Hi and welcome to my first Mpol blog post in what feels like forever. I can barely remember what I talked about in the Mpol post from grade 9. For this post I have spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to write because I don’t have nearly as many classes to go off of. Now that I’m in grade 11 I no longer do my sciences and maths within the PLP program, so I only have English and social studies. This obviously is taking away some opportunities to reflect on my learning so far this year. Luckily our humanities class has been very eventful with some successful projects and others that crashed and burned (maybe a bit of an exaggeration). With all that said let me take you through my learning journey in the first half of the year.
Interesting to look back at the original Mpol post I made in grade 9, It’s been a long time.
I want to begin this blog post with how I demonstrated growth as a learner so far this year, and maybe where I still need to grow more.
I think the place where I haven’t shown any growth this year is in my learning habits and systems. I really need to find a way to make a change in the way I do my work, specifically the work I have to do outside of school. I know that this is a topic that is often talked about in Mpols and Tpols because many of my piers also struggle with it. This year I have had more of a problem then in the my past years of PLP and I want to highlight why I think that this is happening. The main change from grade 10 to 11 is the difficulty in all the other classes where I have never struggled in the past. I am blessed with my mathematical abilities and I have rarely ever had to study for a test or take my time doing homework in any of my science or math classes. Although I still achieved an excellent grade in physics this year I had to really dig in and study for some of the tests which is not something that I’m used to doing. French class this year was also much harder and my brain felt more “exhausted” overall than in grade 10. Of course PLP is also more demanding. All this increase in how hard I had to think made me feel worn out. This isn’t an excuse to not do well in PLP, but it made starting my work (not procrastinating) feel even harder than years previous. I knew the work I had to do and it was well organized, as I still continue to use the things app as a way to know what I need to get done. Despite things helping me keep track of my school work. I often ended up doing work last minute, poorly or late because I felt so burnt out.
An example of where this kind of burnout happened is in the most recent project I did with ms. Maxwell. In this project despite missing out on the first 3 classes because of COVID 19, I still feel like I learned a ton about analyzing music. I know I could have done some 90+ level work especially for our final 5 song analysis. For this assignment I started out strong by writing a detailed and well thought out analysis of the song “Eye of The Tiger” by Survivor.
My written analysis, I looked at the lyrics of the song through the lens of sports.
As I continued to work through the assignment the quality of each analysis kept getting worse. I had the ideas for what to write, but I didn’t have the motivation to actually put those thoughts on to paper.
Despite the struggles I may be having with my work habits and systems, there were definitely some places that I feel like I demonstrated learning growth this year so let me share with you a few examples.
In our second project of the year, one which by all accounts was not perfect, I feel like I really showed my growth around working as a team. I have always been able to be a leader places were I am comfortable. Wether thats in the sports I do or the subjects I am best at. In this Project I got the chance to help lead the group in a place I’m less comfortable with. When setting up our room I helped organize the efforts of my piers and made decisions quickly (as we had a limited time). Usually I’m keen just to focus on my own setup but I tried to branch out and help my group. I also got to play the part of being a team member in this project. I played a part in almost every aspect of our exhibition room. This all ended with a successful exhibition despite Ms. Willemse being very worried that it would never come together.
Another aspect where I’ve showed growth in my learning is how I’m trying to be more creative. I’ve always admired some of my piers for their ability to come up with original ideas. I tried to get better at this throughout the first half of the year. One example is also from the manhattan project. For my art piece I tried to spend more time thinking about it, and less time actually making it. I landed on using light to try and create a metaphor for my conceptual art piece which is a lot more original than some of the other objects I have made in past exhibitions. The second example I want to use is from my song analysis presentation. Although some of the analysis’s may have been less than ideal, I think the kahoot I made to try and keep my piers engaged was both out of the box and effective. I think these examples perfectly demonstrate the growth in my creativity this year.
By making a Kahoot I hoped to engage my piers and also be a little different then just playing snippets of my selected songs.
Now I want to move on to the most important part of this post, at least for me. How do I plan to adjust my learning plan so that I can succeed in the final half of the year. I want to return to the level that I expect myself to be at. Obviously the focus of my changes has to be around my learning habits and systems. I think that I have showed growth in my creativity, teamwork and some of the work I have completed I have been very proud about. Unfortunately this has been outweighed by the work I am handing in last minute or just being straight up lazy about.
in case your not sure what motivation is exactly.
The first thing I need to think about is why I’m lacking the motivation to succeed in my PLP work and the real reason I am feeling so burnout. Starting with the second point first. I think the main reason I am feeling so tired of working, especially on PLP assignments is because they are not my strengths. I love doing math and I am very good at solving complex problems with it. I never really enjoy any homework, but I love the feeling of breaking down a math problem and attacking it from different angles to find the solution. Something about the way my brain works makes this enjoyable and approachable for me. I always feel confident that I can understand anything in science or math I put my mind to. English on the other hand is very different. I find it so much harder to start my English assignments and plan out how I’m going to do them. I always feel like I will have to work so much harder to do well. I feel like I never know where to start, and that feeling makes me never want to start. So I never start until the pressure of the deadline forces me to. Or if I do start sooner I end up getting frustrated of trying to think about what I should write and end up writing short and not well thought out paragraphs. This all makes me feel so tired of doing my English work and that why I feel so burnout.
The thing is though, once I can break through those first 15 minutes where I feel like I just want to give up I get right into the flow of writing. It’s still not easy for me, but after those hard few minutes I feel like I have a plan and I can get the work done and be proud of what I’ve written.
So the question is how can I get the motivation to actually start my work before its due. I think that the perfect way for me to do this is to commit to coming to PLP office hours everyday I don’t have my morning spare. When I’m in the Office hours I feel like im in a great environment to do work, anytime im in the school in fact. By being in the school with my teachers I feel like I can’t be distracted by YouTube, Netflix, or my very comfortable bed. This working environment I hope will let me focus in and start my assignments. Of course I can’t do all my PLP homework in the 45 to 30 minutes before school starts. So another reason I think that committing to going to the office hours is a good idea is because I know that my teachers will be able to see what the quality of the work I’ve done outside of school is. I really do care what people think about me and having to face my teachers head on and not through the Showbie comment section I am hoping will help me do more good quality work at home.
Example of when I will go to office hours next week.
In conclusion, I think that I have demonstrated growth in some areas I have struggled with in the past like my teamwork and creativity. Although I have to work on continuing to build my learning habits and systems so that I can get to the quality of work I want to be creating. Hopefully by changing my learning plan so that I commit to coming to office hours for PLP, it gives me a good learning environment, A routine and something to motivate me to create work I can take pride in.
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