TPOL 2022
“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.”
Hello all and welcome to my very last tPOL…eeeek. It is truly nerve-racking to think that this time next year I’ll be graduating, but let’s get onto this presentation shall we?
I want to begin this tPOL with the goals I set in my mPOL earlier this school year. My first goal was that of Communicating which meant that by the end of the year, I wanted to feel more comfortable and confident while speaking in front of others. 
Around the time of my mPOL, I would get excessively nervous before and while I had to speak in front of others. Now…I still get excessively nervous. However, there were still ways that I actually improved in this competency. Coming into this project that we just completed for the spring exhibition, there were two opportunities in which heavily included speaking – Socratic Seminars and presenting our products at the exhibition.
Looking back at the Socratic Seminars that were held the semester before, I hardly spoke if anything not at all. On the other hand, I had spoken much more when it came to the set of Socratic Seminars held in this project. This is because I put in the effort to make myself feel much more prepared before the seminars. I decided that I would not only heavily review my notes on the text,
but do additional research as well as read analyses made on the films. Doing such made me feel much more sure about what I had to say, making me therefore feel more confident. This also applies to presenting my portrait at the spring exhibition as I had done extensive research on my Community Impact Maker which was well received by those that I was presenting to.
My next goal was in regards to Collaboration – using leadership skills in a group context that fit best with my strengths and weaknesses as well as taking on leadership roles more often. I believe that the spring exhibition is a good example of how my leadership skills have grown. The “Service” group in which I was in was only working together for about a week, which is what made working as a team very important. I took on a leading role in this group, but that didn’t just mean I was telling everyone what to do. I was aware that one of my biggest strengths is organization, so my priority was to make sure that we were getting everything done and staying on task.
This school year, I’ve ultimately gained a new understanding for the term “leadership” and have started to apply it to actual projects. Being the “leader” of a group project doesn’t just mean you’re bossing people around, it means that you are ensuring every member gets their ideas in. The final execution is not only limited to the leader’s own vision, and the leader should strive to bring the people and ideas together because everyone needs to collaborate. Where I really think I’ve represented this was in the Spring Exhibition because I used my strengths to my advantage which lead to the success of my group’s area. *
My number one objective for next year is to finish my last year of PLP with no regrets, I’m also applying this to every other aspect of my life. I did however have one primary regret from this school year, the Macbeth production. We started this project after I had finished my mPOL with the goals I stated earlier in Collaboration and Communication. In this production I could’ve participated in either by taking on a big role in a department or taking on an acting role. I unfortunately did neither which lead me to highly regretting the ends of this project. I consider this to be my F.A.I.L of the school year, but now I know that it won’t happen again.
Another lesson that I learned from this school year came from the
Manhattan Project Project and Winter Exhibition. I took a risk in having my project’s topic to do with the effect of chemo therapy. I later realized that it was perhaps too sensitive, personal and sometimes even tragic to talk about especially in a exhibition setting. Presenting to others during the exhibition became very uncomfortable and I came to regret both my topic and art choice. Although I regret it, it was a huge learning experience for me.
Now onto something I feel I should celebrate. Obviously, I felt my Spring Exhibition went successfully but I also consider the Playlist of My Life project to be quite worth celebrating. Although a short project, the Playlist of My Life showcased the best of my skills in text analysis. I was able to naturally integrate poetic 
devices as well as describe my connection to the songs in perfect detail. Most importantly, I went deeply into my own interpretation of the meaning behind each song – well explained and found as interesting by my peers.
If you look back at where I was at in grade 8, coming out of an entirely french school in which I was “learning” english as a second language – my writing wasn’t all the greatest. Now I’ve improved immensely and have finally gotten to the same level as my peers.
Why do I feel I am ready to advance to the next grade level? On the outside I’m not, in fact I’m terrified to start grade 12 next year just like any other high-schooler. However, on the inside I feel as though I have adapted to a senior level of education in humanities. I have well developed skills in text analysis as well as in persuasive writing. I’ve improved my leadership skills and broken “speech related barriers”. Finally, I’ve finally started to find my voice when it comes to my blog posts. Blog posts aren’t particularly meant to be as formal as a traditional essay, so I’ve always carried that kind of mentality with me – which has allowed me to better express my personality through the media and writing used in posts. Through that, I’ve found how I’d like to represent myself to those viewing my university applications – because this is ultimately what the purpose of my learning portfolio has been all these years. *