond with the standards that I
am given.

4. Forward-Looking
a. What would you change if you had a chance to do this work over again?
One thing that I would change if I had a change to do this work over again would be doing a
deeper pre-research for our project theme. What I mean by pre-research, is the research right after
when we figured out our project subject and name. It would have been nice to research more in depth
on Pennsylvania's state laws and regulations when it came to lunches, morning, and afternoon
programs for students. It would have been amazing to be able to compare the state and federal
regulations and laws. Also, it would have been nice if we thought of more questions the first time we
went to interview instead of having to go back to the other school’s directors multiple times. It was also
nice going back to meet with them multiple times because they would tell us more about their jobs and
what they have to go through to get new items in their school’s and regulations they have to make sure
they follow.

b. Describe a weakness that was highlighted during the process of completing your work, and
describe what you will do in the future to overcome your weakness.
One of my major weaknesses is probably getting out of my comfort zone. As much as I
would like to get out of my comfort zone and be ready for that when I go to college, I get super nervous
talking to an individual or individuals I don’t really know. I know that there were a few times where I had
to get in contact with a school that wasn’t answering our emails for interviews. I had to call Spring
Grove to better explain what our project topic was because the secretary was confused on our project’s
subject. I had to talk to the secretary for Spring Grove over the phone multiple times to confirm our
interviews with their Director of Foods and then coming in to take pictures of their cafeteria. Another
time when I had to come out of my comfort zone was when I had to call Hanover High School’s
principal because she wasn’t answering our emails in a timely manner. Their principle didn’t answer the
phone when I called so I had to leave her a voicemail, which is just as bad as talking to a real person
over the phone. My goal is to eventually get better with my interpersonal skills and be able to talk to
everyone and anyone in a professional manner. I will just have to continue to slowly push myself out of
my comfort zone. I know in the near future when I go off to college, my interpersonal skills will get better
and I will be more confident when talking to new people.
 Reflection Standards Rubric

Assessed Skills

Depth and Evidence

● Demonstrates a personalization of insightful shortcomings and growth.
● Viewpoints and interpretations are insightful and well supported.
● Clear, detailed examples are provided, as applicable.
● Response shows strong evidence of synthesis of ideas and presents insights gained throughout the unit theme.

Thorough
● Includes all necessary components and meets or exceeds all requirements.
● Each question is addressed thoroughly.

Structure
● Writing is clear, concise, and well organized with excellent sentence/paragraph construction.
● Thoughts are expressed in a coherent and logical manner.
● There are zero spelling or grammar errors.