“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.”
I am a pretty extroverted person in and out of class. I like asking questions when curiosity takes over; sometimes to the point where it might be unnecessary. If I took something away more than anything this year, it’s a revitalized understanding of how to “research”.
Throughout this year I had a change in mentality regarding interviews and getting external input but only now do I realize the ease and utility of doing so. During the first half of the year, apart from asking my project teacher need to knows, I never reached out and tried to get other expert opinions on subjects.
I really want to highlight the second half of this year which I feel where I made the most growth in. This semester, PLP 11 have participated in 2 projects, “stories of hope” and “school, what is it good for” so let’s compare what what could’ve been improved and what I took away.
Stories of hope, to be very blunt, was not my best work. From a combination of indecisiveness to a disinterest in the topic, I feel that if I redid this project, many things could be improved. Here was my original plan: https://www.craft.do/s/7MC0bX3Gyt1QAL
Now a look at my revised plan a few days after the original and notice the almost complete change in all the case studies:
https://www.craft.do/s/XfBhUzd1oS7CBV
This is definitely an example of something I will work to revise in the future.
However, despite all the “things to I could improve” in this project there is one thing I can say I really learnt to emphasize and just like the title of this post, it is all about “external” initiatives. One key requirement of the stories of hope project was to include interviews and as much “original footage” as possible. Since I was not attending the field study, I would be in charge of finding my own expert and squire my own recordings with them. Originally, I had almost none as I was finding all my sources online and it was only until Mrs. Willemse (project teacher) told me I was not on track, that I went out and decided to interview the owner of a music school I use to attend in Brunei. She was really helpful in providing insight to my learning and I really wanted to take this willingness to reach out in my next project.
I want to almost say that this “education” project was the best product I have ever created in PLP. This is greatly due to my willingness to participate in these “external initiatives”; which would better develop my understandings. I interviewed North Vancouver’s school district, District Principal, Greg Hockley as part of my content piece and I think this is where things really took off.
Objectively, I feel that this project had an amazing content side and my answer to the driving question was maybe even the most developed in my class. I feel that my product had a very clear rationale and thought process as to why it would work and specifically how it would “create better engaged, informed citizens” in regards to democracy. Many of my peers took this question more creatively or personally but because of the interviews I had conducted, I had built a very solid foundation and understanding of “the purpose of schools” and “the role of democracy in society”.
Finally, I also had the principal of my school, Sarah Best, check and sign off on my project. This was really amazing to be able to have the confidence to say that even my administration approves of the content. Here is the final picture of my charter of freedoms.
