Feb
2017
Time for an SLC!
So I am currently about 6 months into my first year of PLP. It’s quite different from regular school, definitely in a good way though. PLP doesn’t let me just fake my way through and learn about as much as I need to for the grade I want, but it instead makes me so much much more responsible for my learning and also makes me want to learn and take an interest in what I’m learning.
So far this year I’m probably most proud of the News Video that Nolan, Maria, Marley and I created on the Halifax explosion. I enjoyed making it, and felt I learned lots about what happened on that day. Along with that, I thought the blog post that went along with it was pretty good, as I felt I incorporated more of my own voice than I usually do, which is something I want to work on in the upcoming months.
Throughout this year I feel I have grown as a learner. I haven’t only learned many new things, mainly about the wars, but I’ve also learned how to learn and present this. For my first blog post I focused on Sir Wilfrid Laurier and whether or not his habit of compromising were beneficial to him. I decided to make an explain everything to answer my question. This was not my best work, but I guess that’s to be expected as I was new to the program. But looking at the blog post now I am kinda cringing at it.
Since then I have kind of improved at blog posts, though I’ll admit they still need some work. As you can see in my blog post about The Dust Bowl, or the drought during the Great Depression I have improved at presenting my learning.
One important thing I think I have improved at this year is trying to get people to do things. Currently in PLP we are working on a class video project and one of my roles in the production is to be in charge of budget. I had to find out estimates on how much different departments would need, and then calculate how much We’d need from everybody. I then had to make sure people were okay with giving $5 and then I started collecting. It took a little while to get most of the money and also a lot of urging. Many people who had originally agreed to pay, decided that it was unfair and didn’t want to give any money. But after I talked to them and reminded them that they’d originally agreed, and it wasn’t fair to the rest of the class to back out now, I eventually got almost all of the money. This is an example how I’ve improved my skills, as, at the beginning I never would have felt comfortable asking everybody for money.
Along with that, during the Hanford project I really had to get on my group to do work sometimes, and motivate them to work on the video. Even yesterday (02.27.17) I finally got Anatolia to upload the Hanford Video project because I reminded her that despite losing the video on her laptop, she still had it on Showbie, and even if it wasn’t the most recent version it was still better than nothing. This shows my problem solving skills well.
These two experiences have really expanded my comfort zone and helped me feel more comfortable to speak up when needed.
Throughout the rest of the year there are a few things I’m hoping to improve on though. I feel like my blog posts can be boring and lack personality so I’ve started trying to make them reflect who I am more than they currently do. I’m also going to try to procrastinate less, because I’ll admit that I often do things the night before (ex. It’s currently 10:18 pm, the night before my SLC as I write this sentence.) I hope that I improve on starting my assignments much earlier, which will hopefully keep the final product seem less rushed, and also keep me from being as stressed about completing it. My final goal (although I have a few more goals in my head) is to create more blog posts than are assigned. I feel this will elevate my blog to a higher level than it’s currently at.
Hopefully throughout the rest of the year my blog will improve so if you’re a reader of my blog (let’s be real, nobody is) be prepared for more posts which will hopefully be more interesting and creative!