tPol-End of Year Review of My Work

This blog post is for my TPOL – transitional presentation of learning.  We have finally reached the end of grade 8, and the driving question I have to answer in my presentation is “Why do you feel you are ready to advance to the next grade level?”

Thinking about this question, I know I am definitely ready for grade 9, and Iooking back at this portfolio of learning I am amazed at how much I have grown this year, and the things I have learnt.  At the beginning of the year, I was shy and quite uncomfortable walking around a larger school than I as used to. I didn’t know nearly as much as I do now about utilizing the iPad, or working with the possibilities of technology. Throughout the year, all the different presentations allowed me to dive deep into the topic of worldview. When I had to make a short video about my own worldview, I was scared to even record my own voice, and confused about how I could make it look better. Cut to now where I’ve explored so many topics, and still related them all to worldviews, like how they change, and what they impact.

I have found some things particularly challenging this year, but I am going to start by talking about one of the most interesting projects I did this year, which was the most recent unit of “Colonizing in a Tempest”.  In this unit we learnt about the colonization of New France  while reading Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. This is the first time I have studied Shakespeare, and I really enjoyed it. Making a tableaux performance at the end also provided me with the chance to work in the lighting booth, which was something I’d wanted to try for a while. I think I liked learning about the play so much because it was like reading a book, and then having a discussion about it, which I love to do anyway. The colonization part also sparked my curiosity because it was historical and enjoy learning about people’s life many years ago, seeing how it differs from today. Comparing this final project to my first one on advertising, it’s crazy to see how much knowledge I’ve attained with working in a group and making images. I’m going to Quebec this summer and looking forward to seeing some of the history in real life.

One of the units that I found very interesting but also very challenging was the unit on the Renaissance, and I think this is a good example of how I had to take feedback to develop my ideas.  In this unit we had to study different aspects of the time period and see how it changed people’s worldview. The final project was the difficult part because the task was to make a triptych

(a three paneled picture) on changing ideas, spreading ideas and impacts of ideas. Trying to fit that all in one picture turned out to be more challenging than I thought. In my head I already had a clear idea of what I wanted it to look like, and when the drafts didn’t turn out nicely I became frustrated. In the end I just had to try my best and realize that showing what I had learned didn’t solely depend on this picture. 

Throughout this entire year, I found the project team work very challenging because it is hard to work with a group of people who do things very differently from yourself. When other kids don’t seem to care as much about the work as you do it’s hard to see everybody working well together. I found some teams worked well, such as the religion and medieval units, but in other teams like Destination Imagination, it was very difficult.  

I also found it very hard to present my work to the class, which made me feel very self conscious.  I was proud that I did present my ideas, work and videos to the class on many occasions, and I will continue to work on this next year. 

Looking back I realize this group of people is one I feel really comfortable around. It’s kind of weird because I still get nervous presenting but I always have fun with my class and I feel like we all know each other really well, which makes everything more enjoyable. When we reached the final project of Shakespeare, it was the biggest chance we’d had to work all together on one thing.  Everyone was excited to show what we had worked hard on and we all made each other excited with our goofiness. 

Going back to Maker class, my favourite unit of the whole year was Star Wars. I liked how there was a general direction and then I could persue a topic I was curious about. In this

second part of the year, I liked the Launch Cycle-sport-making-unit the most. It was short enough for me to not get bored with the topic but long enough that my group created a sport that was thought through. The challenging part of the year was certainly, 100% Destination Imagination.

 

In my science and math classes this year, I had great fun delving into loads of different topics. The one that sticks out for me is the unit on cells. Biology has always interested me, and learning more about the different parts and functions of cells helped me understand just how complex organisms are. The challenging unit that I remember clearly was the one in which my group took a section of the classroom door and used 3D shapes to make it fives times larger. It was difficult in the way that it involved thinking outside the box about shapes, and effective teamwork.

This year was a crazy ride, one way more jam packed than I ever thought it would be. My head is brimming with knowledge that I learned in all my classes. All the work I did this year allowes me to look back and realize that I put so much effort into everything. There’s still some things I want to become better at in the next year, but each day I learned more and more, up until today where I am excited to see what is coming next. That makes me happy to say I’ve made it through the year despite the challenges, and with all the happy times.  Thank you to my teachers for pushing me, thank you to my friends for laughing with me, thank you to my family for helping me, and thank you for reading.