It’s that time of year again: mPol time. 

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

 Metaphor Machines

When the metaphor machines project was announced, I was very excited. I always wanted to dig deeper into revolutions, and I was shocked with how many there were that I hadn’t heard of. To dig deeper into the topic I was learning, I created a Craft document to study all the provided revolutions. I usually did this at home, before and after school, or at lunch; whenever I was bored. After I was finished with all the provided revolutions, I got bored again and so I researched some other revolutions, by the time the project was up, I had taken comprehensive notes on 23 revolutions, spanning from 1775 to 2014. I felt that this really helped me understand and compare my group’s revolution to others throughout history.

As well as taking notes, I found a role in building the metaphor machine. I glued most of the ramps together depending on what our group needed. I think this was a good role for me because I still needed to communicate with my group but I could also work on something independently. On top of building the ramps, I also brought many of the supplies (Jenga blocks, marbles, Newton’s cradle, tripod, camera, etc). Overall, I think that this was my most enjoyable and engaging project because I was able to communicate with my group as well as learned beyond the requirements.

DI

When I first heard that we were going to be doing DI, I felt pretty panicked. When it was presented, I thought it seemed like it was a massive project spanning 5 months where everything had to be perfect and you had to work on it outside of the timetable every day.

During Maker, we worked well together and came up with a script and a machine. 

After Maker ended, my group stoped being motivated to get things done. The regionals and provincials seemed so far away, and there was more important things to be done. As a result, we came last in the regionals.

After our failure in regionals, we procrastinated on fixing our machine and tightening up our lines until about a week before. Other things, like the mPols, seemed more important to get done than our catapult. The day of the provincials, we finally fixed our machine. 

There was only one problem: the group member that was supposed to play Cuddles was sick and couldn’t come to DI. When I heard the news, I started to worry about our play. But at this point I had spent so much time stressing over DI that I thought, whatever happens happens and there’s no point worrying about it now. Probably not the best mindset, but, hey, it stoped me from worrying too hard about the lack of a group member. In the end, another member of our group showed up and with a two hour notice, played Cuddles. And, we somehow placed third!

I was a bit uncomfortable having a barely functioning machine. Next time, I will try to encourage my group to work on things.

DI actually turned out to be a (mostly) fun and enjoyable learning experience.

Asking for help

The Rocky Mountain field school was a very enjoyable experience. As well as the fact that we learned so much, nearly every place we went had chicken strips and/or something else I ate… except for that one place. On the last night of the field school, we went to a Thai restaurant and I didn’t eat anything there. During the whole meal, I stressed about how to tell the teachers that I hadn’t eaten anything there. After the meal, I told a teacher that I hadn’t eaten anything at the restaurant and they gave me some stuff to eat. Last year, I would have never felt comfortable enough to ask a teacher for food.

After the Rocky Mountain field school, I had trouble getting my investigative video off of iMovie and on to my camera roll. I got the courage to come into tutorial to get help. It took a few days of trying, but we eventually got it working.

I’ve made progress in many areas that I needed (and still need) to improve upon. Overall, this year so far has been a very successful one and I hope to continue throughout this year.

Ok, bye!