This year PLP, has been crazy, in that I mean a fun filled adventure. I’m not sure how much I have expressed this already, but I am so honoured to be in the PLP program. Outside of PLP would you be able to get pizza money from your teacher if she said the word blog. No but seriously I am quite lucky to be in PLP, what did you think I was going to say something we haven’t got pizza yet. Okay lets get right in to the post, not a pizza rant.

First off I want to talk what I am most proud about when it comes to PLP. A good class room example of this would be the poem unit we just started. Truthfully, when we came in to the unit I though it would be very easy, but fun at the same time. Of course I was proven wrong, I had no idea of how many types of poems there were out there. Also, I have learned that there are many different types of words that describe how a poem sounds looks and feels. In any other class would you learn the word onomatopoeia, I don’t think so. Well at least, we don’t have to make a poem about poems because rhyming a word with onomatopoeic would not be so easy. To get right down to the point I think that all of the work I have handed in for this unit so far has been my best work, and will keep being my best work.

Next lets talk about a good example from our field study. As you might know I really enjoyed our trip to Oregon, and all the exciting experiences we had there. One example that came to mind was our Oregon iBook. I think that that was one of the first times my time management skills really stood out, this was one of the qualities that I was proud of. Another quality I am proud of is how the colour scheme made my book look like a journal, and how the writing really popped from the page.

Finally,I would like to point out something I am proud of from Destination Imagination. Some of you might say there wasn’t a lot I could be proud of especially after the catastrophe of our balsa wood structures, but I disagree. I think it takes a lot of courage and resilience to not only stand there for forty five minutes hacking away both of the structures that took you over ten hours to make, but also to present our story to the appraisers knowing that even if you do your best you won’t come in first, or second, or third for that matter. I know that those are the qualities I am most proud about not because they were the best I did, but because of how I felt after completing them.

Since the start of the year I have done one thing to the extreme, that one thing is learning. With every new unit or even project I have learned one new fact, formula, and/or skill. Sometimes I wonder if I will learn more in this year than I have learned in the past few years. First off, if I was going to say a place that I learned the most this year it would be in the PLP room, but giving a exact example is a little bit harder. I think if I were to give an example it would be writing on an iPad. Now since this is a fairly broad subject I’ll explain it a little more. first of I think that from the beginning of the year till now I have improved a lot on my free hand writing speed and capability. At the very beginning of the year it was hard for me to write a simple paragraph, two hundred and fifty words. Now I am able to write five hundred to a thousand words in a couple of hours. I think that this quality will definitely help me later in life when I have to write big long essays.

Another good example of my learning would be in Oregon. When I was there I learned one valuable lesson, to pay attention. Now I am not saying I was originally bad at paying attention, just how important it is to do it. One way I learned this trait was when my teachers would hint that we needed to put a certain picture, video, or audio clip in to our iBook. Its never good to realize later that you don’t have something and have to ask around to see if any one is willing to air drop you it.

Since Destination Imagination just happened I might as well add some things have learned from that too. The first thing I learned from DI was to always read the rules or directions carefully. You see if I did this we wouldn’t have made the mistake of thinking that there was different requirements for our balsa wood structure. This trait will also be helpful later in life, one obvious way to show this is cooking. If you don’t read the recipe carefully you might end up butchering the food, if you know what I mean.

Finally lets talk about growth mindset, since it has been a key topic in my earlier blogs. I know that growth mindset has helped me better my understanding of how I think, and even learn. Sometimes I think that it is one of the most important facts I will learn and study this year in PLP. One way I have exhibited this is through math, in our first unit. When we were studying earthquakes and volcanoes, we were assigned a project to build a earthquake resistant building in Minecraft. One interesting aspect of this project was that our structure had to be based on an architectural style, new or old. We experienced a problem when our world in Minecraft would not open up, thus forcing us to create a new world. Luckily we were so far ahead of the other groups that we didn’t have to much trouble to find time to make a new structure. In the end I realized that since I was using growth mindset I was able to restart without being sympathetic, and use the mistakes we made in the last project to improve our new one.

Next lets talk about how I have exhibited a growth mindset in our Oregon field study. During our field study we did many activities that provoked my growth mindset, but one of the most obvious ones was, our trip to the Hatfield Marine Science Center, and the R.O.V. Challenge. I think that this was one of the most creative parts of the trip for me. One reason why I think I exhibited growth mindset was that the challenge opened up a new way of thinking. It lead me to being able to work on projects that require a step by step almost coding style of thinking.

Finally lets talk about how growth mindset influenced my thinking when it comes to Destination Imagination. First I would like to enlighten you one one of the main factors when it comes to growth mindset. A growth mindset allows you to learn from your mistakes or in other words ” failure is the key to success”. When it comes to DI we technically failed, but since I have a growth mindset I am able to learn from my mistakes, so next time we will be able do better. In retrospect this year has been a learning adventure and hopefully you understand what I am talking, and you understand what I learned, what I am proud of, and what I have used my growth mindset for this year.