Thank you for coming out to my pre-pol, I have created a blog post with evidence to show my upcoming goals and how I will grow in the coming year.
“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.”
“You don’t learn from experience; you learn from reflecting on experience.” – John Dewey.
My Learning Plan:
So… how will I be achieving these goals. Grade 10 has been a year where we have learnt positive strategies to help boost our productivity. Since starting the personal productivity project, I have created a firm understanding on certain activities and apps that really boost my productivity and organization skills. We experimented on different applications for about four weeks, and found out what works best for us. For my personal piece of media, I have created a video also to go with my pre-pol, providing evidence for each of these areas that will support my growth.
The next time I have a mPOL or tPOL, I will document my growth and how each of these aspects has positively changed me. I will create another video that shows evidence of this growth like the one I have made today.
“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 9, and it’s time to reflect on what I’ve learnt, and what I still need to do. As I progress into grade 10, I hope to meet new people and improve my work.
“You don’t learn from experience; you learn from reflecting on experience.” – John Dewey.
Driving Question:
How have I demonstrated growth as a learner so far this year?
Humanities:
Projects: 5 Themes of Geography, Full Steam Ahead, Storm the Barricades, Rise of the Frankenstuffies, A Case for a Nation, and Dulce et Decorum Est.
Humanities was the main subject in PLP during my grade 9 year. I had it for both semesters and I think it shows my growth in the most obvious way. During the start, I feel like I sometimes got distracted from the people/things around me. This caused me to sometimes not know what we are doing, and sometimes end up doing the wrong thing. However, after the semester change, I feel like I have made an effort to stop getting distracted. My main method to do so is to not respond/interact to the person/item distracting me. This allows me to be more focused and stay on task. After the semester change, I made an effort to do so which allowed me to be more focused, and on task. I also enjoy helping out people that don’t know what to do, and answer questions they have. During the MPOL, I also wished to improve my presenting skills. I feel like this was improved during the previous exhibition, I planned out what I was going to say, and prevented myself from saying filler words.
On the other hand, I still wish to improve in fully pushing myself. I usually finish my work to my learning plan goal, not pushing myself even more. I always aim to get a rainbow, never trying to do anything more, such as trying to get a flex. Next year, I wish to improve even more, pushing myself further to earn better grades.
Maker:
Vibrant Videos, Your First Film, and the Stop Motion Viral Video.
Like in science, I unfortunately did not have this class this semester. The previous goals I had for maker is still pretty relevant. I try to make an effort to compare work with my peers, however, they usually say they don’t know what I can improve on. This results in me not really knowing what to do, so I end up just handing it in as it is.
Science:
Handle with Care, Life as we Know it, Essential Elements, and Exciting Electricity.
Even if I am not doing Science 10 PLP next year, I still have things I want to improve on for normal science 10 next year. I feel like I had accomplished my previous goal for science, staying on task.
Core Competencies:
Communicating
I enjoy talking and discussing ideas with different people. This allows me to talk and meet new people relatively easily.
Collaborating
I feel like collaborating and communication are quite similar. They both require me to communicate to different people, to complete a common goal. I like working with other people, and don’t mind working in random groups made by the teacher.
Creative Thinking
I think I am a pretty creative thinker. I feel like I am able to make pretty good ideas for projects, which leads me to accomplish my learning plan goal.
Critical and Reflective Thinking
Personally, I think I am good at reflecting, I can take feedback and will try to improve on what I need to do. Not only that, I am currently reflecting on my past grade 9 year.
Personal Awareness and Responsibility
For this competency, I think I am responsible and usually aware. Like mentioned before, I feel like I have matured over the grade 9 year, slowly growing as a person.
Positive Personal and Cultural Identity
I feel like I am a positive outsource to my peers, I usually try to cheer up friends in sad times, and will encourage people who are trying to accomplish something.
Social Awareness and Responsibility
I think I am socially aware of the people around me. I know when to tease my friends, and when not to.
In conclusion, I feel like I have accomplished my goals. I do not feel burnt out and tired like last year, and I feel like my work right now is pretty decent. However, I still think I could push myself further and aim further then my learning plan goal.
Overall, I feel like my past grade 9 year was pretty successful, I learnt new things, made things I was proud of, and things I could have done better in. I hope you enjoyed!
During science, we have been learning about the fascinating world of electricity!!! It was very cool and interesting learning about how it all works so that we could create our end product. I hope you really enjoy reading this post!! Enjoy.
We started off by researching the topic we were learning. We learnt about series circuits, parallel circuits, and much more. We then listened to a bunch of lectures and presentations so that we could our knowledge. After that, we learnt about different ways to produce energy. This led us to our first keystone…
For the first keystone, we designed and created infographics about a certain energy source. I chose to do solar energy, because it is a sustainable and good way to generate electricity from the environment.
“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.”
Over the past 4 months, I have gained a deeper understanding about myself as a learner. During this time span, I have created things that I feel proud of, and others I feel like I could have done better in. I will be reviewing my learning plan and will assess things that I have accomplished and that are still unresolved. I look forward to what in store for me in this coming year.
“You don’t learn from experience; you learn from reflecting on experience.” – John Dewey.
Driving Question:
How have I demonstrated growth as a learner so far this year?
Maker
During Maker, I think that I have produced satisfactory work that I am proud of. Inside my learning plan, my goal was to be show both perspectives to a question. Inside my work, I think that I demonstrated this. One of these examples is my documentary. I worked quite hard in editing together the b-roll, voiceovers and interviews. I think that it shows a sophisticated understanding on the topic that we were learning about. Also, I wanted to take more risks and participate more in class. In this past year, I think that I participate in a lot more class discussions.
To improve, I can compare my work to other students that have accomplished the task that I am working on. This will allow me to review my work to make sure it is all good. If there were any ideas that other people included, I could take inspiration from them.
Humanities
This year, I think that my humanities work has shown a significant improvement than last year. I felt like my work had shown a notable drop in quality. I started feeling tired and was not putting out my best work. On the other hand, I feel like I have been doing a much better job on my work this year. I show this inside most of my work inside humanities. I have been constantly accomplishing my weather rating goal in my learning plan. Inside the project Storm the Barricades, I have put in 100% of my effort and have been getting extending’s in all my assignments.
However, I think that presenting my project is something I could build on. Specifically, whenever I demonstrate my learning inside a class, I usually stutter or say “um.” Over the years, I have created a habit to fill in silence with a word. This causes my sentences to not have a certain “flow” that I hope for. Also, within my learning plan I state that I would like to pace my work instead of rushing through it in one day. I think that I had done this for most of my assignments but still occasionally do this.
Science
In science, I have also improved my work since last year. I think that I did not push myself enough during Scimatics last year. This resulted in me getting mostly accomplished ratings during this time. However, I have been pushing myself to go above and beyond so that I can get the extending rating. I think that all of my projects demonstrate this growth.
Something I feel like I could improve on is staying on task. This is especially prevalent during science. I think that I sometimes get distracted due to the long lectures we have during this class. This results in me either talking to friends or playing games with other people.
Core Competencies
Communicating
I think that I am quite an outgoing person, I enjoy talking to people and discussing ideas. This allows me to communicate any ideas/ points to other people. Like mentioned before, I feel like whenever I do presentations I occasionally stutter.
Collaborating
I enjoy working with other people, I usually work well with most people. I don’t mind working with someone that I don’t know because I like meeting new people. However, I feel like if people are not doing their share of their work, I get a bit annoyed.
Creative Thinking
I think that I sometimes come up with creative ideas, if I am interested inside the topic. On the other hand, if I am not curious about the topic I will not really think creatively.
Critical and Reflective Thinking
For reflective thinking, I think that I can find errors and ideas for growth in my work. Currently, I am reflecting on my past year and talk about what has so far happened. I also don’t mind taking constructive criticism on some of my work.
Personal Awareness and Responsibility
I think that I am decent at this, I always finish my work on time. However, sometimes I get distracted from work during class time and end up playing games with other people. I also know what my values are and what aspirations I have for the future.
Positive Personal and Cultural Identity
For this competency, I feel like I am quite a positive person and enjoy motivating people. I also know who I am and am proud of myself. I understand that I am from a really small country in South East Asia and have moved here.
Social Awareness and Responsibility
I think that I am socially aware of things and can tell what to do when there is a situation or somethings happens. I feel like I can respectfully talk to other people who are different than me.
Overall, I think that I have had a quite successive half year. I am proud of the work that I have created and have met a lot of new people. I still have a lot of things that I can work on and learn about.
This is my first blog post in PLP 9! I will be explaining how humans have impacted ecosystems across the world in a negative and positive way. I will also be discussing what we did, went well, what didn’t go so well and what I learnt throughout the project. I hope you guys enjoy!
Our project was split into 3 keystones:
Keystone 1 – An Interactive Scratch Game
I had to create a food web that shows how the different animals impact each other. If one animal is taken out of the food chain, the balance will be heavily shifted. If the seal population were to decline, the whales and polar bears population will also decline due to the lack of food. However, salmon and other fish would thrive because their natural predator has been taken out.
Keystone 2 – A News Report
In a group, we had to create a video addressing a real-life issue on an animal that’s population is either too big or small. We also had to show what we are currently doing to counter this problem and my solution to this problem.
Keystone 3 – 5 Instagram Posts
Working with a partner or by yourself, we had to create 5 social media posts that showed all the things we learned and how humans have impacted them. This included the Earth’s spheres, bioaccumulation/biomagnification, local interconnected food webs, local wildlife management and nutrient cycles.
Driving Question: In what way has humans impacted the delicate cycles within our local ecosystem and how can we lessen the impact?
The first thing we did was research the topic about build our knowledge on this topic. We learnt about abiotic, biotic, Earth’s spheres, bioaccumulation, local interconnected food webs, local wildlife management and nutrient cycles. While learning about these topics, we did multiple activities such as drawing a solution to stop bioaccumulation.
After that, I started the first keystone. Like mentioned earlier in this post, I had to create a Scratch game that shows how animals interact with each other in a food web. I chose the Antarctician food web, this includes seals, whales, penguins, etc. I chose to make mine more like a game, you got to choose what animal you play so that you could move around and eat, avoid, survive. I learnt a lot about this food web and the animals inside of it and how humans impacted them. If you would like to play my game, this is the link: The chain on Scratch (mit.edu)
We then proceeded to start the next keystone. This is the keystone where I had to work in a group to develop a news report on what we should do in a real-world wildlife problem. I was working with Sofia and Keira, and we chose to focus on the dwindling salmon population because of the rise in the seal population. I got the role of interviewing people on the situation, Sofia was the news reporter, and Keira was the local citizen that I had to interview. For this keystone, I learnt that humans have drastically impacted animals all over the world, in a good and bad way. We try to stabilize any anomalies within a food web so that the population of the animals within are balanced. Here is the news report we created:
We finally entered the final part of the project, we had to work on was the 5 Instagram posts that showed what we learned throughout the project. We were allowed to work with partners, and I chose Logan. I worked on the food webs and local wildlife management posts while he did the 3 others. I had to summarize my learning throughout this topic in these posts. The posts:
In conclusion, I found this project pretty fun to do. Some things I enjoyed doing was creating the news report and making the scratch game. Personally, I didn’t really mind listening to the lectures because they were informative and interesting. Ms. Kadi explained things in an easy to learn way.
In Scimatics, I have been designing and creating my very own comic. It was fun illustrating each drawing and reminded me of the project Argh Matey because it was quite similar. I hope you enjoy!
Driving question: How do cells and disease interact?
At the start of the project we did mind maps to review what we already knew. I did not know much so I only added 2 per branch.
The first thing we did was learn about the different cells. There are 2 main group of cells, prokaryotic and eukaryotic. Prokaryotic cells are only found in single cell organisms whilst eukaryotic cells are found in bigger things such as animals and plants. Prokaryotic cells tend to be much simpler and not have a nucleus’s whilst Eukaryotic are the opposite. I learnt a lot about biology in this part of the project. After finishing, we did a Khan Academy test which I did pretty good in.
After finishing that, I created a disease wanted poster. At this point, we had already chosen our virus and was starting to research on it. I chose rabies because I searched up cool diseases to learn about and it was on there. I used some of my skills that I learnt in Maker and I think I created a pretty decent poster.
We then started our final products. I named my comic Rabies on the Loose because the protagonist’s later calls his company that. It is about a man who owns 3 Rottweilers but 1 of them gets into a fight with a fox and gets rabies. The dog bites the owner making him not feel very well. He decides to go to the doctor but does not think it is very important. He has to queue for 1 hour until the doctor eventually gets to him and diagnosis him with rabies. He is cured just in time and starts a movement against rabies to help research and fund people who are in need of treatment. After 2 years, his other dogs who now also have rabies jump their owner again creating a cliffhanger for the next comic. It depicts and accurate representation if you were bitten by rabies. I think that my story and illustrations were pretty good. If you would like to read it, click the link below:
Now that I am finished the project, I added onto my project start mind map. I made sure to add all the things I know a lot more cells and diseases.
In conclusion, this was a very interesting project where I learned a lot of new information. It was fun creating each illustration and making the plot for the story. If I did this again, I would add more panels so that it would be longer. Overall it was quite fun.
Inside Scimatics, I have been 3D modelling a design out of basic shapes. During this process, I have learnt a lot from ranging on how to 3d model to calculating the volume of a half sphere. It was really cool and I hope you enjoy reading!
Driving question:
The relationship between surface area and volume of 3D objects can be used to describe, measure, and compare spatial relationships.
The first thing we did was learn about basic 3D shapes and how to calculate the surface area and volume. One thing I learnt was how to calculate the volume and surface area of a half sphere. It was quite interesting and now I can use it in the future.
What was our project?
We had to create 3d objects out of only basic shapes to either maximise surface area or volume. I decided to create a cargo boat, so I had to maximise my volume over surface area. I used rectangular prisms, triangular prisms, cylinders and half spheres. In total, I used about 35 shapes (22 without the cargo). After that, I had to create a ratio comparing the 2.
What calculations did I use?
If you would like to see all my calculations, here is a document:
How have I demonstrated the curricular competencies?
If you would like to see my keynote presentation, here is a video:
Overall, I found this project alright. It was quite fun building my ship and finding all the calculations. One thing I think I could have done better was adding more complex shapes.
Today I will be talking about what I have been doing inside Scimatics! I have learnt a lot of new information about atoms and coding on Scratch. Overall I had a great time and I hope you enjoy! Project start mind map:
We started off by creating mind maps on what I already knew about atoms. What are mindmaps? Mind maps are maps that shows what I know about the subject. It is split between examples, thoughts and questions. Due to past projects, I somewhat knew what they were. However, they were quite vague and I learnt a lot more by going through this process.
After creating my starting mind map, I had to build my knowledge by reading textbooks and doing workbooks. During this period of time is when I learned a lot about the history of how we discovered atoms (Dalton, Rutherford, Bohr) and who created the first models. It was really intriguing and got to use my knowledge in a test we did after learning all about it. Now that we knew what atoms were, it was time to build our game.
What was our project?
I had to create a game on scratch that shows the atomic theory and kinetic atomic theory. I first started planning my game. I planned it so that you were a scientist trying to make the cure for Covid and had to find the atoms scattered around the map. After finding all of them, you put it inside a box and raise the temperature up, creating the cure.
After that, I then started drafting up drawings of the different atoms I wanted to include inside my game. I wanted to include calcium, because it helps improve bones, manganese, because it helps create connective tissues, bones and blood, and finally carbon, because it is a fundamental building block of the world. Here is each of my drawings:
I was finally able to start coding my game. It took me weeks of work to finally complete the game, even though there are still a lot of bugs. I also didn’t use any tutorials and found out all the functions by myself. If you would like to check out the game, here is the link:
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/652618293
Project end mind map:
How have I used the curricular competencies?
I have created a table explaining how I did on each of the competencies I was working on.
In conclusion, I think that I did quite well. I learnt a lot more than I use to know, ranging from coding on scratch to the different models for atoms. I feel like the scratch game was coded pretty decently and had an interesting idea. Somethings I could have improved on is fixing some bugs and changing some of the models because some of them are just stick people. Overall I had a really fun time creating my game.
Today I will be talking about how I think I have improved over the course of this year. I have enjoyed my time in PLP and I hope you enjoy my MPOL. I will discuss what I think I have learnt over the course of this year and what things I can improve for each subject.
“You don’t learn from experience, you learn from reflecting on experience.” – John Dewey.
Humanities
Things we have done in Humanities this year: Medium is the Message, The Outsiders and Working With Words.
How have I improved since the start of the year in Humanities?
I think my communication skills have gotten a lot better. One reason that I have gotten better at communicating is because I have built multiple relationships with different people. An example of my improvement is when we did The Medium is the Message. I had to communicate effectively with my other group members so that we could set up meetings and plan out our advertisement. Not only that, I also had to communicate to an owner of a business (Honey’s Doughnuts) and find out what they wanted in the advertisement.
I think that I could improve in my time management skills. Sometimes, when I have a lot of homework, I have to work later in the night. Instead, I think that I could wake up in the morning to finish my work (tutorial time).
Maker
Things that we have learnt in Maker: Becoming a PLP Learner, Constructing Creative Communication, Destination Imagination and Geek Out Blog Posts.
How have I improved since the start of the year in Maker?
Since joining PLP, I have improved in multiple aspects, ranging from learning to use my iPad effectively to improving my teamwork skills. During Constructing Creative Communication, we learnt how to use our iPad pencil (Carr) and camera (Herzog) quite well. Our teachers taught us various techniques such as the rules of thirds. I also improved my teamwork because of Destination Imagination. We had to do special challenges that made us create things in a limited time span. This helped improved my teamwork skills because I had to constantly do these challenges that made me work with a team.
Inside Maker, I think that I could participate in discussions a bit more. I feel like I am sometimes a bit quiet.
Scimatics
Things we have done inside Scimatics: Fractions of Time, Tectonic Chances and Laser Laws
How have I improved since the start of the year in Scimatics?
One thing I have improved since joining Scimatics, is observing how science and math are in daily life. For instance, there is a lot of probability when playing board games. I also learnt about different scientific concepts like law of reflection.
Hello people!For this blog post, I will be talking about what we have been doing in Scimatics… lasers! We also learnt about the Pythagorean Theorem and The Law of Reflection! Enjoy!
Driving question: How can we test the Pythagorean Theorem and the Law of Reflection?
When we started this project, we had to make a mind map on what we know about thePythagorean Theorem and lasers.From previous experiences, I had already known what the Pythagorean Theorem.Here it is:
We then proceeded to build up our knowledge about the Law of Reflection.We read multiple text books and did multiple workbooks. Before I continue, the Law of Reflection is a theory that whenever a light hits a plane mirror (incidence ray), it will bounce of in the opposite direction it was hit (reflection ray). In the middle is a line called the normal, it splits the 2 rays so that is an equal distance from each other. Here is a diagram:
After that, we then performed an experiment. We wanted to see if we could prove the law of reflection with just a ray box, 2 plane mirrors, a pencil and paper. I did the experiment twice and I think that I successfully proved the law of reflection. This is it:
Then, we started researching on the Pythagorean Theorem. Like the Law of Reflection, we did multiple textbooks and workbooks. The Pythagorean Theorem is the theory that if you square the 2 legs (shorter sides) and add them together, it will equal the hypotenuse squared (longer side). Here is another diagram:
We then proceeded to do another experiment, however, this time we used a website. I also had to prove the Law of Reflection and the Pythagorean Theorem. Here:
When we finished that, we the started planning out our final laser design. We decided to have our theme as space. Gwenyth mostly drew in the planets, stars and rockets. I think our design turned put quite well, however, I think we could have added 3D items. After that, we had to wire all our cables, instead of getting a laser that comes with all the functions. We had to connect the wires to the batteries to the laser. I found it quite fun and unique doing it.
Here are a bunch of photos:
The last thing we did inside this project was to create an end of project mind map. Like the first mind map, we had to display about what we knew about the Pythagorean Theorem and lasers. Here is a photo of it:
First Competency:
Questioning and predicting: Demonstrate a sustained intellectual curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal interest
While doing this topic, it was intriguing experimenting with lasers and found it quite fun. I kept on task throughout the whole topic and did not hand in anything that was late.
Second Competency:
Communicating and Representing: Represent mathematical ideas in concrete, pictorial, and symbolic forms
For this competency, I did not struggle doing the Pythagorean Theorem or The Law of Reflection. I know this because I had no problems with doing the workbooks or textbooks for both the subjects.
Third Competency:
Applying and innovating: Co-operatively design projects
I think I communicated and worked well with all my teammates. While working, we did not fight about anything and worked together to create our laser display. We also planned some parts of our laser display beforehand, we knew what materials we had to bring and calculated all the measurements.
In conclusion, I learnt a lot of different things that I found quite useful. One thing I think I did well was communicating to the group. We messaged each other about what materials we would need and what we should do beforehand. One thing I think I could have worked on was creating a better board for our laser display. Other peoples laser displays had 3D designs to enhance their lasers whilst we only used markers to draw planets. Thanks for reading!
