Good Evening.  

The transitional presentation of learning, the reflection of the year and our evidence of growth.  Why do I believe that I am ready for Grade 11?

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

“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.”

It’s already the end of grade 10, and it’s time to reflect on what I’ve learnt, and what I still need to do.  As I progress into grade 11, I hope to meet new people and improve my work.

“You don’t learn from experience; you learn from reflecting on experience.” – John Dewey.

I’d like to start this presentation on a high note, one of the main things that I have improved on myself.

Confidence

Confidence is key, so they say.

I really struggled to connect with the PLP teachers and students last year, I had an inability to express myself confidentially, and always put up a mask, both figuratively and physically.  I believe this stemmed from when I moved to Canada, everyone was different, and I felt like I smaller and more vulnerable than the others.  Even when I had friends, I still lacked the confidence in myself to truly express who I was.  I felt scared when communicating with teachers, and was afraid how others saw me.  This year has really allowed me to understand and express who I am, through conversations with friends.  With the help of others, I slowly regained self-confidence, to take of the mask.

With confidence, comes the ability to improv and be comfortable on stage.  The confidence in what you know, the confidence to speak from your mind.  This is something that I most definitely improved on; going without a script and just speaking what I think is best in the moment.

I always enjoyed preparing scripts, making sure I was ready, so that there was no chance for any mistakes or errors in what I am saying.  I hated the feeling of when an awkward silence takes the conversation and I am unsure in what to say next.  Though it was usually effective and complete, whatever I presented always seemed to be robotic and uninteresting.  I believe that the implementation of a system where I memorize the content, and make the words on the spot has allowed for more of a conversation including audience participation.

This has significantly helped with my presenting skills, and be able to propose something even if I am unprepared.

I believe that this is demonstrated through the Pecha Kucha and Shark Tank project.  These two projects heavily relied on knowing your content, and presenting something to an audience.

The Pecha Kucha project was where it all started; I decided to make up my words on the spot, instead of memorizing a script, like I usually do.  I believe that I did a good job, but still had lots of room in improvement.

The Shark Tank project was a way to understand how to sell ourselves, and what we bring to the work world.  I really enjoyed this project, and find it to be one of my most favourite projects since starting in PLP.  It really allowed me to understand how to sell myself, how to pitch myself to employers and know what they want to say.

This also helped with things outside of school, business and engineering competitions where I had to pitch an idea to a panel of judges.

This was my main success of the year, and hope to grow in other areas of growth.

Instead of splitting up the success behaviors, I have opted to focus on the three success behaviors that I think that I have growth in.  Apart from the success behaviours I have shown, I believe that I uphold each and every other one.  I always look for rooms to grow, and want to become better.

Reflection

I thought that reflection was one of my strong suites as of last year, but it has come to my attention that I have become a bit lazy in this area.  I believe that my blog posts lack the depth that it once had, the passion and carefulness of what I once had when I joined PLP.

This may be due to a lack of motivation, always getting checkmarks and never pushing myself to do better.  This could have caused me to put out the bare minimum in terms of blog posts, and focus more on the actual project.  This could have been shown in my last project, where I poured all of my time and effort in the project and was to tired to write a quality post.  I hope that this post does not show this.

Self Care

Though I always care for myself and try to have free time, I tend to sign up for as many things as possible to fill up my schedule.  This may result in sleeping late, lack of motivation, or worse of all burn out.  I want to do as much as possible, sign up for as many extra-curriculars and become the best in what I do.

My want for more is shown in my work, in the Romeo Romeo project I always prioritize quantity over quality, which results in a large amount of work that I have to do.  My theme book had about three times the required evidence, I chose to try to find as many themes as possible, even if may not relate to the topic.  They all fit the requirement, but none really stood out.

Not only that, the schedule that I chose for next year may result in me being very tired or demotivated.  I chose to take 10 academic courses, 2 being online.  This also does not include all my extra curriculars, positions, and musical courses.

Goals and Self Assessing   

My goals are usually generic and boring, often plaguing a large amount of people.  Though they are usually relevant, I believe that I could go more in depth and break down my ideas further.  I have a clear path that I would like to take, but setting goals for to achieve success is pretty vague.

Not only that, I sometimes give up on goals, and never end of finishing things that I want to do.  An example of this was the awards that I said I had wanted to achieve, but never ended up accomplishing it.

My Learning Plan

The last part of this presentation that I would like to cover is my learning plan.  The learning plan, a document we make every year that shows of our strengths and weaknesses.  I believe that I had completed most of my goals, and was successful in achieving my plan.  I look forward to making another one next year.

PLP Learning Plan 10 – Christian Lo 20232024

Though there were many successes this year, I always have growth.  There are always ways to improve, and I will always be far from perfection.

Thanks for listening to my tPOL

-Chris