“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”
A lot of learning has happened from the start of the school year. Even with only one PLP class, i’ve gone through three different projects and had to set up and participate in an exhibition. Now that we’re coming to the middle of the school year, it’s time to write my mPOL. Although we’ve only had Humanities, I’ve still shown lots of growth and now know things that I need to work on to help strenghthen my learning plan.
Today, I’m going to discuss the strengths and weaknesses that I’ve uncovered throughout my learning so far this school year. I want to talk about each project and cover where I shined and where I could have done better. I’m going to discuss how I’ve met my learning plan and also how I’m going to meet my learning plan as this year goes on.
Think You Can Do Better
The first project of the year was all about the Canadian government. We looked at government structure, political ideologies, and tracking the current election that was going on at the time. Along with that, we were learning about how we could use language to shape ideas and influence others. That’s why for the final product of our project, we had to create our own Canadian political party and produce a campaign explaining our party’s beliefs and values.
Through this project, I demonstrated growth in my ability to work in groups. I was able to quickly adapt to the group and work together for completing assignments. Together, we broke down the large assignments so we could all get stuff done to break down the workload. Because of our strong management and synergy, we were able to produce a great final video.
At the time, I needed to work on supporting my claims with
evidence. I wrote a blog post where I gave my opinion on
Canada’s electoral system. I gave a lot of different opinions on this blog post, but I didn’t back them up with anything such as links to evidence or quotes from other people. This is something that I know I need to work on and will continue to improve on as the school year goes on.
Manhattan Project²
For the second project this year, we looked at the historical significance of the manhattan project. Our project was about how we could use conceptual art to explain the significance of the atomic bomb. In this project, we looked at the historical significance of the manhattan project and the event of the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima. Along with that, we learned what makes something conceptual art. After we learned all of that, we created our art pieces and presented them in an exhibition-style format.
From this project, I feel that I’ve grown in my ability to creatively write and analyze text. To help us better understand the events that happened when Hiroshima was bombed, we read the book Hiroshima by John Hersey and wrote Response Journals to help us better understand the writing. I did well here at creatively coming 
up with responses and relating them to previous knowledge and experiences. Along with that, I’ve improved on supporting my response with evidence.
What I learned that I need to improve on is contributing to the discussion. An activity that we would do after completing a response Journal was participating in a Socratic seminar. This was something that I’d never done before so it was out of my comfort zone. Contributing to a discussion where you have to jump in was intimidating. Although I was prepared for the discussion by reading the book, creating a response journal, and coming up with questions, I was more comfortable listening in on the conversation. To get better at this, I’m still working on contributing ideas to smaller groups.
Sounds Of Poetry
Our final project so far that we just finished was all about poetry and music. We learned about many literary terms to help us understand the meaning of songs and poetry. By doing so we were able to better understand the power of language and how it shapes and influences who we are. The outcome of this project was to choose 5 songs that resonated with us and write why each song resonated with us.
Through this project, I’ve grown in my ability to use literary terms in my writing. The terms that I’ve learned help me express my creative thinking through my writing. Through the project, it’s helped me find hidden meaning within the text. Along with that, I’ve built strategies to help me break down the text to better understand the meaning behind it. These strategies and terms are going to be a great asset in the future to help me better understand the hidden message behind the text.
I feel that my presentation could have gone slightly better and this is something that I need to continue to work on. I did very well at not reading my final write up but I don’t think I looked very confident while presenting. I felt like I didn’t cover everything that I wanted to talk about with my songs. Next time, when I present I should come more prepared either with specific points that I want to talk about or highlight things I want to say in my analysis.
Learning Plan
To sharpen my Learning Plan I need to continue working on my weaknesses and turning them into strengths. I feel that some things on my learning plan I’m doing great on and others I’m lacking. I’m going to work on building better habits to work on my weaknesses by continuing to practice speaking in groups. I’ve already grown since the first project in backing up my thoughts with evidence so I’ll continue to improve this and show this through my blog posts.
Any Questions?
