These past couple months have been an absolute rollercoaster, in terms of the current stage of the world and the current state of my learning.

This post isn’t really about any subject or class, in particular. Its a reflection on my learning throughout the year so far. In this Post i’ll be answering two questions. How have I demonstrated growth as a learner so far this year? And How can I sharpen my Learning Plan to ensure I will reach my learning targets by the end of this school year?. These are big questions to tackle. This presentation had me pretty confused at first. “What do I do”?, “A blog post”? “Wait were doing a reflection”?

I’ve always hated reflecting. I just thought it was a massive waste of time. I mean, you’ve already completed the assignment, so why re-visit it? I’ve always thought that once a project is done I can just forget it ever happened. I know now that reflection is extremely important for self awareness, skill development, and helps find importance in lessons, concepts, and experiences. Without reflection, its hard to identify areas where change is needed, and no one likes admitting what they’re not doing well in.

I had no idea how to do this mPOL thing, and the driving question started to turn into: “How much time to I have?”, “Do I have to include this?” “Does this count toward my grade?” And having the presentation be due right after upcoming deadlines really didn’t help either. Im usually able to handle work load pretty well but, this was just not working. I was overthinking way to much. I needed to take a step back and assess what I needed to do. I usually do this when Im overwhelmed. Instead of trying to keep up I just need to slow down so I can understand what’s going on. I decided I would break this down into 3 different parts.

1.  Blog Post-what I would be presenting to my audience during my presentation 

2. Presentation-how will I present my message clearly and effectively

3.   Time-how will I manage my time so I can complete this project on time 

Communication

Communicating

For this sub competency, chose profile 3. Keep in mind that these are appropriate and honest goals. Choosing a competency like 6 would be way out of my understanding. Profile 3 is “I communicate purposefully using forms and strategies I have practiced”. I think I showed this competency through the collection of poems that I wrote for my working with words, Humanity’s project. In this project we had to write a poem every 2 days for for a week. This was a good example of me communicating through my writing. It meets the criteria of profile 3 because I was able to communicate purposefully about my worldview using poems that I wrote. To write these poems I used terms, forms and strategies about poetry, (i.e similes, metaphors, alliteration, denotation.). I think moving forward, I can look to achieve profile 4 going, because I can confidently say that Im able to use a wide variety of mediums to communicate my message clearly.

Collaborating

In this sub competency I chose Profile 3. In collaborating, profile 3 is “I contribute during group activity’s with peers and share roles an responsibility’s to achieve goals. I think a good example of me achieving this profile was during the Scimatics project: Correlation vs Causation.In the Scimatics project our job was to create a keynote presentation to show our survey findings. Though this was a group project, I did most of the work, and still achieved a accomplished on the final project. However, a weakness I have when collaborating with peers, is that I have a hard time conveying messages to them on how I think the project should look like. I think thats a lot of the reason why I don’t like working in groups of more than two. I like things being done my way especially if I think they’re ideas are less important or don’t make sense to mine. I think I need to learn to get by this and collaborate with my peers more efficiently. I need to learn to accept all ideas so everyone can feel included and maybe motivate them to produce higher quality work and contribute more to the project. Thats why I think I still need to work on profile three.

Thinking

Creative Thinking

At the start of the year, I graded myself at a profile 4 for creative thinking. Profile 4 is: “I can get new ideas or reinterpret others in novel ways”. I think a good example of me showing this competency would be in another Scimatics project: Game of Exponent Laws. In this project, we had to create a skill based game that interpreted exponent laws some how. Me and my partner took the skill based game know as “beer pong” and transformed it into a fun game about exponent laws. We used someone’s idea and turned it into our own. Unlike most people games that included basic boards, cards, top hats and thimbles, ours was completely different and unlike anything else anyone created. It was a great success as well, It stood out among other projects as a way to learn about exponent laws and have fun at the same time. I would probably say I still deserve a profile 4 as I showed the sub competency in my learning, but I could implement it much more project using a better understanding of the concept.

Critical and Reflective Learning  

In the Critical and Reflective Learning sub-competency I gave myself a profile 4. Profile 4 is: “I can gather and combine new evidence with what I already know to develop reasoned conclusions, judgements, or plans”. The Scimatics project: Chemistry Stories, shows a good example of me gathering and combining evidence on what I already know. In Scimatics 8 we did a project about matter and molecules. I chose this profile because in the latest Scimatics project, Chemistry Stories, We had to create a animation about Covalent and Ionic bonds. I was able to take and use what I learned in grade 8 about melting points and behaviour of molecules at various temperatures. In my animation I include how Ionic and Covalent Bonds both had different melting points at different temperatures. Even though we may not have gone into a lot of depth in this subject in grade 8, It still helped me out as I came into the new project knowing the basics. I still think my assessment at the start of the year is fair, and while I have shown evidence of this competency in my work so far, I think I still have a lot to do to uphold this profile rating. Its a particularly easy sub competency to implement as a lot of projects and concepts in PLP connect to each other.

Personal and Social 

Personal Awareness and Responsibly 

This sub competency is all about habits, awareness, and expression. I gave myself a profile 3 which is: I can make choices that help me meet my wants and needs and increase my feelings of well being. I take responsibility for my actions. A good example this year of me showing this profile the year wouldn’t be in any particular class. I actually think that my blog page is pretty good evidence. I produce good quality blog posts about how I felt during the project, what I liked, what I didn’t, and what I learned. This is a good example of personal awareness for this profile. Writing and reflecting on growth charts for projects are a good way to show personal responsibility. Writing them at the start of projects show what competency’s would be a good fit and at the end, reflecting on the project shows what went well and what needs improvement. I would say I need to keep working on profile 3 as I feel I can expand on my learning and detail in my blog posts a little more.

Positive Personal and Cultural Identity

This sub competency is all about being aware of you knowing your identity and who you are. I gave myself a profile 3 which is: I can describe different aspects of my worldview. An obvious example of my showing this profile is my entire poetry book that I wrote in humanity’s. The entire book featured poems that I wrote and that were heavily introduced by my worldview. I can confidently say that I can describe different aspects of my worldview through things like writing, photos, videos and more. I feel like I did a great job of this competency and that a realistic goal moving forward, would be to aim for profile 4 as I feel that my evidence reaches the profile 4 criteria.

Social Awareness and Responsibility  

The final Personal and Social Competency is less about me and more about the people around me. I gave myself a profile 3 which is: I can interact with others and the environment respectfully and thoughtfully. Now, I don’t have a ton of evidence to prove my growth in this area, but I feel that I get along with my peers teachers and environment well. In groups I can work well with others respectfully and productively. With teachers, I can communicate issues or accomplishments clearly. I think I can still work on profile 3 in the next half of the year as I think there is room for improvement especially when working with people I may not know very well.

Habits and Systems

At the start of the year in our learning plan, we created a list of Habits and system that we would use for our learning. Here Im going to share some of mine. Im going to show they’re effectiveness, and any changes that I might make to them going forward.

 I also created a disposition statement which is like my goals for the year. In mine I stated: I want to become an engaged learner. “I want to be organized. I want to be focused and present with classes. I want to be an extending student by the end of the year.” I think for the most part I’ve met these goals so far. I think when I got Covid, I had to take things into my own hands and be independent. I worked efficiently, and completed multiple different assignments to the best of my ability and on time. After isolation I didn’t slow down. I had to keep the momentum going to keep up with a lot of project deadlines. I started using systems like the app Things more, I started using my time more efficiently, I started implementing regular habits for homework. For example: when I get home, I take an half an hour to take a break from school. Just relax, watch Youtube, TikTok, whatever. After that stuff, I get to work. That’s been an regular habit of mine for the past week and a half. Whether it’s my Chemistry Animation, Poem book, or this Mpol. I always make sure Im in the right state of mind before I start so I have no distractions during the work. Now, once I get going, I cant be stopped, like a snowball rolling down a hill if you may. Usually during these sessions, Im really productive I get a lot done. Also before I start a big assignment, as I said before, I like to break everything down. I like to have a plan to make it as easy as possible for future me. And by making a list, I can estimate when i’ll have the assignment finished. A timeline is always good.

Academic Habits I need to improve on

While I have been learning a lot and working hard this year, I still think they’re is room for improvement. No one is perfect, but I think everyone should strive for perfection so they can do the best they can. Here are some things I think I can work on for the rest of the year.

Pay attention/be more focused in class

I usually have a pretty good idea of concepts that we learn in class. The issue is sometimes I forget little details in assignments, and sometimes big details. When I go home, to sit down and do my work, Ill be stumped sometimes. The little details turn into big problems, and then leads to confusion and ends in low quality work that doesn’t meet the criteria. So I’ve made a list of things I can do to improve on this issue.

1. Take notes in class so I can come back to the later on while working on homework

2. Record assignments in things so I have a list of things that need being done(also include detailed reports on what to do)

3. Be more involved in class conversations. This is a great way for me to remember things. By contributing to the conversation, Im more likely to remember things that were involved in the lesson.

Academic Skills I need to improve on 

So unlike the habits list above, these are academic goals that Im aiming for in certain classes. They could be literary skills like grammar, structure, etc. Or mathematic skills like multiplication skills, fractions etc. These are things that I wrote in my learning plan that I think I can grow and improve on. The reason why I don’t include maker in this is because we haven’t really done anything in maker yet.

Humanities-Grammar and sentence structure 

I have no problem with writing and coming up with ideas. I actually really like writing. The issue is, how I portray these ideas, which is grammar. My spelling is horible and I mean horable. My sentence structure is also sub par for my grade level. Im not very good at starting and ending paragraphs, let alone sentences. However, I know what I need to do to improve on these.

1. Take my time. Usually when I make grammar mistakes, its because I’m rushing and writing things down, I don’t write clearly. if I slow down I make less mistakes and that ends up saving more times anyways. Slowing down also lets you think more about how your writing, making sure that sentences are clear and concise.

Scimatics-Complete the worksheets

In Scimatics, to work on the final project, we have to research and learn about our project first. We do this through reading textbooks and completing worksheets. Now, I really don’t like these workbooks most of the time not because they’re hard, its more because they are extremely time consuming and long. These books however, are very important for the project, as they contain valuable information. What I need to do to solve this issue is simple:

1. Do the textbooks when they are assigned. Usually when mr Gross assigns these     textbooks during class time, and after he assigns this the workbooks later on. He gives us 20 minutes usually to work on the workbooks then moves on to something else. If I work on the workbooks efficiently without wasting time ill have them done faster. It then when I get home I don’t want to work on them, and if I’m working on homework, it gets pushed down to the bottom of the “pile”, as I feel like I have more important poem to work on them some math workbooks.

 

Reflections

To end my mPol today, I want to share my thoughts on the projects and classes so far. Ill explain what I liked, What I think could’ve been better, and what I hope for next semester.

Humanities

Overall I’ve really liked humanities so far. The people and the environment project, was ok. We learned how to write letters and researched about important environmental issues that effect us in collaboration with common lit I would have to personally give that project a 6/10. I really didn’t like it that much, and while I can see how this applies in the real world like all the grammar lessons, vocabulary, and letter writing, but it was pretty uncreative unlike other PLP projects w’ve done. And John Horgan hasn’t wrote me back.

Revolutions on Trial was a great project. If I had to rate it out of 10 i’d give it a 8. I really like the history lessons where we can create creative graphic organizers and design an entire mock court proceeding. Learning about the revolutions was fun and informative and the reading of animal farm was also a good supporting text of the project and connecting it to real life revolutions was also a cool perspective. It taught us all about the anatomy of a revolution, and judicial practices and proceedings. The only criticism I have about this project was how the mock trial process was set up. The more people you had in the jury that knew you, means the more votes for your side. I don’t think that was thought through very well.

Our most recent project, Working with Words was a awesome project. I was super skeptical at first, but it turns out, It was actually super fun! I would rate it a 9/10. I thought that writing poems would be super boring, but it actually wasn’t! We learnt all about different types of poems, so we could write them in our book. We wrote 9 poems over the course of 3 weeks of the project. We also had to include supporting texts and voice memos for each poems (which meant lots of late nights). In the end it was all worth it, I really enjoyed the project and was super satisfied with my final product. The only criticism I had was the closing event and how we had to make entirely new poems for the coffee house and we only had about a half hour to write them. I think If we had a lot more time we could’ve made some good quality poems we would’ve been proud to share, which leads me to my next criticism. The project seemed really rushed. I know this isn’t anyones fault, because school was delayed for a week, so around 5 hours of class time lost, which is quite a bit.

Scimatics 

The first project we did in Scimatics was Game of Exponent Laws. In this project we had to make a game using exponent laws. I would personally rate this project a 7/10. It was a fun way to make a Math concept fun. It reminded me a lot of a project we did in grade 8: Tectonic Chances. We learned all about exponents and exponent laws. We had to take our knowledge and implement it into a game. It worked out pretty well for me and my partner. We created a game unlike anyone else’s using the concepts of cup pong. I think the only problems were that we created the final stages of the game to early, and when new concepts were added as the project went on, It was hard to fit them into the game without re-designing the entire thing, so they were kinda sloppily implements with obvious issues. Also, because of the up pong appeal, people disregarded most of the rules, making it too fun. Overall it was a great project. Only criticism, as I stated above, It was very similar to the grade 8 project, and Im not a huge fan of making games anymore.

The second project was Correlation vs Causation. A very simple project, we had to gather and collect data from surveys we made so we could make a chart showing correlation or causation from 2 variables. This was a solid 8/10 in my books. It felt really short and quite easy compared to other projects. We just studied some info on making surveys, ethics, types of surveys and then we were sent on our way to make our own. This was a group project with two people, and as I stated in my sub competency assessment about collaborating, I ended up doing most of the work, because I wanted it done my way and I didn’t think my partner was capable of following how I wanted the project to look like but we worked well with each other despite this. After we had created the charts with our data we created a basic keynote presentation on our findings. Overall the project was basic and short but nevertheless, informative and educational.

The third and most recent project, Chemistry Stories was my favourite Scimatics Project of PLP. It was a perfect mix of things I’ve done before, and new things I can learn. This was probably the longest project to date spanning from December 12 to January 25. It was quite a bit of work, but in the end, all worth it. We had to create an animated video about Covalent and Ionic bonds. A very complicated subject in my opinion, but after a lot of studying I understood it pretty well. Now, I’m no Pixar but I made a pretty good animation (especially for a first time) that covered all the accomplished concepts and some extending. The animation took me a very long time, and was difficult at times, but I got it finished ahead of schedule. Unfortunately I messed up on some labeling of charges and a incorrect amount of electrons, so that effected my grade, but I still learned a lot and enjoyed the project.

 

 

The first start of the year was a bast! I’ve learnt a ton and hope that It gets even better with the addition of Maker to our classes. Out of all the PLP classes, maker is probably my favourite so I’m really looking foreword to see what we’re doing. So thank you for reading this blog post and taking all that time out of your day to read all of this that you could’ve spent doing something you actually enjoy.

 

Bye for now!

-Colton