TPOLS!

This year instead of the usual student lead conferences (SLCs), we are doing a more open ended conference meeting called Tpols which are based around a driving question “Why do you feel you are ready to advance to the next grade?”

In the past with SLCs, we were given a script that tells us how and what to include in our presentation but with Tpols we were given suggestions about what to do. We have to present about our reflection of our work and provide different examples but the rest is up to us. I am going to be talking about our Frankenstuffy unit, my Blue Sky Project and my organizational goal.

frankenstuffy unit:

The first thing I’m going to talk about is a project we started at the beginning of this final term during an environment unit which lead to a final project called the Frankenstuffy  video. This unit was based around a question “Who’s in control: the environment or humans?” This question was the basis of our learning throughout the geography of Canada with landforms and climate to actually sewing and creating a Frankenstuffy to be displayed in class. As well, at the same time we also learned about ecology in science which was added into the project. This is something I really liked about the project because it brought the project together with many different elements.

After learning about the geography, we started the first part of the Frankenstuffy video project where we had to write 8 epistolaries. These were about an animal adapting by evolving to changes in the environment caused by our math monster (this is how our math ties into the project). Throughout writing these episodes, I felt my writing really improved and I learned how to write telling a story. The monster, something we created in math to help us with solving the surface area of multiple 3D shapes put together, played a huge part in this project. To tie into the environment of Canada, we were assigned one area of one of the seven regions of Canada. I was assigned the south east area of the Canadian Shield. My animal was a caribou living in the Grand Jardin National Park in Quebec. My animal named Caramel faced the challenges of illegal loggers coming into her environment and destroying her home.

When creating our video we used the story as a guideline and then made many drafts to get to our final video which I was very proud of. While creating this video project, I learned so many new skills about video editing that I can use in future videos that I do. For example how to video using a green screen and using Explain Everything to make a video more interesting.

I think the best part of this project was definitely learning about the issues our animals faced. Even if that issue isn’t real it gives us an idea about what and how the environment is being destroyed and how this is affecting the ecosystem and animals.

blue sky:

The next project project that I wanted to talk about is my Blue sky project  which this year was about solving a problem within one of the different categories including babies, children, Tweens, elders and pets. At first I didn’t have many ideas about what problem to solve. But after talking to my dad I came up with a problem to tackle by asking a “How might we” question. My question was “How might we create a healthy and beneficial snack that reduces the risks of peanut allergies?” Throughout the process of trying to answer this question and doing this project I feel that this has represented my growth mindset and growth as a learner.

My project started off with a whole bunch of research about both peanut allergies and baby snacks which lead me to create my baby biscuit. My research went from online reports to an allergist’s conference presentation. Throughout the project I also got the opinions and help from mentors such as my dad who is an allergist to someone who is in the industry of food production. These all helped fuel my curiosity when starting to create the prototypes for my project.

One of the reasons this project has a good representation of my growth mindset and learner was because of the prototyping I did to get to my final result. I made over 20 different prototypes each one either completely different from the one before or only with slight changes. During this project I learned from my mistakes and improved even when with some prototypes I had to take a step back in order to take a step forward. My volleyball coach says “you have to get worse before you get better.” This has pushed me to be open about the prototypes that didn’t work and instead of giving up finding out what I did wrong and changing my mistakes.

here are some of my prototypes:

With the final draft of my cookie, it could of course still use some improvements but I’m proud of the work that I did with all the research, many hours of revising prototypes as well as the final way that the presentation came together. During this term, this is probably the work I am the most proud of as I have put my own personal touch on the project and given my own opinion.

Organization goal:

Most of the time I have a very busy schedule with almost no time after school therefore organization plays a big part in my life for both school and sports. One of my goals for the past  SLCs the was to stay organized and use my time efficiently to plan as well as stay on track with homework when I have more than 15 hours of sports a week and spring being the busiest season for me.

To achieve this goal I started off by creating a chart showing all my homework throughout the week and what days I would be able to get each thing done. This worked for a while but then it took too long to write everything out and my problem was limited time so I decided to try a different solution. Another problem I would have to deal with when I had little time and a lot of work was I would get quite stressed out and overwhelmed. Something that dealt with both organizing and being overwhelmed was to create a check list of the work I need to do on an app called Checklist. This really helps because it lays all my work out in front of me so I can divide it up evenly throughout the time that I have.

My final solution to achieving my goal is to use the time that I have efficiently and not procrastinate whether that means class time or just an hour before an activity. Using the time that I have even if it’s a short amount of time reduces the amount of homework I will have giving me free time or an extra hour of sleep.

This goal has helped me a bunch in this last term but I definitely think I could use some more improvements to solving my busy schedule by possibly adding things to do into my calendar instead or setting reminders for myself.

Throughout this year, I feel that I have learned a lot of skills in projects, writing, film making and organization that I can use in future years. In these assignments I feel have shown the best reflection of growth and learning in all my PLP classes. I have also used revision to make my work better whether it was a final draft of a video project, a mini assignment or goal that I may have.