It’s that time of year again, TPOL time! Our Transitional Presentations of Learning or TPOls take place at the end of each year, it’s our transition from one grade to the next. It also gives us a chance to reflect and celebrate our growth over the school year. I honestly wasn’t looking forward to writing this post at first, I thought of it as just another todo to add to my “Things List.” However once I started going over my work from this year, I realized how much I’ve accomplished and what I have to celebrate. It was a post I needed to write, but it also gave me a chance to look back over the school year and feel proud of what I have learned. So welcome to my presentation of celebration!
Humanities
First I am going to talk a bit about one of our first major assignments we completed this year, our identity videos. Looking back on my identity video production and planning process I know a millions ways that I could have made it better. But I wouldn’t change a single thing about that project, because that video project brought me a step closer to where I am now in my video creation skills. It gives me a benchmark from the beginning to the end of the year to show how much I have learned.
Moving a little later into the year where I participated in a group project called Metaphor Machines. This was a challenging project that called for a tremendous amount of group collaboration and perseverance. While working on metaphor machines this year I learned a great deal of group collaboration because of how many obstacles we had to overcome during the difficult building process. When things failed and didn’t go according to the plan I learned to adapt, change perspectives and continue on with new and improved ideas. I developed a strong leadership skill set during the project by not only doing my part but helping my group members with their struggles. It helped me learn the value of a team and the possibilities that are put forth when working with others.
“Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
Scimatics
In scimatics this past term we did a project called “matter cycles.” This project was a great representation of work that I am particularly proud. Part of the reason I felt this project went so well for me was that I found a topic I was interested in. I was able to tie my interests into this project which gave me a drive to want to make everything about my project better. I did research beyond the project requirements out of pure interest and I wanted to learn more about the topic I was doing. This project showed me the importance of taking interest in everything I do so that I can continue to push myself to do better, like I did during this project.
A math unit I did this term on exponents is a good example of my growth as a learner. I worked along Emerson as we created a card game that involved the five laws of exponents. One of the problems we ran into was when we were creating the rules of our card game. We kept coming back to the same game objective of getting to a certain number to win the game. However this meant that you would need a calculator, paper and pen to play the game which was to complicated. We needed to stop fixating on this one idea and expand our mindsets. We finally overcame this when we realized that there were more possibilities than we could even imagine. Our game objective ended up being complex enough to involve all five exponent laws, yet simple enough that it was easy to understand. This project gave me a chance to fixate on a single problem and find a way to solve it by looking at the problem from another perspective.
Maker
Earlier in the year I did a live video project in maker. This project showed me the importance of planning ahead, not only in my school projects but my life in general. My live video project could have gone a lot smoother if I had planned out what I was going to do better. I didn’t have a solid idea of what I wanted to do which resulted in me changing my idea multiple times. I then had to plan out a new video when my old one didn’t work out with the project criteria. After I finished that project I understood just how important planning ahead is. I underestimate just how important planning out my projects is because it has become second nature when I do a project. But I learned from all my last minute, unorganized, projects and turned my new ones into better higher quality work.
On the other hand, my recent blue sky project is a perfect example of the better and higher quality work I am now able to produce after learning from my previous mistakes. During this years blue sky project I was able to plan out my time to work on each project milestone and complete each stage of the process with confidence in my work.
PGP
To conclude my TPOL I’ll explain a bit about what has changed the organization of my life. The app “Things” that we were given has helped me tremendously throughout the year to stay on top of my work. Although I am not always on top of my work, things has helped me see what work needs to be done and schedule due dates and work times to complete things. I could use calendar more by time blocking my time more, but I am glad that I have “Things” to help me stay on top of what I need to do. It has helped me a ton this year and it is a skill that I have been able to build and continue to work on.
The skills that I have gained from PLP over the past two years are skills that I would not have learned in main stream. I have been able to venture past the classroom walls, explore and apply my learning in the real world. I have learned to work hard, be a leader, collaborate and delegate with others, all of which I’ve been able to learn and develop over that past two years in PLP. I am very great full to have been apart of this community and have learned incredibly valuable life skills that I will carry with me throughout the rest of my life.
