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.
Why do I believe I am ready to advance to my next grade level, grade 9?
Improvement!
(Grading)
Start of the year:
Now:
What changed?
Technology knowledge
The first major change that all my peers probably experienced as well was getting to know our way around the ipad. At the start of the PLP year we got new ipads and new apps to learn how to use. I have never owned a ipad before and so I had a lot to get used to. I learned that ipads are very similar to phones they just looked slightly different. Then once I learned how to use a ipad it was time to learn how to use all the new apps we have. The first few projects I had a lot of trouble doing because the apps confused me. Farther into the year I started to finally understand what apps to use for what projects and how to use them. Gaining more knowledge on the devices used to create the projects really helped me and I started getting better marks.
Teamwork
Along with learning how to use the new technology I have I also learned a few more things. I learned how to work in groups and how to do homework better. Before I was in PLP I struggled with those two things and now I feel more confident in them. I’ve always proffered working by myself in projects and I still do but I’ve learned the benefits of working with people and I don’t mind doing it. Not only can you separate out the work between multiple different people, but you can also get information off your group members if you don’t understand something. I found that very helpful. Homework was also never easy for me. The thing is in PLP there is a lot of homework, so I had to learn better work habits. I’m still having trouble with handing work in on time but I am getting better. PLP has helped me with homework by giving me a lot of time in class to do it and a lot of extensions when necessary. Even though I have became better with handing in homework theres still a lot I could do better because I don’t always get it in on time.
Mindset
One last thing that has changed is my opinions and mindset. In the start of the year I always really dreaded the next project that was going to happen. I hated being in groups and I hated doing homework. I hated the topics we did and constantly wished I could be doing other things. Now that negative mindset has changed a lot. I still don’t love school but I’ve tried to find the positives about it. I started to enjoy and be excited for some of the projects (like the Geek out Blog posts, working with words, and Tectonic Chances). Once I started thinking more about what I like in school and not what I dislike it became more fun for me. With the mindset of school = bad actually doing the work and starting it was very hard.
On the topic of positive mindsets I’ll now talk about my favourite project and why it is my favourite.
First of all my most favourite project that I put the most effort into compared to other projects is the Geek Out Blog Posts.
For this project we got to choose our own topic then write about it. I love writing but I usually don’t like writing about a topic that is chosen for me. Since I got to choose my own thing I was very excited and had a lot of fun doing it. All we had to do was choose a topic then write some blog posts about them. I put a lot of thought into my topic when I chose it, I wanted it to be interesting, controversial, and complex (interesting so I won’t get bored and other people will want to read it. Controversial so people could debate on it. Then Complex because I could write a lot about it). The final decision I made was to choose the topic ‘Paranormal Activity’ which to me seems like it ticks all the boxes for Interesting, Controversial, and Complex. Writing these blog posts was very very fun and I hope we can do something like this again.
But on the contrary here’s a project I struggled with: The Ultimate Design Challenge
In this project I struggled a lot because math is not very easy for me. I didn’t understand at all what we were supposed to do and I couldn’t grasp the concept of how to do the project till the very end. But I did end up getting it done, all we had to do was construct a object using the app TinkerCad then calculate the surface area and Volume then present it to the class. After a long painful work period I finally finished it and got a pretty good mark I am happy with. In the end I did actually learn a lot from this project and I feel more confident for when I do math next time.
In the end I do truly believe I am ready to go onto grade nine. I have grown as a learner and have learned more about myself along the way.
Thank you for reading
(Here’s some extra photos of all the new people I have met)
