We are finally capping off grade ten, the midway point through high school. To conclude every PLP year, each student does a transitional presentation of learning, where we present our work to our teachers and showcase why we feel we deserve to move on to the next grade. In this presentation, I will show you work I feel proud of, work I think needs improvement, and I will pull upon some major skills I learned this year.
Humanities is one of my favourite units. I have always enjoyed learning about social studies and geography, and this year we went into some great units. One of the first humanities units we went into was all about WWI. We learned about what started the war and the Canadian Identity that was present during it. Our class went into great detail about the Canadian identity and what our perspective of the war was like. I really liked learning about the Canadian perspective in World War I, as I knew what had actually happened in the great war, but I had never known anything about what my country did or how they were introduced. This unit also introduced one of the biggest parts of the entire grade ten year, podcasts. In this unit, we were told to make a podcast about a Canadian soldier in the war, and in the podcast we were to explain why our soldier represents the Canadian identity. My first podcast was a total hit, and I really liked what I produced, and throughout the year, I improved my podcasting skills to create some amazing work. Using different audio queues, soundtracks, organizing audio clips, and much more, my podcasts were one of the biggest highlights of the year, and I enjoyed the learning process of good quality podcasts.
The second unit in Humanities I would like to talk about is the next great war in history, World War II. The goal for this unit was to learn about all of the different countries perspectives of the war and how that impacted the war. The main project for this unit was a perspectives of war website. This website had us students create pages about our different countries. Each group was around three people, and the task was to dive deep into one country, and showcase the perspective and knowledge we learned and compile it all into this website. I really liked doing this project, as my group learned all about the Soviet Union and the country’s worldview on the war at the time. I also liked it because I improved some of my skills I have been developing since the start of grade eight. One of those skills is teamwork. I feel like I communicated well with my group, and I made a great leader for this project. Teamwork was huge for this project, as in this lengthy website, there was a lot to cover, so having a team that was as determined as I was to learn about the Soviet perspective of the war was huge for this project, and it was one of the groups I really enjoyed working with. Another thing I would like to add to this unit was when a World War II German solider came to share his story. This story completely blew my mind. His stories changed my own perspective on the war and completely shifted my worldview about the German side. It was such a blast to learn about a World War II story that not many people will get to learn or experience in their lifetime.
In math and science, I have produced a lot of quality work that showcases my growth as a learner. One of those pieces of work was my DNA and Genetics podcast I did with Michael. In this project, we dove into what makes up genetics and we made a podcast about twins if they were born from parents that shared the exact same DNA, would they turn our identical. Throughout the unit and project, we went through extensive research and planning to create this podcast. I did not know much about DNA and genetics at the start of the year, but after conducting even more research and developing unique project ideas, we got to create an excellent project that we felt proud of. To show this growth, these mind maps from the beginning and end of the year showcase what I learned throughout the unit.
Maker time has always been a unique and interesting class. The projects and class exercises we do are always fun and interesting to participate in, and this year was no different. For the third year in a row, we participated in Destination Imagination. You’re probably thinking I going to go in a big rant of DI in this presentation, but that is not the case for this tPol. DI this year has taught me a lot about group collaboration and commitment, and I am very proud of what my group created. We integrated everybody’s skills into this one presentation, and I felt really good about what we created. The main thing I want to take from this project is definitely group collaboration, as I believe our group exceeded at this. Our project deliverable was quite difficult to understand, and we knew it would be a true challenge for our only-boy group. However, we pulled it off extremely well and I feel proud of what we created.
Another skill I learned in grade 10 was my storytelling skills. In this maker project, each PLP ten student was paired with a grade twelve to create an interview in podcast form about stories. These stories could be about anything. Sad stories, happy, serious, anything was available to use. Along with this, we would have to create our own podcast design, and add follow up questions, music, and other audio to help enhance these podcasts. Students were to interview people at the winter exhibition, and they would share their stories and we would have to edit these to create interesting stories. I believe my podcasts were a great example about what I learned about storytelling. The layout, background music, and other technical edits were what made these podcasts great.
This presentation is all about why I believe I should move on to the next grade. I understand that I can be a tough student to deal with, as I tend to leave things last minute, which ends up in my work being late. I don’t like to make people do extra things for me, I feel like its unfair for my teachers and even my parents to deal with my issues and they have to make my life easier in order to actually succeed, I want to be able to do things on my own so I can feel proud of my work, knowing that I created it without any stress or anxiety while going through it. Although this year hasn’t been ideal with my work habits, I believe I can change those habits. A fresh start in September should help me. Without having the stress of outstanding homework, or knowing I didn’t do my best work in an assignment I believe should help me with my future studies. I really have learned a lot this year, and I have shown my growth as a learner throughout the year, and I’m excited for what grade eleven may offer me.