Hello and welcome to my blog. My name is Claire Jaakkola and I am a PLP 11 learner. This is a collection of my learning reflections since the beginning of grade 8 in September of 2020. I am a student in North Vancouver and I am passionate about arts, fashion, sports, and travelling.
Here are some pictures from my recent trip to Europe!
Here are some fun facts about me!
As I mentioned in my fun facts video, I love to sew! You can see some pieces I’ve made down below in my book. This skill came in handy in Grade 9 DI.
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Biggest PLP lessons
Because this whole blog is focused on reflection, why don’t we reflect on some of the biggest and toughest lessons learned throughout the last 3 years. I’ve learned a ton in PLP, not only what is in the curriculum, but also have developed some PLP habits and have had several complete mindset shifts throughout. There’s a lot to reflect on in this program, but here are my top three lessons that have come from projects, as of right now.
- If you want to change your habits, you need a realistic way to achieve that.
In grade 9 Maker, we did a project called Believe in Good, where we learned about habits through a book called 7 Habits For Highly Effective Teens. In this project, I went through and did everything I needed to do for those weeks, but once it was over, it all left my brain and I was still stuck in my old ways. (For anyone wondering, my old ways were to either procrastinate to an extreme level, or simply just do the assignment weeks after it’s due date.) It was not a good system for anyone involved. As you can probably tell from my blog post, I hadn’t yet realized that speaking habits into existence is unfortunately not realistic.
Then, came grade 10. Things got more intense in terms of workload and I realized I needed to fix my homework habits. Then, on the Loon Lake field study, the answer came to me in the form of Mr. Hughes giving a workshop on how to use the app Things. Things was an app that was given to us in grade 8, and I only half-knew how to properly use it until this year. I never understood why the teachers always made such a big deal of it until I started using it properly. Things was my holy grail this year, not just in school related fields, but also personal areas. It helped me develop the habit of getting homework done on the day I sought out to do it. Things helped find the habit of sticking to my daily goals and that has made such a difference in balancing all the areas of my life.
2. The Power of Goal Setting
In almost any self help book out there, there’s going to be a section on goal setting. It’s been drilled into our heads since elementary school that you need to set goals to succeed. To be honest, most of my life I avoided setting goals because I didn’t want the shame of not meeting them. I think that many people avoid setting goals because of a fear of failure. Then, in PLP 8, I was introduced to something called a learning plan. For a while, it meant nothing to me. I would put in what everyone else put in and called it a day. Then in grade 10, we began the year with doing almost nothing except learning plans. This gave me a chance to sit down and question what I wanted to get out of this year, not just in terms of grades, but also habit developing. I mentioned earlier that you can’t simply speak habits into existence, but having a plan to achieve them is how you can reach those goals. During my Mpol, I had a chance to revisit that plan and find out what was working for me, and where I was falling short. Then, In our loon lake field study, we learned how to set achievable goals and made plans to actually make them happen. Goal setting is a very motivational thing and actually having that commitment on paper really helps to make it happen.
3. Conveying a message through different medias
In almost all PLP projects, the end goal is to convey a message through media. This could come in the form of an essay, a video, a picture, or even a podcast! I have countless examples through the years of PLP of conveying a message through different types of media. In grade 8, we learned about advertising through still images. In grade 9 Maker, we made a short documentary. Then in Grade 10 Maker, we’ve been working on podcasts. Throughout these projects, the main idea is us learning how to convey a message through media.
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3 long term goals for the future:
These are just goals right now, the action plan or specifics aren’t included, but here are some of my ambitions!
- Backpack around the world
I love travelling and it’s my dream to backpack through Europe, Central and South America, and Asia.
2. Go to university
This goal is kind of vague, as I’m still deciding what path I’d like to go down, but I know I really want to get a university education.
3. Have financial stability
Financially, I hope to get to a place where I am comfortable and not stressed about covering my basics.
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So that’s a little bit about me! I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about me and some of my learnings in PLP. Feel free to browse through my posts and leave comments!
Sincerely,
Me