Month: June 2023

Finances and the Spring Exhibition!

faiths Uncategorized

In this post, I will be reflecting on my last PGP project and our spring exhibition!

This PGP project was all about our financial future!!! We started off playing a Uber simulator to get an understanding of gig work. I would never consider being an Uber driver myself and this simulator didn’t change my mind, it was long hours and didn’t seem like a lot of money.
Then we went into personal budgets. We started with creating a craft document stating all my personal fixed and variable expenses in a month. Taking this information we added how much we should be spending on it versus how much we spend. This made me realize that I need to buy fewer fries in the cafeteria but that other than that I’m not spending too much.
That was the starting point in learning about financial literacy. Having financial literacy means that you can make smart and informed money decisions in your life. In class, we then talked about the five pillars of financial literacy
1. Earning
2. Spending
3. Saving and investing
4. Borrowing
5. Protecting
After defining everything we watched the movie “Moneyball” to see these skills in action.

This brings us to my favourite part of this project the stock simulator. The point of the stock simulator was to deepen our understanding of investing and understanding how it could fit into the real world.
Using an app on our iPad we all got $13,000 fake money in a real-world simulator. At that point, we had to decide what type of investing we wanted to do. We could invest ethically or profit based or in anything we recognized. I found myself researching multiple ethical companies that ended up being about 50% of what I invested in. The other half were companies I recognized (like Apple and Google). One smart investment that I was happy with was Apple I bought it when it wasn’t super high and then only sold it when it got super high during the Apple event. Here you can view all my week-by-week reflections.

This brings us to the exhibition part of my blog post! This year the exhibition for my grade included this finances project, the last marketing me project, and the podcast I made in Maker. This is a lot of stuff but I think our room incorporated it all very well, our main idea was that our room would look like an office where we could each display our podcasts and who we were on business cards while also showing examples of our stock simulators.

I liked how my podcast business card turned out. I did multiple drafts and got feedback from a lot of people and in the end, liked the look of what I created. I was also impressed by how well my class got our room ready for the exhibition. We had a lot of problems at the beginning like how we didn’t have any tables and all of our plans needed tables but as a class, we figured it out and created an impressive office.

 

This was a good introduction to the world of finances, marketing, and stocks (I should never invest real money I would lose it all) and I loved showing what I learned at the spring exhibition.

tPOL 2023

faiths PLP, TPol

-Introductions of parents and teacher

“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”

In this presentation my goal is to answer the driving question: “Why do you feel you are ready to advance to the next grade level?” In order to answer that question, I’d like to direct your attention to my learning plan.

 Let’s start by looking at the core competency profiles that I wanted to be at by June 2023.

The ones I have check marked are the ones I feel like I have met throughout projects this year. The underlined ones are the profiles I don’t believe I have fully developed yet and will set them as a goal for next year. 

In my last tPOL, l I went into detail about how I demonstrated these areas of core competencies as I shared what I loved and where I grew. This year, I would really like to share about my growth plan for each subject area and at the same time reflect on my learning profiles. Let’s look at the humanities section of my learning plan to see if I have met my goals for growth.

At the beginning of the year one of my humanities goals was that I would like to improve in my sentence structure. In order to grow in this area needed to be more comfortable asking for help.

– I want to highlight two projects that show you how I focused on getting better at grammar: the Juno beach project and the Lies and Incongruences project. 

– Peer edit formal and informal: Ms. Madsen asked us to create a first draft of our composition and share it with some peers. What I liked about this form of peer feedback is that our class knew what we needed to look for, and physically wrote on the draft. I really loved how I could choose WHO I sent my draft to for feedback. 

– Interesting about this process, when looking over other’s work I found myself finding mistakes more easily than in mine and it gave me practice.

– Setting goal to improve my sentence structure is one reason why I believe I am at a profile 5 for Personal awareness and responsibility.  I knew this was a weak area for me and knowing that I figured out tools to use to improve my achievement.

Another goal for humanities was to improve my blog posts. I wanted to do this through adding more personality, and thought into my work.

– My work this year shows growth into adding thoughtfulness so I would like to draw your attention to specific choices that I made that show personality:

 

– Romeo and Juliet blog post In that opening, I felt I made fun of my actual dread of homework in a creative way. My lines parodied lines Juliet speaks to herself.

– Another way that I took action to my growth goal was in changing the name of my blogpost from “Faith’s blog” (not the most interesting name. Is it better than my brother’s? “Ma blog”… I think so) “Thoughts of a Scheewe”. This change was not big but it’s a start. And definitely beats Sam’s.

– Finally, my “About me” update forced me to really think about choices that really showed me. I mention my skills in sarcasm, have pictures that reflect me now, and feature a cool photography workshop I did.

– making intentional choices about adding personality to my blog posts is part of how I improved in communicating. Adding personality shows awareness of audience.

Maker 

In Maker, one of my goals was fine-tuning my time management skills. Looking over year, I barely had to ask for extensions for any assignments this last semester because I found my self planning out when I would do my work and having what I needed prepared (notes ready so that scribing easier).

– A specific example of excellent time management was my podcast. I’m proud of my release schedule which was detailed. What I needed to do would pop up on my Things app. Part way through, I realized later that I needed more time to write my script and less time to record so I changed my plan accordingly. 

 

 

– My pod cast is a good example of the confidence I believe I show in communicating in different ways to different audiences. It also shows my profile in critical and reflective thinking. I had my topic of “Fun solutions to stress” and I had to gather evidence, including interview, and decided what best fit what I wanted to say. I also had to think about what was working and what was not such as using a microphone and choosing a variety of people to interview.

A second growth goal was to want to improve in teamwork. I can get really stressed and annoyed at teammates and I need to improve on my patience when working in a team.

– In the first semester, The Komagato maru project gave me an opportunity to improve in collaboration. I decided to trust my teammates with their roles and I focused more on what I needed to do. 

– Something that has had an impact on team work skills was the Field school to Disney world. This trip made me more comfortable around my classmates which I notice has really helped me now.

– Overall, I can confidently work with my peers to further our shared goals whether it is a “It’s Porg!!!” Tik tok video or a monument.

 

PGP 

In PGP I had three growth goals but I would like to highlight my anxiety. This year I want to grow in taking care of my anxiety. I want to learn and implement new strategies that will help me be less anxious about handing work in on time and the quality of what I can communicate in a project.

– I think my anxiety has gotten better. First of all, I utilize Things app for everything, even personal tasks. This has relieved pressure on my working memory where I was always worried that I was forgetting something. 

– Another strategy I use actually comes from Atomic Habits. It talked about having a reward for motivation for tasks that are difficult. I found myself setting goals like a specific time to hang out with friends if I got certain parts of my homework completed. I think having more social time has also helped me be less anxious in school.

– Speaking of Atomic Habits, in my blog post I said I would try unplugging. I would put my VR head set out of sight so that I would not play it so much. I really enjoy it, but needed to find other ways to relax. I have consistently put it in a cupboard where I can’t see it. Instead, I now listen to music or hit a volley ball against the wall. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I played it!! These choices have helped lower my anxiety.

In the last section of my tPol I want to highlight some major successes for me this year and also recognize some FAILS.

While it was challenging, perhaps one of my projects I am most proud of is my collage. I felt like I used the app really well to portray what I had learned and what I wanted to say. This project is one example of how I showed social awareness and responsibility as I explored Indigenous issues and then made a collage that helps raise awareness.

While I do not think I reached a profile 5 for creative thinking in all my work, I do know that I showed that out of the box thinking in my collage and want to build on that success for next year. 

F.A.I.L.

One FAIL that I need to mention is the Power of Imagination final video. We did not have a detailed enough plan before the trip or a full storyline. This meant that our video was not at a level that I wanted to see. I felt that we needed to work better together with the editing at the end as well to help our storyline come through.

Another FAIL that applies to all my PLP subjects and pretty much all aspects of my life is one part of communication. In my growth plan, I identified that to stretch out of my comfort zone I will need to communicate more in class. 

– The good news? I can now approach PLP teachers will a little less fear in a one on one situation. I volunteered twice to read roles for Romeo and Juliet.

– The other news? The entirety of the text analysis discussion. I sat frozen in silence and avoided eye contact for 45 min. 

– This is my nemesis. I am taking suggestions and am open to advice.

Overall I am feeling really good about how I have grown. I am able to set and meet goals, communicate in different forms to different audiences, work more confidently with more classmates, and produce work I am really proud of creating. This I setting a goal for accomplished in all my classes and then changed it to extending for Humanities. Next year? I want to aim for extending because I know I can do it.

Lies and Incongruences

faiths Uncategorized

How can art and text reflect both the history and our current place in time? That was the driving question for my last humanities project of grade 10. We combined the idea that art is not just something to look at because it’s something you can engage with to learn about and the historical/present day relationship with the Canadian government and Indigenous Peoples. 

To start we each created an I am from poem to start thinking about our relationship with the world around us. Here is mine:

I Am From Poem 

I am from beautiful places 

I am from clear blue skies And cloudy rainy days 

From both the flat prairies and the tall mountains

The smells of farmland and pine tress

The peaceful quiet acreage 

The busy city roads 

I am from a jumbled crazy and large family 

Siblings always shouting, throwing, showing our insanity 

A brother whose teasing humour I know well 

A sister who is off on her own adventures farewell

Another who is with me everyday 

Parents who’s safety I can never repay 

I am from the back and forth sways of a boat on the waves

The speed, Chaos, adventure I crave 

The peaceful rest with barbecue smells 

Diving into the deep collecting shells 

Rapidly Skimming across the water

Crashing down into the sea now swimming like an otter 

I am from big family Christmases 

fondues with cheesy sauce and chocolate 

None of us knowing when to stop eating 

I am from the laziness that follows 

groans, huffs, puffs, slow movements 

Excitement, music, we can open only one 

Shapes of our gifts not matching reality 

5 mattresses stuffed into one room 

Dog jumping, sister singing, pillows flying 

No chance of sleep 

I am from Little cousins running all around 

Screaming, kicking, acting like clowns 

Baby laughing, toddlers singing 

I am from overwhelming joy 

I am from many amazing friends

All around the picnic tables Laughing, 

From volleyball circles

To whales named Gary 

I am from Joyful, fun, kindhearted friends  

I am from beautiful places 

I am from A jumbled crazy and large family 

I am from the back and forth sways of a boat on the waves

I am from big family Christmases 

I am from Little cousins running all around 

I am from many amazing friends 

I am from chaos, peace, laughter, and love

I am…

I really liked mine.. Thinking about what makes me Faith Scheewe made me think about where I lived, what I do, and who is in my life. I found that it was fun to write and a good start to this project. We used a website to collaborate on what we already know about Indigenous people and issues that are relevant to them for this project and what we still need to know. While doing this I realized how much general information I had but not very many specific information. 

This brings us to when we started reading our class novel Marrow Thieves, by Cherie Dimaline. While it was set in the future, it reflected on issues shown presently and in the past. For example it referred to residential schools as part of the past and also as something happening again in the book. While reading the book, I would analyze what I was reading and make connections to issues being brought up today. For example we listened to a podcast on the Indian Act and read articles on topics like cultural appropriation and indigenous resurgence. Every couple of chapters we did a reflection. We called this a contribution as we needed to bring those thoughts to class. Sharing those contributions helped to see other peoples points of view. I did a poem, an image, list of questions and drawings. In the end, after we finished the book, we did a quick write reflection for 15 minutes about the connections we saw from the book to the past and to right now. 

The next keystone introduced us to analyzing images and we had to make decisions about what we thought the artists were trying to communicate about Indigenous perspectives. Our teacher would introduce some issues and we would take notes. I am proud of the notes I made from class and from my own research. These prepared me for when it came to writing. The artwork was created by Indigenous Artists. It was a way to express their opinions on important issues like MMIWG and intergenerational trauma. I actually found it hard to keep my responses to 250 words as I had lots of notes. The different styles were really interesting to me such as the beading over top of the Indian Act. Here is a link to the three art pieces I talked about.

After doing so much research, analyzing art, and learning about different perspectives, we went back to our own point of view and thought about if they had shifted from the beginning to now. Our keystone was a short reflection on Truth and Reconciliation. I think I realized that Indigenous issues are current and not just in the past. It is important to understand how much needs to be done.

Finally we got to the final product which was a photo or art collage about one or all of the issues we wrote about for keystone two. There was a lot of flexibility in that’s this could look like I chose to do it digitally on SuperimposeX. I really liked the art I found for my MMIWG reflection so I wanted to include that, and I also wanted to have images from the past and present. It took a while to get a starting idea but with a focus on MMIWG I created a collage I’m proud of. I used historical images and art about residential school that I made black and white to show how Indigenous Peoples were treated in the past. I made the images about the present more colourful and used red to highlight the issues I was focusing on, MMIWG. The red handprint was one part I really love. The app allowed me to place the palm of the hand behind the images while I could put the fingers on top of other images. This feels to me like people reaching out. I also like the feathers from the dream catcher. The dreamcatchers are symbolic for Indigenous people and the feathers fly over the residential school images as well as the artwork and protests to show dreams leached away. From the Marrow Thieves, I chose a quotation about schools leached away dreams. It was not just us looking at art and saying what it is about. We needed to try to understand what the artists were trying to say and then we needed to take our knowledge and made our own art. Art is engaging and helps people represent important topics and express their opinion.