Student lead conferences are not a laughing matter. These where words spoken by a man of great wisdom exactly one year ago. This man also showed an example of work he was most proud of, work that showed his skill to gather and present research, and work that showed a growth mindset.
Today, one year in the future (give or take a week) I will be doing exactly what this wise great man did. Present his SLC’s.
The first example I will be presenting will be the work I am most proud of. The work I’m most proud of would be my Harry Potter Blue Sky project. This project took about a month to complete fully. I am proud of this project because I was able to make a professional looking display despite how challenging the project was. This was a changing project not because it was mentally straining to research (though there was research required!) but because it was physically straining to create. This was because I built each wand specially tailored to each teacher using traditional wood carving techniques and tools given to me by my uncle. Staying on my timeline, documenting my progress and keeping my eye on the fact a display would be required was hard work but it was worth it. I feel proud every time I look at the wand’s I created.
The next project is one that I’m proud of too. I’m proud of it because it demonstrates the skills I learnt relating to research and presentation of knowledge. The project I am talking about is the Splash Mountain documentary I made on our trip to Florida.This documentary demonstrates my improved research and presentation skills because there was a lot of research required, not only for the facts in the documentary but also the film’s sites, history of the ride, etc. It also was a little tricky to edit and dub in music that was reflective of the ride and it’s theme.
My last piece of work shows off my growth mindset. This is reflected in my team’s Destination Imagination Improv challenge. During this project my group and I presented three improv skits, in three different genres, with three different stock characters and one constant story prompt. This was an example of my growth mindset because when we started we did not really know what was involved in doing improv, we were not sure of the prep work required and we weren’t quite the best improv-a-teers. But we did not let this deter us and instead of quitting we bit the bullet, watched examples of good improv, practiced, then practised again, learned more about the art of improv and practised some more until we where better then good enough to compete. What started as an activity I figured I could easily master quickly, soon became an activity that required me to try, try again until I was at least reasonably adept at it and it required me to be really supportive of my team mates because their success was my success.
I also have come up with three goals for the remainder of this year. My goals are to:
1. Work even harder to proof my work,
2. be more inclusive when working with team members, and
3. diligently reference Mr. Featherstone’s grading rubric when writing essays.
In each of these goals, focus is a challenge for me. Proofing my work means I have to pay more attention so when I finish writing an essay or blog post, I have to go back to it again and make sure that I’ve checked my work, whether for grammar and spelling in a blog post or against mr. Featherstone’s rubric.
For my team work, sometimes I’m so fixated on meeting a deadline that I just push through the work and don’t always give my teammates a chance to share their thoughts and ideas. I’m going to work harder not to do this. I’ll slow down and listen to their ideas and really work with them.