Good morning, and welcome to my final tPOL of my PLP career.
“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.”
Now that my oath is out of the way, lets dive in. In my January mPOL I discussed my learning plan. I chose early on to heavily focus of specific areas in my learning to grow and fine tune some skills. I look back on that now and laugh. Not because it’s a ridiculous idea, but because it’s somewhat pointless when you start off a year and have no general idea what skills you’ll need to utilize most. Goal setting is vital to growth and I now know that when I initially laid out my learning plan, I just set the wrong goals.
qimono / Pixabay
Way back in September 2021, prior to the birth of our learning plans, we kicked off the year with our project, “Think You Can Do Better?” The project was a well rounded failure for majority of the class, I even said so in my reflective post. While I still agree it was a rocky start for the class, it was near perfect for me. That project gave me the opportunity to set myself straight from the start. I wrote 3 portfolio posts for that project, each met with accomplished or extending grades. After the success I’d had in the project I found myself set at 90% in only October.
I’ve made it pretty clear that I’m not a huge believer in grades being the one almighty representation of academic intelligence and success, but unfortunately that’s the way it is for now. PLP does a good job of diverting the focus from grades and towards the accomplishment and sophistication needed to be a successful learner. I found that as my peers had a heavy focus on getting that extra 5%, I was more concerned with how I could reach the next level of extension (and yes I see that the representation of that is a percentage). Our class wide “Macbeth” project in February/March was a grand success and was where I took my first step at exiting my comfort zone and challenging myself to extend my learning. I somewhat foreshadowed this is my mPOL prior to the projects beginnings. I would typically go for any leadership or script development role, but this time around, Ms. Willemse stuck me in the position of Key Grip. Key Grip essentially helps the DOP with anything and at any time they need. It was odd for me to be so present on set as it’s not somewhere I typically like to be unless I’m bossing everyone around. That being said it was a great opportunity for me to insert myself in some of the creative and technical aspects of the film instead of playing it safe and sticking to my strengths.
Macbeth Set
Leaning into the idea of leaving my comfort zone in the dust, I think easily my biggest fail this year was a lack of reaching out in order to extend. I’m not shy in confidence that my work and participation in class improved greatly this year, but I found myself in denial thinking that there was nothing more I could do. That’s the most difficult part of reflection. Recognizing that come next year, if I want that high 90 I need to attend tutorials and take the initiative and ask “what can more I do?” is the easy part. Actually building those habits is slightly more difficult. But it all adds up to what has me feeling prepared for my final year in my PLP safe space. I won’t get anywhere in post secondary if I stay inside a bubble and don’t fully extend and stretch myself to those limits. Again my best example was the “Macbeth” project. On the other hand, perhaps my worst examples of work this year were the most recent 2 projects. I found it very difficult to finalize my writing during our persuasion project and didn’t really make much of an effort to maintain a sophisticated level of learning and I mostly credit that lack of effort to feeling rather weak in what is typically my biggest academic strength.
Entering my final year of high school and PLP is already difficult to comprehend. With the pandemic and just the general feeling of being way younger than I am, I don’t feel all that emotionally prepared. On the flip side, I am so ready to kick off next years classes and finally prove to myself that I can get to that extended and sophisticated level of learning. As weird as it might sound, I think the added sentiment that every project I do is leading to my final one will add to the determination to produce great work. Ultimately my biggest takeaway from this tPOL as well as all of grade 11 is that goal setting is important, but don’t let the goals you’ve set deter you from succeeding in areas you hadn’t originally “planned” for. I feel ready to transition into the final level of the game that is my free education. If/when we arrange a “learning plan” or any personal growth plans in September, I’ll take this into serious consideration and learn from my mistakes. I am beyond excited for the school year to begin, after a well needed and deserved break of course.
Thank you for attending my transitional presentation of learning. Have a fantastic summer 🙂
