Welcome back to my final Mid-year Presentation of Learning. I will be reflecting on my learning and work habits of my grade 12 year so far, and then explaining the areas I expect to improve by the end of the year. So I hope you can relax and enjoy it, but still listen closely.
The Good
This year has definitely been different than all the others. Our projects are different in that they are longer and more in depth, forcing us to learn a multitude of topics through different mediums and media from the past and the present. We have done three major projects this year in total, and there are parts of each one where I was definitely successful. I’d like to talk about all the things this year that I think I did well, and the things I’m proud of.
To start it off, I’ll talk about our first product of the year. My Taming of the Shrew essay. Right from the start, this project didn’t sound too fun. Reading and studying old Shakespeare, and then writing an essay on it? Not really my preference. But as time went on, I was actually learning lots, as the play had so many levels to be analyzed and researched. Going to see the play live was also a huge help in my understanding of a complex text.
By the end of the unit, I learned more than I thought I would. We studied the play and it’s meaningful themes and commentaries, and also learned a lot about roles of women throughout history. In my final essay, I explained this while also arguing for why the play is considered a classic piece of literature.
I feel like this project was a good start to the year, as it was my wake up call that school was starting again. It required thoughtful reading, text analysis, and individual thinking which I hadn’t done in the previous two months. The essay came at a rather bad time however, I was amidst the long recovery process of a mild concussion. I toughed it out however and managed to complete a very strong essay, with a little help from Mom. This project was not my personal preference or favourite by any means, but it was something I needed to kickstart my grade 12 year. I pushed through the difficulties of being concussed and learned what I needed to in order to create a strong final product, the essay.
Onto the good things from the next project, the Horror unit. I want to focus on our own class movie part of this unit, since there were many smaller assignments beforehand. This project is considered among our class to be a failure, which I guess I agree with. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t succeed as a learner.
Personally I think my greatest success in this project was my work ethic on set. I believe that I was always helpful, patient and cooperative with my classmates, even when everyone was tired and stressed out. I showed strength and perseverance, as being the camera operator was a big responsibility. Everyone was relying on my judgement for the camera angles and quality of each shot. I was expected to come prepared to each shoot with all my gear ready to go and charged up.
What I am most proud of with this project is the knowledge I acquired. Going into film school next year (hopefully), I was quite excited to start this project. I found that I learned a lot about Horror as a genre of film and why the typical tropes of horror are so effective. I also learned for myself how difficult any film production is, communication and organization wise. The technical side of being the camera operator was also eye-opening for me, I got to see firsthand how different lenses portray different emotions, and how lighting and framing are crucial to each scene.
Overall this project was a fail, but we’ll get to that in a minute. But for now, I did succeed in my work ethic and I learned a lot more about horror and film itself by embarking on this project.
Lastly, I will talk about our most recent project, my presentation and artifact on the moon landing. I feel that I researched and executed this project really well all around. My research was strong and added to my point, my presentation was engaging and interactive, and my topic was something I was interested in.
I have improved my presentation skills drastically over the course of my PLP career, as I was totally comfortable with presenting this project. If I was to do this same thing in grade 8, I would have been nervous for days before the presentation. But I have grown as a person to be more confident and comfortable with myself and my classmates. My biggest success with this project was my presentation, as I clearly articulated my driving question, research and conclusion to the class in an interesting way.
The Bad
And now the other side of the coin. What I have struggled with this year. Personally, I think I have one general large problem that is impacting each and every assignment I get in PLP and the rest of my classes at school. And that is my attitude. I have caught a bad attitude bug you could say, and the bug makes me allergic to anything school related. I’ve been struggling with this since the end of grade 11, and then it was worsened when I got a concussion and fell behind in all my classes.
My attitude has given me really bad habits, and my procrastination has been at an all time high this year. Somehow I am very aware of this and yet it won’t go away. How this has been affecting my schoolwork is evident. Most of my assignments this year have been late, by a few hours or by a full week. I feel like all my work has been a mediocre quality, something I would not be happy with in previous years. I know my potential but I can’t find the will to bring it to life.
That is my main downfall this year, and I’m not happy it’s happening as this is an important year. Procrastination and laziness has impacted each of my projects this year. For example, my taming of the shrew work was mostly all late, and not very good at all, save for my essay. In the horror unit, I started out as a producer. But because of my lack of enthusiasm in school, I wasn’t able to uphold the responsibility that the producer role implied. I failed my classmates because I wasn’t engaged in my schoolwork, and I know I could’ve done a lot better if my mindset was in the right place. After this, which was kind of a slap in the face, even though I knew it was coming, I think I got my crap together a bit more. I took control of the camera operator role, which was more fitting based on the mental state I was in at the time.
Now, we’ve finished one more project in the new year with Ms. Maxwell, and I believe that I have stepped up my work quality with this one. It’s a baby step, but it’s something. I struggled less with keeping up with due dates and assignments, but I still think I could do better. Part of the reason I think I did better on this project was because it was a topic I was interested in. So I will work hard to maintain this level of work ethic even if the next project doesn’t interest me.
And Where I Can Do Better
For the remainder of this year, my final year of PLP, I want to focus on getting myself back on track. Because I don’t feel like I’m doing work that represents me as a person or as a learner. I feel like I have a lot of areas for improvement, and getting my attitude and mindset back in the right place will resolve a lot of those areas. Right now, my learning and skill level have plateaued, and I need to work to get it back where it should be, so that I can grow and mature as a learner even more. And so I will end this presentation with a question. “Academically, what do you think I can achieve this year that I may not see at this time?”
Thank you for coming to my mPOL and listening to me and my learning.
see you