Category: Destination Imagination

Surviving Year 3 of High School (tPols)

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“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.”

This year is my third year in PLP, and the last year before it becomes the closing grades of high school. Throughout the semesters and four different blocks of PLP classes, I’ve had many opportunities to experiment and evolve as a learner, and using these opportunities has gotten me where I am today. From collaborating with groups and compromising, working through struggles, overcoming obstacles, learning new skills and building on old ones, to coming 1st at the Destination Imagination regional tournament, this school year has changed me as a person and as a learner (for the better).

I will now share with you how I’ve grown as a learner and examples of what makes me ready for the transition to grade 11.

 

Evidence of My Progress as a Learner

To the PLP teachers reading this, you already know about the new grading system in Showbie, but for anyone who’s reading this besides them, here’s a brief overview.

I used to showcase my outstanding marks at the start of each tPol section for each subject, but PLP recently did a rework of the grading system. While it used to be ☁️⛅️☀️🌈, it went under a few changes such as a simple 🤿🧗‍♂️🚂 as well as a ✅, before eventually transitioning to a 👻🔁🧗‍♂️👌⌛️, which is where we’re at now. Therefore, I will just be highlighting assignments that I’m proud of and think really showed effort.

 

Maker:

Seeing as there were only two Maker projects this year, and one of them was more of a program, Maker was quite straightforward this year. Despite having only two projects under its name, Maker was my favourite class this year, specifically the “Peas in a Pod(cast)!” project. Having the ability to do a podcast on whatever I choose was a great experience that let me explain a special interest of mine.

 

Proud of:

Episode 1 (Part 1) “The Name of the Game”

Episode 1 (Part 2) “The Name of the Game”

Episode 2 “Child’s Play”

Episode 3 “An Eventful Evening”

Episode 4 (Bonus Episode) “Bloopers? Bloopers!”

The podcast project as a whole was just so fun and interesting to do. I was able to freely choose a topic to talk about and settled on Pokémon GO, which I’m very passionate about. I feel that I went above and beyond in making extra episodes just for the fun of it, as well as putting lots of effort into the podcast cover art. I personally struggle with drawing and being satisfied with them, but I was very proud of how it turned out. Writing and drawing with Dysgraphia can be difficult, but I’ve developed ways to overcome and work around this disability. A strategy/tool I obtained to help with this is a special pencil grip that makes it more comfortable and easier to use. Along with the art, I also really enjoyed recording and editing the audio clips for the podcast episodes. It gave me a chance to further my technology skills and also introduced me to the world of podcasts. I learned that recording podcasts can be difficult, but asking for help when confused and trying again can lead to better results. With recording, it’s all about patience and perseverance, trial and error. So is life.

 

Destination Imagination. Three years at Seycove, two of them in the DI program. What a journey.

My time spent in DI over the past 3 years has been some of the most unique experiences of my life. I have gained and grown many essential skills in the process of creation and performance. When we were first introduced to it in Grade 8, I knew this was going to be something I would remember for the rest of my life when I look back on high school, and I was right. Destination Imagination helped me work on my collaboration with teammates as well as organization, time-allocation, and brainstorming. I also made sure to take charge during the process when the rest of my group was feeling unmotivated to make sure we stayed on our feet and productive. One could say I was trying to set an example.

Peace be with all the uncredited volunteers from the tournaments.

 

PGP:

Somewhat new to PLP this year or at least to me, PGP (also known as the Personal Growth Plan) is basically PLP-atized Careers. Both projects helped us look more at ourselves both inside the classroom and outside of it. We also delved more into our futures and goal setting. Two different projects, sandwiching the rest of the year. All about who we are and who we want to be, PGP really gets us thinking and is a truly spectacular opportunity to be gifted with.

 

Proud of:

Coming from the first of two PLP projects, the Personal Productivity System (PPS) Backlog Clearance was a great chance for us to both clear our mind, room and devices, AND actually doing schoolwork at the same time. I really enjoyed getting the chance to do this as my device personally was quite cluttered at the time (it still is). This assignment gave me the chance to organize myself so that I can be more productive and find things quicker, while also having the benefit of being nice to look at. I may or may not have hyper-fixated on it for too long, neglecting other parts of my academics for the time I was making progress with it. However, when I was finished it felt amazing to look at all the progress I made and how much of a difference between the two there was.

 

The PLP Spring exhibition! I think this is the first time I’ve mentioned one in a tPol post, but boy is it worth it. Sprouting from the second Careers project which closed off the year exquisitely, the 2024 PLP Spring Exhibition was an amazing experience with a variety of different exhibits to see, centred around the theme of a comic-con of sorts. My final exhibit hinged on the question “What is your superpower?” which I answered as me being musically adept. My table focused on my musical accomplishments and the journey I took to get there, from my multitude choir awards to a 10 minute long video showcasing my journey and experiences with choirs and music alike. I really enjoyed the process of getting to that point (even if I was cutting it close time-wise), and I can say that I am extremely satisfied with my final products (the video + a sheet describing my music goals and aspirations as well as experience).

Stay tuned for the Spring Exhibition blog post!

 

Humanities:

As Humanities is a year-long class, there was many experiences and assignments that I was a part of. With all those different aspects of PLP coming into play, I learned many new skills and techniques for writing, working, using iPads to the full potential, and much more. I had a hard time narrowing down the assignments that I thought best showed who I have become and reflects the success behaviours of PLP learners, but with looking at it through the lens of what I’m proud of and what I put a lot of effort into, I was able to narrow it down to 3. This year, I’ve strived to be the best learner I can be with the opportunities presented to me. My favourite project was without a doubt “Ology of Apology.” Gotta love the nationalism in BC’s curriculum.

 

Proud of:

As part of the “Who Are You Gonna Be?” project, we got to choose a book to read and make notes on. I felt that I went above and beyond with the effort I put in, as I made multiple different sections for multiple different topics and take aways from the book. This assignment helped me further my writing as I usually struggle with that, along with using deeper and reflective thinking while reading. I used to do this back in “Battle of the Books” in elementary school as well, where we were expected to be extremely reflective and I held that standard.

 

This final product of an assignment was a struggle I overcame. If I haven’t already mentioned, I usually struggle with writing and getting my thoughts onto a page (which makes this tPol post all the harder). During the course of the project that this assignment originated from, there was a lot of writing involved, but I persevered, asked for help, and demonstrated growth as a learner. I used some strategies I’d picked up along the way to help me get words onto the page.

 

Choir is a major passion for me, and nothing gets me more interested than hearing and learning others’ musical stories. Carrie Tennant is the conductor of the Vancouver Youth Choir (VYC for short). Just like mentioned in my last post (see above), I struggle with writing, but I find that I’m way more motivated to write and generally interact (be productive) when the topic is centred around an interest of mine. I’ve learned this after years of going through the school system.

 

Stretches and My Strategies to Deal with Them

Driving Question

How can you showcase evidence to demonstrate that PLP Success Behaviours have prepared you to advance to the next grade?

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

Skill Sprint with Rollercoasters (basically mini Destination Imagination)

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Alright, smol post time.

Media

What I learned

In this mini project, I learned the power of frie- just kidding. In this project, I learned about what kinetic, potential, and thermal energy is and how to determine where it is (with roller coaster examples). For example, the most potential energy is usually found at the top of the biggest hill, because it has the most potential. The most Kinetic energy, on the other hand, is usually found just before the roller coaster stops sloping down. So basically at the bottom of a hill.

 

What I Liked

I really liked the PHET simulator with an adjustable track, where you could launch people to the moon. (I think the rest of the class did too.)

I also enjoyed the process of creation and planning. Figuring out a design that could score us points, while still looking at the logistics of material cost and the sturdiness of the structure. It really let our imaginations run wild in our own unique ways (basically what an imagination is). I chose to make a Rick Astley coaster- nah. That would be funny is it worked though. My group settled on using the spiral to get multiple points while keeping the structural soundness, and it worked…for the most part.

I also had fun coming up with the name. “The Topsy Turvy”. That’s all I need to say.

What I would do better next time

I think that next time, I would add more support to the actual track so that it wouldn’t stop the marble from rolling, as it did in the videos. The sad thing is that, in almost all the test runs, it worked smoothly, going around all the spirals and turns perfectly, but in the videos, it didn’t work properly, and in the performance, it didn’t work the first few times and didn’t work properly the 3rd time.

That is all. Thank you for your time

Halfway Through Surviving Year 1 of High School (mPols)

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Welcome to my presentation!

Today, I will be talking about every subject so far this year and highlighting the most fun projects I did in each subject.

Humanities:

The Medium is the Message AKA Creating Ads:

For the first project, we were assigned a local business and were tasked with creating an ad for them.  Me and my group were assigned a local real estate agent (Patricia Houlihan). We went through multiple stages before achieving a final design that both the business and our group liked. At the start, we were just creating our own personal ones that we thought the business would like. Then, we combined ideas with our group members to make a rough draft group ad.  We all got a turn to get a group interview with David Hepburn, an ad creator agency. We ended up choosing Ruby’s comic book theme and Makai’s mountain background. In the end, this project was a pretty fun startup to a first year of high school.

The Outsiders:

For this project, we read a classic novel both at school and at home, and partook in book discussions every 2-3 chapters. Near the end of the project, we got assigned a scene from the book and started practicing making that scene into a tableau (a group of models or motionless figures representing a scene from a story or from
history) to perform at the winter exhibition. We were then supposed to transpose the scene into what it might look like in 2021. Me and my group got the Darry slapping Ponyboy scene. We had a lot of fun practicing the tableau. This was a fun project and I gotta say that this was the highlight project of Humanities so far.

Working with Words AKA Poems

For the latest project, we were charged with creating multiple different types of poems over the course of a few weeks and then told to make it into and eBook. It was supposed to be centred around our worldview personally. Not only were there poems in the eBook, but also complementary text (e.g. photos, videos, or drawings that complement the poem) and meaning statements (audio recordings telling the reader, in relation to the driving question [How might I construct text that shows who I am right now?], the meaning behind the poem). At the end of the project, as a presentation of our learning, relatives and friends were invited to watch a live stream of the “Coffee House Performance”, where we would show off the poems that we created in class that same day to show them how neat poems can be. Overall, Humanities has been a really fun subject and I can’t wait to do it again next semester.

 

Scimatics:

Fractions of your Time:

This was the probably the easiest Scimatics project so far. We were told to track our screen time and make note of the different devices and subjects on that respective device. We then made a graph/diagram showing the different types. Even though I could easily understand all the data, others had a hard time figuring it out, probably due to them not being the ones recording the info. Overall, it was a pretty enjoyable starter project to begin the school year with, with easy to follow instructions that most new grade 8s could probably understand.

Tectonic Chances:

We started off by learning more about tectonic plates, mid-ocean ridges, and other things to do with plate tectonics. We then started brainstorming how we could incorporate these vocabulary words into the board game or card game that we’d be creating for it. Me and my partner ended up making a tectonic plate quiz game. We were supposed to include chance in it but I ended up forgetting.

Laser Laws:

Laser Laws has to be the best project in Scimatics so far. It was really cool to experiment with the different angles of lasers and how it could make a cool shape with the right measurements. My group members and I made our laser display space themed, with a funny spaceman reaching out, and our battery pack hidden inside a NASA spaceship. I thought that was pretty clever. One problem that appeared near the end was the fact that our battery pack was dying! This was a BIG problem because we couldn’t remove the batteries from the spaceship without knocking the laser and messing up the trajectory. Luckily, a classmate was able to give us a second battery pack, which I quickly thought to us to just move the wires and connect it to that instead of moving the first battery pack. It didn’t look as good but at least it worked! After that, with the help of no lights and spray smoke, we had one of th most powerful lasers in the room! This was definitely my favourite project so far in Scimatics.

Maker:

Becoming a PLP Learner:

Introducing us at the start of the year to PLP, we have this project. The end goal of this project was to show what you learned so far and prove that you were worthy of the title PLP learner. We learned a lot of cool techniques to making things and used a lot of fun apps. We also learned a lot more about ourself and the world through this first project. At the end of the day, everything went great and we learned a lot.

Constructing Creative Communication:

This project had 2 parts. We were split up into 2 groups: Herzog and Carr. Two famous people with two different talents. Carr people would practice drawing and learn new tips and tricks. The Herzog people practiced their photography skills and worked on new angles and approaches to photo taking. Half way through, once you were finished with that topic, you would switch to the other group. Overall, we learned a lot of things about both subjects and learned some really neat techniques that will definitely come in handy in the future. Personally, I liked Herzog the best, because I want to be a professional photographer, even though i already knew most of the tactics they were teaching us. This was my favourite subject for Maker.

Geek Out Blog Challenge:

This project was a fun and easygoing one. We got to choose a topic that we are really interested in, write blogs about it, and then let people read it online. I chose to write my blog on music; for example, the songs I like to listen to or play on instruments, my musical history, and much more. This was a pretty open project where you could just ramble on about your interests without hesitation.

Destination Imagination:

This is an ongoing program that I can’t spoil much about. All I can tell you is that we are each assigned a challenge and compete by creating inventions, making stories, and then doing an unknown instant challenge. At the end, I’ll definitely do a blog post detailing everything, but until then, adios!

Thanks for Reading!