TPOL stands for transitional presentation of learning.

 

I think I had an decent start to the school year, all things considered.  I mean, the start of the school year is never really that hard, at least for the first month it isn’t.  The first couple projects that I completed weren’t outstanding by any means, but I was happy to have a good start to the year.  I was doing pretty well until I lost my survey for my Scimatics project right near the end of the project.  After that I just kinda lost motivation for the rest of that project, I was annoyed that I put a lot of work in that project and then just lost the survey! At this point I started to lose motivation in Scimatics all together.  Science and Math have never been my strong suits, so that didn’t really help with my motivation to complete assignments. During semester 1 I was still doing pretty well in Humanities.  I had fun working with my group in the revolutions on trial project, from what I heard the winter exhibition and the mock trials were really fun and I would have loved to have been there!  Unfortunately I was sick and couldn’t attend the Winter Exhibition.

At the start of semester 2 our project in Humanities was working with words, this is where I started to struggle.  I fell behind and started to over think the poems I was d trying to create, It took me forever just to come up with one poem.  I wasn’t getting much done at all and that’s when I decided that I just needed to get the poems done, no matter how good they were. In the end I actually liked how my poems turned out and although it took me a while, I think they were pretty good.  Working with words was definitely not where I did my best work, but I think its where I learned that I need to stop focusing on perfection and just do my work to the best of my abilities and get it done in a timely manner.  After that, it was onto the project case for a nation,  I don’t know how I feel about this project.  On one hand, I happy with my final image and it fits the image that I had in my head.  But on the other hand, I’m not so proud about the fact that some of the other stuff from this project was left unfinished such as the opinion piece.  I think I just got kind of lost at points in this project and I didn’t know what to do. When looking back I realize I should have asked for help more often, but I didn’t and this made me feel overwhelmed.  Asking for help when needed is  something that I am and will continue to work on in the future.  The start of semester 2 in Humanities had its ups and downs and overall wasn’t terrible, but that wasn’t the same for Scimatics.

The Scimatics project Metaphor Machines went pretty well, It was fun working in a group and trying over and over to get the perfect take of our Rube Goldberg machine working.  The next project, Meiosis Models, had a rough start, I was away sick for the first week 1/2 and once again struggled with asking for help when I came back to class.  I also felt that I wasn’t receiving enough in class directions and support, which I didn’t know how to express.  At that point, I just shut down and didn’t really do any work.  That was the same for the next project, Time is Money, one of the reasons I didn’t have that much motivation for this project was that it was VERY similar to a project that I did twice in elementary school, so I felt like I had already done it before.

Now, back to humanities and probably my favourite project all year.  Of course I’m talking about the WWI comic project, I really liked this project because it was on a topic that I have always been interested in.  I learned a lot about WWI from this project, one of the reasons probably being that there is just so much to learn to begin with, but also from reading other peoples comics and researching my own topic. I find my learning really benefits from group discussion and sharing work between peers. I think that I got so caught up in just learning about the war that I kinda forgot that I had to make something in the end.  At that point I was behind again, I struggled at first but soon found my footing and I started to come in before and after school to work on finishing my comic.  Even though it may not be the best, I’m still quite proud of how my comic turned out.

Finally I’m briefly going to go over maker.  I think I did pretty well in DI considering this was the first year that it was in person and we had it easy last year due to filming our entries.  I think our performance was good and we all knew our lines so that definitely helped!  Overall I think DI went pretty well this year and our group worked well together.  Next the project Believe in Good.  I think I understood what the point of the project was but I just struggled to put my thoughts into words on a page.  During the Vibrant Video project,  I once again struggled with doing the assignments because of the limited class time to actually do the work and that almost everything had to be filmed at home. This project emphasized that self led learning can be difficult for me.I think I slightly redeemed myself in the first film project, although I was puzzled and lost on what to do at times. I think once I got my topic and set up a plan, I worked pretty well and created a film that I am proud of.

Overall I think I have struggled a lot this year, whether it has been asking for help or just getting started, but I have also realized that I need to set more realistic goals for myself and not try to perfect everything.  I also need to not put things off because when I set my mind to do something that I know I can do, I can do it pretty well.  My plan as I transition into grade 10 is to set realistic goals and timelines for myself so I dont get overwhelmed and frustrated.  That along side an LAC block that I have next year is how i plan to progress as an effective PLP student.