This series of blog posts is my Student Led Conference. A student led conference is a meeting, of sorts, between the student, the parents, and the teacher. The student presents some sort of portfolio or learning log that communicates and reflects their learning experiences.

In that, I will present to you four blog posts:

Humanities Overview

Science Overview

Overall Portfolio Reflection

My Goals for the Future

In the humanities and science sections, I will be sharing my accomplishments, and also how I think I’m doing. My portfolio reflection talks about my achievements and challenges as a learner during the first half of the year. And finally, I will tell you a few goals that I’ve set out for myself, so that I can continue to grow and improve.

During our term 1 in humanities, we created a few different projects, but the one I was most proud of was my Seattle video. On our trip to Seattle, we worked very hard to collect footage for our unit projects, based on the slogan: “Cray Cray Yay Yay”. We worked in groups to create short documentary movies, on the App iMovie, based on certain topics; my group focused on how the idea of MTV was “crazy”!
For me, it was well thought out and portrayed, and I expressed my knowledge of MTV in the movie.

Click below to check out my MTV blog post:

MTV Changed The World? Yeah Right

From this project, I learned a lot of cool information that I will keep with me for a long time. A lot of what we researched is part of our history that, for me, is as important as anything historical. For next time, I think that we should incorporate more interesting footage, and a bit less dialogue to make the movie more gripping.

Overall in humanities, I am eager to learn new things, I am engaged in class, and I partake in the interesting activities that we do. An example of this is when we were reading the book, “Leviathan”, and we worked in groups to discuss the book, after every section we read.

Here is one of my role/discussion sheets:

But I also have some weaknesses when it comes to my learning in humanities class; I can get bored or off task if the topic we are studying is uninteresting for me. This can happen if we aren’t doing any discussions or any activities to go along with the work, to keep me “excited for what we are going to be doing next class”. This can also be a solution, and may help me to engage in topics that I am having trouble focussing in.

Science has been quite a successful class for me in term 1. I have worked hard to produce high quality work, and I am most proud of my Genetic Mutations project. This was our first big project in the class, and I decided to present it as a giant pamphlet. I was not yet fully comfortable with using my iPad as a way to create a project, and because of this I chose to portray to information the way I did. I did all the research on my genetic mutation (Galactosemia), then I put it into a pages document and shaped it into a first draft. I then edited it to make a second draft, and finally put the third and final copy onto the poster.

Here is a picture of my Genetic Mutations project:

I learned a great deal of important information during this unit, that I could potentially use in my future. If I could redo the whole project I would definitely try and do it on my iPad, so I could come to grips with the “new device”, as we did this project at the beginning of the year, and put myself outside of my comfort zone. But other than that, I don’t think I would change anything else — The final product was a great achievement for me, that I am really proud of.

Overall in science, I am a very good listener in class, not only to my teacher, but also to my classmates and their thoughts and opinions in class. But I tend to be a bit quiet in science, and I tend to not include myself in class discussions, at times. As a result of this, I can sometimes become distracted from the work we are doing, and get off topic. One of my main academic goals in this class, that could help me overcome some of my weaknesses, is to include myself in the class activities, discussions etc.

For the first half of the year, I believe that I have constructed high quality work, that I have put a lot of effort into. I have good work ethics and I am a productive learner.
I am a good listener, whether I’m with my teacher, my peers, or my classmates, and I take other people’s opinions and ideas into consideration when I’m learning. An example of this is when we were working in groups and acting out a skit about a group of people called the Luddites, I listened to everyones ideas and thoughts about what we should do, and we ended up with a skit that we were proud of.

Below is part of the work that we were asked to complete as a group, as part of the activity:

Sometimes, I procrastinate on work that can be important to my learning. For example, when we were assigned to read a certain amount of chapters from the book, “Into Thin Air”, I sometimes waited until the last day to read them, and I was unable to finish the required reading. Also I can get very stressed if I am assigned any work that I might not understand. This can affect my learning because if I don’t understand, then I am unable to complete the work correctly. In order to fix this I should ask more questions, to my teachers or classmates, that could help me with difficult work. And I need to prioritize my time to give myself enough time to complete work assignments and or study for quizzes and tests.

In class, I like to work with others, in groups, because different people have different thoughts that I maybe don’t have. I find it interesting to see what others have to say about something that I have different opinions on. I usually work well with others, and it is relatively easy to get our work done and handed in on the deadline.

For the first half of this year I have already felt myself becoming a more mature and efficient learner. I have made good choices. I used my time wisely so that I could study and do my work, I was at all the classes I could be at, and I have made friendships with my classmates so that we can work well and easily together. I believe that these all affect my learning in a positive manner, this is some evidence of how I have grown as an individual learner!

Through the first half of the school year, there have been times where I have noticed that I could be doing a better job at something, or there is an area in my learning that I need to improve. Setting goals for myself is a big part of my learning; a way that I can help myself become a more successful student.

My first goal is for my humanities course: I would like to be able to confidently work harder at becoming a leader, whether it’s as a class group, in small groups, or individually taking charge of my own learning, better. This goal can affect my learning by giving me the chance to be the “comfortable-with-being-a-leader” person in a group, that I am striving to become.

The second goal that I am going to be discussing is for my science course. “I would like to be able to interact, share my thoughts and ideas, and ask more questions in class”. This can affect my learning by giving me the drive to ask more direct and complex questions in the classroom; whether I’m talking to my teacher, peers, or classmates. Because, as I stated in my science post, I find that I am quite a quite person in science. I can achieve this by not being afraid to speak up for myself and give myself the opportunity to get the answers to work or assignments that might not be clear to me.

This next goal is more of a personal development type. I would really like to improve my time management skills; to give myself time for studying, but also leave time for my extra-curricular activities. I feel like sometimes I get really stressed with everything going on with school, sports, family, and I think that if I developed better time management skills, it would make everything a lot easier to deal with. For example I could give myself an hour a day without my phone to focus on school/home work. Overall, this goal can help improve myself and my learning because I will have had time to finish homework/schoolwork .