“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.”
It comes as a shock that this will be the last Mpol I ever write. I feel old. But with my new tenor comes wisdom. I have done 2 Mpols before this and learned a lot from every one of them. I am excited to show you how much I’ve grown through this first semester of PLP 12 and highlight my favourite projects, things to keep working on and the next steps for my learning. One of the major differences between this Mpol and the others I have done is the positivity I have felt this year and I plan to carry this energy throughout the rest of my education. With that said, let’s commence.
This semester I have demonstrated a lot of growth in my learning and use of habits. This has resulted in the creation of many of my favourite projects I have done. I want to give you a few of my favourite examples. The first project we did was with ms. Maddson focuses on dystopia. In this project, I was determined to do everything I could to set off on the right foot. To do this I made sure to work on the habit of using things to stay organized. By creating a habit of using things I was able to easily stay on top of my work. Combining organization with the motivation I have felt this whole year to succeed meant that I was able to create my favourite individual PLP video. This video focused on how technology was being used to slowly turn China into a modern-day 1984 world. I was very proud of the production quality of my video and I credit this mostly to the fact that I didn’t procrastinate and spent more time than normal editing, and importantly thinking about what I was doing. To prepare for this video we learned about dystopia through our own research and we read 1984. I also had just read Brave new world at the end of the summer. This helped my understanding of dystopia become extending and that could be seen in my mini-documentary. Both the execution and content of this video are why it is a piece of work I am most proud of this year.
Another example of my growth as a learner is in my Careers 12 class. In Careers 10 I got a 62%. The worst mark I have ever had. I mentioned in my blog post how the class being online was a major factor in why I performed so poorly. Although the truth is that I didn’t feel like what I was learning was useful at all. Careers 12 was completely different and was one of my favourite classes. The guest speakers we had were especially impactful because of the insight they gave me into the world of university or business. On top of that our final project was successful and let me demonstrate my problem-solving skills. The main piece of my artifact hadn’t worked for my final project. Luckily I had left myself with enough time to change plans. Instead, I shifted the focus of my presentation to my animated video, which was originally meant to complement the artifact I was creating. To replace my artifact I used what I could and still was able to complete the metaphor I wanted.
Even though this semester has been so successful for me, there are still so many places to improve on and further grow. One of the less successful projects this year was our horror movie. This was an extremely challenging project to complete because it meant my teamwork with all my peers had to be perfect. Although we still completed the movie I don’t think I can give myself credit for the success. At times I was impatient, useless and unfocused. This held back not only my own learning but also the groups. My biggest problem with my work on this project was actually when I was contributing good ideas. An example of this was the horror scene that Kaden and I planned. After discovering how scary the rope barge was I had this really clear vision of the scene we could create. Instead of taking that vision and sharing it with our directors I felt unmotivated and let them do it themselves. They are both very talented and still created a scary scene. But if I had contributed, I think that we could have captured what was so scary about the barge in a more clear way.
The Spooky Rope Barge
For my next steps in the coming semester, I have a few things I want to focus on. The first is to continue being motivated and organized so that I keep completing my best projects yet. I am going to keep using things and reminding myself why what I’m learning is important. The changes I want to make are with my teamwork and pushing myself. Regarding teamwork, I want to try and be more positive and engaged, even when I am frustrated with our progress. By doing this I hope to help our group solve problems instead of creating more. I’m not sure what kind of habits or skills I can use to achieve this and I would love any advice that you, the reader, might have for me. Please leave a comment. The second thing I will be working on is pushing myself to extend my learning. Thanks to our teachers pushing my learning past what’s expected is easier than it has been in the past. In all our projects we have the opportunity to “flex” our learning. I want to try and complete at least one of these flex opportunities in every project. To do this I am going to use things to set a notification that will bug me. I hope that this will help me extend my learning and give me the knowledge to achieve the grades I want to get this year.
In conclusion, I have never felt so positive about PLP and learning in general. By changing my learning to help me do more flex assignments and trying to find strategies to work better as a team I know I will be able to continue to grow and succeed. I expect to complete some more of the best PLP work I have ever done. Hopefully, calculus is not too brutal and doesn’t fry my brain.
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