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.
During this Tpol I will be reflecting on my grade 11 school year. This will of course include my strengths, weaknesses, and areas of improvement moving forward, but will also answer this Tpol driving question which is
“How can you showcase evidence to demonstrate that PLP
Success Behaviours have prepared you to advance to the next grade?”
I will be answering this question at the end of my Tpol, but first I would like to address some basic year-end observations.
PLP 11
The projects this year all felt huge and in my opinion were very well thought out as I felt challenged and engaged with all of them.
By far the best part of the year has been learning about the nuclear bomb and the Cold War, in two different projects. I thought I knew a lot about these topics beforehand, but it was surprising how much I learned content-wise. Of course I have to mention the field study to Arizona and Las Vegas, which made the projects so much better and also provided me with an experience I really enjoyed and that I know will stay with me.
Though I feel my effort on each project was pretty even, the work I did for the exhibition and the First Peoples public showcase was my best work.
Of course I did make this with Sepaus so it was 50-50 effort, however in my opinion we both kind of effortlessly had some pretty great ideas. The only real difficulty was connecting Residential Schools to the Vietnam War but our collective brainstorming efforts allowed us to branch two seemingly unrelated topics through one point, that being colonialism.
This was to my knowledge the first time Sepaus and I had directly collaborated on a project and I was surprised it came out so well. In previous years I’ve purposely distanced myself from my friends during projects to focus better, but maybe I should reconsider after this experience.
I felt my greatest failure this year was the Great Debaters project. It was a lot of misused preparation time just to give a below-average performance. It should have been a project I really enjoyed doing but I ended up dissatisfied with my grade and with my personal performance.
A quote from my blog sums it up well:
“I didn’t like it, but I was glad it was at least over.”
Regarding grades, am I where I want to be?
If we just consider my marks the last several months, then yes. My most recent grade in Humanities is a proficient 🌈. The most important feedback I have received thus far encourages me to take leadership roles in group projects and make my opinions known more in class discussions.
I feel as if the quality of my answers and contributions in class have improved and I can speak my mind more eloquently, although the whole element of voluntary participation sometimes lets me take the easy way out, as I’ll mention in my success behaviours.
Success Behaviours
In reflection, I would specifically like to focus on the Agency, Engagement, and Communication and Collaboration behaviours.
Agency I feel is especially important this year. It was a goal of mine at the beginning of the year to become more self-accountable, and aside from one or two bad slip-ups I feel I have accomplished this. Of course, as with everything in life there is always room for improvement but for now I’m good.
My evidence of learning for this behaviour would honestly just be the fact that I handed in the vast majority of my work on time. My only mistake was being negligent of some First Peoples assignments and as a result my grade for that class was not what I wanted. However, this is a fail I can definitely learn from.
Engagement was better. I felt much more awake and attentive in class, especially in the second semester. This came as a pleasant surprise as I stopped taking my ADHD medication over spring break, and as it became easier to focus in school my anxiety levels went way down. It was a great turn of events.
But as for the class participation aspect of engagement I found myself unintentionally not engaging. The whole voluntary aspect was a big motivator and it has been for some time. I was able to retain the information being taught, but I did not and I honestly still don’t really feel the need to speak up unless it’s to ask questions.
As for Communication and Collaboration, grade 11 has been interesting as there have been plenty of group projects. In previous Tpols I would typically refrain from going into these projects too much, as I felt focusing on group projects could be an easy way to take credit that belongs to others and pass it off as my own. \
However, I have observed myself becoming more accountable and responsible within group work, particularly with the Manhattan Project Project and the Who cares Why Bother Project. I was affirmed of this after the latter project concluded, with Ms. Madsen encouraging me me to show more agency in the functioning of a group. I am satisfied with this feedback, as it gives me something solid to build off of for the future.
Conclusion
“How can you showcase evidence to demonstrate that PLP
Success Behaviours have prepared you to advance to the next grade?”
I don’t think I follow the success behaviours very closely aside from two times a year. I know this is bad to say but I have operated in PLP for 4 years without a solid management system. Maybe that will be my goal for next year or even over the summer.
Anyways, what proves I can advance to the next grade level?
This year I have learned a lot and I have come to understand my priorities. Specifically, I have learned to value my personal standards over the standards of the class or grade, and I have come to be satisfied with not being perfect. As I mentioned earlier the best advice I received last year was that I cannot put 100% of myself into everything. Therefore, the answer is to find the healthy medium and work towards perfecting that.
Thank you and I’ll now take any feedback, questions, or other responses.