There are two driving questions I would like to answer in my MPOL today.

First of all: How have I demonstrated growth as a learner so far this year?

Secondly: How can I sharpen my learning plan to ensure that I reach my learning targets by the end of this school year?

I  showed growth in my communication core competency specifically the communicating aspect of it. I showed this a lot in the working with words poems project where I had to clearly communicate my worldview through poems focusing on a certain literary device. In my Working with Words project, I showed more of my personality and who I am. This is growth for me when I consider feedback from last year and my work on earlier projects which were less personal.

The poem I would like to highlight is the “My Buffoonery”poem. This was an extended metaphor which was new learning for me. I compared my 9 male cousins to orangutans and yet the end of the poem shows how much I care about them.  Another communicating success in this project was the fact that I chose to do an iMovie trailer to introduce myself and the project. I was able to show photos in a fun upbeat way and to give the audience a feel for what my poems would be about. 

Another growth in my communication competency, was in my last scimatics project with showing the different type of bonds though a keynote animation. Using the app to animate in Keynote was challenging but I grew in my knowledge about Keynote animations so I could clearly tell the story about the scientific concept. On the other side of the communication core competency is the collaborating part. I showed this skill with the revolutions on trial by gathering evidence and writing a script with my group. Last year I would not have voiced my ideas as much but this year the Nation X project helped me voice my ideas in order to made a functional society right away. I believe this made it more comfortable for me with my Trial project. I got a good idea about what a functional society wasn’t and that helped me have ideas about what I wanted to say for the Trial. 

The trial project is also a good example of my growth in critical and reflective thinking. Our group didn’t make a strong argument at first and so we revised it multiple times. We even discussed our ideas after school and during lunch with the other team so that we could improve our whole trial. 

In my scimatics project about exponent laws I showed the creative thinking part of the thinking core competency.  I built on my partners’ ideas to make a board game that creatively and correctly showed most of the exponent laws. I enjoyed creating the Exponent Apocalypse. 

The second driving question: How can I sharpen my learning plan to ensure that I reach my learning targets by the end of this school year?

I set profile three for where I want to be for communicating competencies by the end of the year. But reflecting on the Nation X, Working with Words,  the mock trial and the Keynote animation, I think I need to sharpen my learning plan and work towards profile 5. I believe I have achieved profile there and am profile four. One of the challenges I face is confidently communicating with my teachers and communicating more of my personality. I haven’t established a weekly check with the teachers yet which i had written in my learning plan so I will be trying to do that in the next part of the year.

For personal/social competencies, I am working towards profile four where I can recognize my strengths and take responsibility for using strategies to focus, manage stress, and accomplish my goals. I use the THINGS app and my timer and go to LAC in order to focus and manage my time and goals. To manage my stress I exercise, and go to bed on time as much as a night owl can. If school was later in the day like 8 pm my stress level would go down. That is just a suggestion. The main challenge to this area is my anxiety which completely blocks my thinking and strategizing.  

I definitely need to work on being more patient with myself and be more confident with my work I need to be more patient knowing that I might not get it on the first try and that is ok because failing is fine. I don’t make every lay up in basketball or every serve in volleyball and I don’t make that big of a deal of it. I need to think of my learning in that mindset.

 I do go to LAC every morning but I do need to get better at asking for help in class.  I try my best focus on my assignments but I’ve been realizing in my past few projects that I lose focus a lot I need to take more breaks especially in scimatics were we work on the same thing for over an hour I need to get up take a break walk around. 

Overall I feel proud of my growth this half of the year and know that I can make adjustments to my strategies to accomplish my goals before June.