Hello everyone and welcome back to another blog post. This is not going to be the usual blog post of reflecting on a singular project. No, this is going to be an overall reflect of semester 1, an mPOL (mid-year presentation of learning). It will be showcasing my growth as a learner and it will also be showing where I definitely could have done better. I hope you enjoy this post!

To begin, I would like to make my declaration of learning:

“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.”

How have I demonstrated growth as a leaner so far this year?

Humanities

I think an example of where you can see my growth as a learner was the humanities project Revolutions on Trial. Through this project, I know that I improved on my team work skills. Having to work with a some what uncooperative team definitely tested my patience, but in the end I wouldn’t have had it any other way because I learned a lot of valuable life skills. Also, I think another good example of the growth as a learner through this project was my ending performance. Going from knowing nothing about who, where, when, and what the French Revolution was about, to presenting a winning case with accurate facts was a very proud moment. I also think that as the witness for the prosecution, I re-told my “experience” in the French Revolution with accurate detail and convincingly enough for our team to win. This is another way that I showed my growth as a learner.

You can see my blog post for this project here.

Scimatics

As for scimatics, I think a great project we did where you can see my growth as a learner was the project Correlation vs. Causation. Going into this project I knew absolutely nothing. I didn’t even know what causation meant. However, throughout this project, I not only learned what those words meant, but I was able to define them in a way that I understood. Furthermore, I think this was also a great way to learn people skills as we had to interview our peers and people in our community for a survey. Through this project I also learned about graphs and how they connect to everyday life. 

You can check out my reflection on this project here.

Maker

Since we haven’t done a maker project yet, I will just talk about what I think needs to be done so that I can grow as a learner. First off, I need to have a growth mindset when it comes to teamwork. I also think that another thing that I will need to do in order to grow as a learner is staying focused and staying on task. This means making sure that all my work is turned in on time and also making sure that I push myself to be the most productive that I can be.

How can I sharpen my Learning Plan to ensure I will reach my learning targets by the end of this school year?

Profiles that I have completed from my learning plan:

1. Communicating – Profile 3 – I communicate purposefully, using forms and strategies that I have practiced
2. Creative Thinking – Profile 4 – I can get new ideas or reinterpret others’ ideas in novel ways
3. Collaborating – Profile 4 – I can confidently interact and build relationships with other group members to further shared goals

Profiles that I have not fully completed from my learning plan:

1. Social Awareness and Responsibility – Profile 4 – I can take purposeful action to support others and the environment 

Where have I had a FAIL (First Attempt In Learning) this year? 

I think a good example of a time where I failed this year was the project Game of Exponent Laws in sciamtics. While I did get an overall good grade, the process to getting that was not smooth at all. There we a lot of ups and downs and in the end, I feel like I could have demonstrated a much better understanding of the subject. I also feel like the end product was not as good quality as I could have produced. 

Thank you for reading my reflection on the past semester!

Best wishes,

-Dana